-= 108 =-
10 October, 1782
Charleston, South Carolina
"General Heyward, how very happy I am to see you, sir!" Edward Rutledge caught up to, nay, nearly ran down his quarry as they walked along a cobblestone road in southern Charleston. Life had returned to something approaching normalcy in the past months, and once more sailors, merchants, laborers, aristocrats and farmers all intermingled on the busy road. The crack of a whip, and a creaking, swaying wagon hove into view carrying water barrels to one of the ships at the bustling docks. Seagulls sang and circled overhead while cats and dogs waged their eternal war for scraps. Charleston was a clean city, but animals could still be counted on to forget themselves and sweepers moved up and down the street exhorting folk to get out of their way if "you want clean shoes!" No matter how many times he saw it, no matter how much he knew, it always amazed Edward Rutledge just how much effort and complexity went into running even a small city. And he loved it. He couldn't imagine being anywhere else, certainly not somewhere in the country where there was naught to do but watch your slaves work and maybe hunt a fox.
"Mister Rutledge," Tom answered politely. He bowed and took his hat off for the ladies as custom demanded, but inside his mind was working very fast on its own problems. Maybe Rutledge was only being civil, maybe he just wanted a walking partner and then Tom would be able to focus on...
"I wanted to ask you a few questions if you have a moment?"
Christ.
"Of course," Tom replied. "What about?"
Rutledge looked back and forth, but no one paid them any particular attention and it appeared Heyward wanted to get somewhere very fast. At least his pace had quickened. "Have you seen this?" He passed over a newspaper.
Tom opened it: The Baltimore Republic, six days ago. CONGRESS TO DROP WAR-TIME TRADE RESTRICTIONS. "What of it?"
"Right column, about half way down."
Tom looked. "How accurate is it?" he asked heavily.
Rutledge shrugged, paused to bow and remove his hat, then shook his head. "We have no confirmation from Philadelphia, sir, but you know any dispatch would be delayed coming here. I've no reason to doubt the paper."
Tom grimaced and read about the 'massacre' at Lake Michigan. Apparently a local Indian tribe and American settlers argued over who owned the land there. No law, nothing at all covered the conflicting claims coming out of the western territories and Congress so far seemed helpless to cope. When the post man came from the east with news and orders, he'd found the settlers' farms blackened husks, their cattle gone. The small collection of towns on the west shore of Lake Michigan had been gutted, their wooden gates battered and twisted if not outright burnt. Very few animals. No bodies, neither Indian nor American; certainly no one alive. The towns plundered. Eighty or ninety men, woman and children simply vanished.
"That makes three, sir," Rutledge noted. "There was that problem by the Lakota border, and then that shameful mess at Niagara." Local indians, perhaps encouraged by departing Englishmen warning what America did to the Iroquois and Shawnee, rose up there as well. General Arnold intervened directly and in a series of battles destroyed the tribes there and forced the few rag-tag survivors to flee north and west. Papers only talked about the forty men Arnold lost in his 'heroic' campaign but most agreed that six or seven thousand Indians died that bloody August. "And there's more. I'm still gathering details, but it appears there was a massacre in Georgia."
Tom closed his eyes and stopped moving. "Savannah?" he asked quietly.
"No, thank God." Rutledge faced him. "However apparently there was a gathering of seventy or eighty men near Brunswick, men of the highest caliber, and Indians sprung up out of nowhere and attacked them without provocation. Provocation? They were nowhere near Cherokee Country! Not above half a dozen survived!"
"Indians don't attack without reason."
"They are savages, sir! They have no sense of what it means to be civilized! I have to wonder, General Heyward. You must have seen them in those filthy little huts of theirs, planning to sacrifice us to their bears and otters and God knows what else they worship. Rutledge glanced at a woman staring at them, startled. Both men bowed and she left hurriedly. "Your sympathy for their plight is noteworthy, and no doubt well intentioned, but you must agree they represent an ongoing threat to our security!"
Tom glanced at the Baltimore paper again and frowned. Could rumors of a general Indian uprising be true? They didn't seem that organized. "What do you propose?" he asked. "Let me guess: You want me to attack. Mister Rutledge, you should know we're still recovering from the last war. The economy's only just now getting back to normal. We lost a lot of men and it simply takes them for our wounded to heal. And Philadelphia..."
"Is my concern, General. Remember?" Rutledge stared at him until Tom looked away and nodded, satisfied. "At any rate, you are quite off. I agree with you on several points, and though I do believe the day will come when we need to look westward again... not now. I would, however, like to know how long it would take you to raise the army should we need it."
Heyward frowned at him. "If not the Indians, for what?"
"Kindly answer me, General. A week? Two weeks?"
"Eh? No chance." Tom's frown deepened. "A week to get a message to Williamsport and Baltimore. Figure another week for them to gather enough men to be useful, perhaps even two... Depending on the state of our naval transports..another week or two to ship men across, it'd be faster than marching. Five weeks, six is better."
"I see." If the Cherokee were planning to attack, that wouldn't do. "I think it would be prudent to maintain a permanent force don't you? Not our entire army, of course. It does not behoove us to maintain a constant warlike state. However, I would not want to be caught unawares."
Tom opened his mouth, about to remind the pompous fool that the price of his staying out of politics was effective control of the army but closed it again. Would it do any good? No, of course not. Reasoning with him never did any good. "I'll draft a plan," he scowled.
"Excellent!" Rutledge beamed. The man was so much easier to work with now that he'd finally begun to settle down. Speaking of which... "I say! Is that Mrs. Whiting?"
Heyward stiffened, and to the lawyer's surprise flushed like a schoolboy as he looked across the street. Anne Whiting was dressed in a simple, conservative blue dress with a high neckline and long white gloves. Their eyes met. Her brows arched and she twirled her parasol impatiently. "I was supposed to meet her five minutes ago."
"Wonderful! So your friendship is proceeding?" Rutledge realized that was more than a little indiscrete and coughed to fill the momentary, ice cold silence. "Capital! I have business myself. Good day, General and thank you."
"Good day," Tom answered cooly. He crossed the street and Whiting took his arm. Yes, that plan at least was working perfectly.
Edward Rutledge walked three blocks to his office and opened the door. His clerk stood immediately, a thin man wearing a dark blue vest and breeches. "Sir? Mister Madison is early. I thought it proper to let him wait in the sitting room."
Rutledge divested himself of hat and coat, then stood still as the clerk dusted him off. "Early? Excellent. How long has he been here?"
"About ten minutes."
"Fair enough. I will deal with him in there. Drinks, of course. I believe Mister Madison likes bourbon. Then no interruptions until we leave. I should have my answer in just a few minutes."
"Yes sir." The clerk adjusted Rutledge's wig, frowned, then nodded and handed him a folder..
The lawyer beamed at him, then walked through the stout oak door into the sitting room: Four chairs, a table and a brilliant view of the sea. James Madison, a big man in his thirties, stood admiring a painting of a wooded landscape.
"Thomas Gainsborough," Madison read the inscription slowly as Rutledge entered. "British I believe?"
"Yes, sir. That is one of his latest works. Do you like it?"
"I do." Madison turned and they shook hands. "I didn't know you had much dealings with the British any more?"
"Only since the war's ended," the lawyer smiled and indicated a chair. Almost on cue the clerk entered with drinks. Rutledge took his with a smile. The Virginia politician took his, sniffed slightly and nodded approvingly. The clerk bowed and left, closing the stout door behind him.
They spent about twenty minutes on generalities: Family life, weather, the fall crop, the possibility of an early winter. Acquaintances they shared and concerts both had seen. Business concerns. Inevitably the topic drifted to politics.
"Mister Madison, I am so happy you could see me before tomorrow's meeting. There was a proposal I wanted to give to the Virginia delegation and I would very much appreciate your view."
"Certainly, sir." He took Rutledge's folder and opened it. He paused, as if not believing what he saw. "What this?"
"A modest proposal, sir. I believe you yourself have argued that the current system of government, these 'Articles,' serve no useful purpose. Rivalries cause states to choose who to support, sometimes very undemocratically. My plan begins to alleviate one of the greatest imbalances in the current system: the unequal support between our alliance on the one hand and Mister Adams' coalition on the other."
"North and south. Yes sir, you've spoken on this at some length over the years. May I remind you that Virginia holds the Congressional presidency? Indeed, of the four presidents we've had the honor to serve two were from the 'south'? It seems fair to me."
"You must know, sir, that Mister Jefferson is president only because of our decision to walk out when they betrayed Georgia. You cannot argue that this was a show of just how powerful Mister Adams is, and his goal to ruin us."
"I might grant the first, Mister Rutledge." Madison glanced at the map and dropped it on the table between them. "The second sounds unlikely however. Really, sir. I understand the rivalry you've had with Mister Adams pretty much since we began this venture in '72, but to propose he is systematically attempting to 'ruin' the southern states is not realistic. Mister Adams knows that compromising the south is as deadly to America as our compromising the north."
"Does he?" Rutledge retorted. "You saw that odious treaty. General Heyward, with our boys, sir. Virginians and Carolinas together, took Savannah. He took Saint Augustine despite an assassin's knife. I dare say he would have taken Mobile. What do we get? A few swamps in southern Florida and an outpost that we ourselves paid for. The north received half of Canada and everything east of the Mississippi River."
"But no cities, Mister Rutledge. It is true what you say, but you forget Britain had far more towns and outposts in the north. I say nothing against General Heyward's courage, he turned Exeter about nicely, but the fact is while he fought back and forth in the south and even while this Benedict Arnold fought repeatedly for Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York, there were single detachment regiments of cavalry running along the Ohio River, through Upper Canada and around Hudson Bay and Labrador. They helped turn this war as much as General Heyward. It is these tiny posts they gave up, not a single important city or colony."
"That may be true, but it overlooks one important thing. The south has no room to grow, not unless we go to war with the Cherokee. The north can go in many different directions."
Madison sipped his drink and said nothing. Virginia had room to expand, thank you. "What does this have to do with your proposal?" He pointed at the map.
"It's simple, sir. With Georgia removed, there are now twelve votes in any matter coming before Congress. Even were the Carolinas, Virginia and Maryland to always agree that's only four. We cannot hope to carry the day against any organized resistance Mister Adams levies. New England alone has another four votes. This proposal gives us five."
"I do not follow. Are you proposing Virginia split in two?"
"Yes, precisely! The Virginian lands in the Appalachian Mountains are sparsely populated, so losing them causes no hardship. However with a single swipe of our pen? These people have their own representatives to Congress. Effectively Virginia has two votes to everyone else's one! How do you think your people would like that?"
No answer for several moments, then: "They will think you are mad."
"Eh? It's a reasonable propo-..."
"No, sir. You are asking Virginia to surrender land she's lawfully claimed. Land even Britain acknowledges belong to us. You cannot expect us to agree to this."
"Sir, with five votes to New England's four we can focus our energies on the middle states and...."
"Sir, if you are so worried why don't you get South Carolina to split in two, eh?"
"Nonsense. South Carolina's too small."
"Connecticut's smaller! Rhode Island? Delaware? Maryland? Why, if you were cagey about it you could probably split into three or four parts!"
"I don't see my people agreeing to that," Rutledge answered cooly.
"Nor do I see mine agreeing to this," Madison retorted. "My God, man! Don't you think Virginia's borders are Virginia's business!?"
"I understood Virginia wanted what was best for this nation."
"Virginia wants what's best for Virginians! I am a representative of Virginia, sir! If I can help America at the same time, wonderful! My loyalty however is to the men who appointed me, and the people who elected them!"
Rutledge stared at him. "You will not carry this back to them then?"
"I didn't realize that's what you were asking. I thought you wanted my opinion of their reaction." Madison stood and bowed. "As I said, they will think you are mad. This is not something one ally asks of another. But do as you will."
"I'm trying to help our alliance!"
"And hurt Virginia, Mister Rutledge!"
Great update. DW
