4 A Meeting by the River

I awoke very early the next morning, and according to my custom began a brisk walk in the fresh air which would make me strong and buoyant for the day’s duties.

It was not much past daybreak, but the men were already at work on the new buildings, and I could hear the ring of hammers and the thud of axes driven into the wood. The air was crisp and stimulating, and my interview of the night with Major Northcote, when he would have tempted me with a place in a world more splendid than my own, but perhaps not so good, seemed like a bad dream. The people around me were nearer the earth than his and more akin to true humanity. Never had I been more sure that we were right and the glittering monarchies of Europe wrong.

I met Mercer at a corner of the street and asked him what had happened at Cyrus Pendleton’s house after I left.

“Nothing,” he said dryly. “Why should anything have happened? Mr. Pendleton was angry, Mr. Bidwell sullen, and the lady defiant, all because of you. Was not that enough even for Mr. Ten Broeck?”

He spoke rather more curtly than usual, but passing quickly on his way he gave me no chance to inquire into the cause.

The river, with its wide and shining sweep showing green and blue and silver in the shifting light, invited me, and I strolled along its banks, as yet primitive in most part in their wildness, though we had begun to build a shipyard at one point and a wooden wharf at another. Still, when I turned my back to the town it seemed to belong to the wilderness. Forest and bush covered the farther shore; on the dim horizon was a slight dark line which must be the rising smoke from a squatter’s cabin, yet one could easily imagine that it was the trail of an Indian camp fire; a negro in a boat came in sight, letting his rude dugout drift with the stream, and I could have made him an Indian warrior, his own canoe the leader of a long and silent file. Everything seemed so new, so like the wilderness, so unlike civilization and the old towns of the coast.

I followed a footpath that led along the shore. A flight of wild ducks not yet used to the sight of the city, nor sure that it would stay, shot down in a slanting line from the sky and settled upon the surface of the river. I remembered my boyhood’s practice, and picking up a little stone made it skim and ricochet along the surface of the water near the ducks. They rose with an indignant squawk, and, rising higher and higher, flew away toward the north, following their leader in a file as direct and straight as the flight of an Indian arrow. I watched the straight black line cutting the sky, while it grew dimmer and dimmer until my eyes could not have seen it had they not followed its flight from the beginning; then it disappeared altogether and the sky was an unbroken blue.

I resumed my stroll. Fifty yards ahead of me I saw a smallish man walking very slowly. His shoulders were bent and his hands were crossed behind him. The wisps of hair which showed under the brim of his hat and clung to the back of his head were gray. He wore dingy gray clothes, and his coat, much too large for him, was shoved up so high that its collar met the wisps of gray hair and took all shape from his figure. I knew by his bent shoulders and hesitating steps that he was in deep thought, and I concluded that the trouble which could send an old man walking that way by the river side at such an early hour must be of a serious kind. I would cheer him up. It is the custom in the West, with rich or poor alike, to be friendly with strangers whom we overtake or who overtake us, going our way.

I shouted to him, but he paid no attention. I called again, but he continued his slow, meditative stroll, his hands still crossed behind his back. It seemed to me, since I was in a very good humour, to be too early in the day for a man to have so much thought and maybe care, too, on his mind, and walking more swiftly I soon overtook him.

“Good morning, stranger,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder, and I felt as if I had to reach down to do it. Even in Kentucky, a State of large men, I am called large. “You must have much on your mind this morning, if one can tell anything from the way you walk.”

He turned and smiled up at me, for I towered some good inches above him.

“Perhaps I have,” he said, “but since I have your company I may be able to throw it off, at least for the present.”

My face flushed until I knew it must be blazing red. I bowed with the deepest respect, and likewise with some humility, since I wished to appear well always, and my pride was hurt.

“I beg your pardon for such familiarity, sir,” I said. “I did not know that it was you; I did not think of it.”

“Then I am glad that you did not know,” he replied, still smiling pleasantly at me, “for otherwise I would have missed the pleasure of your company. I needed to be taken away from my thoughts this morning, and I am glad that you overtook me. Come, we will walk together and you can tell me about yourself.”

He took my arm, leaning slightly upon it, and we walked on together. The sting of my awkward little act was taken away and I felt honoured.

“You hear often from your State?” he asked me presently, for he knew me well. Our Government was so small then that one might know every official in Washington by face.

“Yes,” I said.

“Tell me about the war feeling there.”

I told him all I knew; I described the indignation of the Kentuckians when they heard of the repeated outrages upon us by Great Britain, and how this anger had been increased by the approaching Indian wars. I felt so deeply on this subject, my feeling increased maybe by the revulsion of my mind against Major Northcote’s allurements, that perhaps I became warmer than I should have been in such company, though I was not ashamed of my warmth.

“They think out there, sir,” I said, “that we have reached the point where to endure more is disgrace.”

He said nothing, but looked troubled. His face was worn and tired, and his frame seemed to be suffering from exhaustion.

“It’s hard to know what to do,” he said presently. A minute or two later he turned the talk to matters not connected with government or politics and asked about my father. He was at his home in Kentucky, I said, and still well and strong.

“I met him once in the war, the Revolutionary war,” he said, “and remember him. It was just before he marched south with Greene, and I did not see him again, as he went to Kentucky when the peace came. What was your mother’s name?”

“Northcote,” I said. “She was of a New York family.”

He looked at me sharply. “Northcote!” he said. “Was she related to Gilbert Northcote, the Loyalist, who is in the English service here?”

“He is our distant cousin.”

“An able man; one who has seen much of the world, but a dangerous man too I think. I trust that you do not talk too much to him, even if he is your kinsman.”

He looked very keenly at me again. I bore his look without flinching, though my conscience gave me a wrench.

“We can never agree,” I said. “He is my cousin and I can not forget the fact, but that is all.”

“I should think you could not agree with him if you followed your father in belief and action,” he said. “Mr. Ten Broeck fought through the Revolution, and did he not bear his part, too, in the wars with the Northwestern tribes after he went to Kentucky?”

I said yes, and I began to tell him of my father’s deeds, being proud of his warlike record, a pride that I preserve to this day. I told how he had fought at the Blue Licks when the Kentuckians rashly dashed into the river in pursuit of a foe ambushed on the other side in overwhelming numbers, and suffered defeat, to be made ever glorious by valour and unparalleled self-sacrifice. Then he was with St. Clair when the raw army was surprised in the dense winter thickets by Little Turtle and the Northwestern tribes, and he had told me many a time of the awful massacre and the mad terror, exactly the same as that which befell Braddock and the British forty years before. He was at the Fallen Timbers, too, with Wayne when we found revenge under the guns of the British fort itself for St. Clair’s disaster and drove the beaten tribes farther into the Northwest. I told these deeds of my father, warming to the tale as I proceeded, and when I ended I said:

“My father, who has fought them both, says the Northwestern tribes are more to be dreaded than the British. He says that with equal arms, equal discipline, and equal ground we ought to beat the latter, man for man.”

But he would not be led upon that ground. He was silent again, and his worn, weary face was very thoughtful. The curve in his shoulders increased and he leaned more upon my arm. We came presently to a turn in the path.

“I must go back now,” he said, “but I am glad that I met you, Mr. Ten Broeck, and I am glad that I have had a chance to talk with you about your father, who was one of my comrades more than thirty years ago. Tell him when you write to him or see him next that I hope he holds me in as much esteem as I hold him. Good morning, Mr. Ten Broeck.”

“Good morning, Mr. Madison.”

He turned and went back.

I stood there and watched his bent figure as he walked slowly on, until it was hidden by the trees and the bushes.

I think it is the greatest thing in the world to be President of the United States, but I knew that I was far happier than he and I felt sorry for him.

I was saddened a little, but the feeling soon disappeared under the influence of the bright morning and the crisp west wind. The broad and clear river, the far hills and the forest stretching away until they disappeared under the horizon line, appealed to me and reminded me of the land in which I was born and had grown up. The wild free breath of the endless outdoors crept into my blood, and for the moment I despised roofs and cramped offices. I wished to be back in my own Kentucky, to see the long, easy sweep of the blue grass, and rolling hills of the pennyroyal, and the swelling slopes of the mountains, close-grown with beach and oak and hickory, down which the clear brooks dashed and spattered and gleamed afar like streaks of melting silver.

I felt for the moment a repugnance to my desk in a Government office., however it might help my prospects and however well it might serve as a means for learning the ways of the great world. We Kentuckians were then children of the open air, of the hills, the valleys, and the woods, and we are yet as much as ever and will remain so. It is in the blood; the houses trouble us; they are good enough to sleep in when the winter nights come, but by day we want outdoors with its illimitable room. That is why we grow so large and strong and live so long.

I looked at my watch and saw that it was time to hurry to my office if I would not be late, and Mr. Gallatin had been too kind for me to neglect his work in that manner, even if I were disposed to be careless of my own interests. I walked swiftly and was soon at the Treasury building, where I was glad to see that I had arrived before my chief.

Mr. Gallatin was late, not coming until I had been there a full hour, and he was usually a prompt man who trod on the heels of his clerks. When he arrived at last I noticed that he too looked worn and worried, as much trouble showing in his face as had been visible in Mr. Madison’s. He unlocked his desk near a window, pulled up his chair, and began to prowl through piles of papers. Those were troublous times for the Secretary of the Treasury, who was a really great man. There were many bickerings in the Cabinet, which contained some men not at all great, and the Treasury itself, with embargoes and Berlin and Milan decrees and Orders in Council and what not cutting down our trade and the Government receipts at the same time, had to be watched with untiring care. The most of us wanted war, and there was not money to pay for it. They say the pen is mightier than the sword, but the purse is mightier than either—yes, mightier than both together.

His look of trouble remained. He was a heavy, broad man, and his face was broad in proportion, so there was plenty of room for the expression of trouble. His head was quite bald on top and shone resplendently when the sunshine came in at the window and gilded his bare dome. On the sides of his head the hair was rather thick and fell in tousled locks over his ears. He tugged at these now and then in his impatience and worry.

There were only three of us in the office—the Secretary, a clerk named Chilton, who was a Connecticut man, and myself. We worked all the morning in silence, and when I would raise my head at times to peep through the window, the earth outside, though still in the brown gloom of February, looked very inviting. But the Secretary never took his eyes from his papers. He read on and on, as if there were nothing in the world but scribbled parchment. Two or three messengers came in with letters; he never looked up; they put their letters on the desk beside him and went away, and by and by he opened them in their turn and read them. The time for dinner came, and wearied by the long morning’s work I hurried away with the eager step of a boy. Dinner was then in Washington what it still is with us in the West, the noon meal, the heaviest in the day, and with those who rise as we do with the dawn, it is likely to remain such.

There was a new boarding house on Pennsylvania Avenue, and I took my dinner there with other clerks, some congressmen, three or four senators, a naval officer or two on shore duty, and a few professional men. We sat around a long table and passed the things to each other, for the two girls who were supposed to do the waiting could not keep us supplied. We had food in plenty, though I suppose most of it might be called coarse in countries where cookery is a delicate art, but it was not considered so by us. Meat, which makes people strong, was the staple, and of this a large proportion was game, venison and squirrel and wild ducks, for one does not have to go far from Washington to reach the hunting grounds.

I took my customary seat at the table with Mercer on my right, while on my left sat Felix Courtenay, a special friend of us both, a South Carolinian, the son of a Revolutionary hero, and descendant of hard fighting Huguenots, a brown-faced fellow with straight black hair. There were others of my age with whom I was in the habit of associating: Sanford, a tidewater Virginian, a tall, thin man, a little yellow in the face, showing that there was a touch of malaria in his part of the country, though he would never admit it. Sanford had a lot of family pride. He boasted that five generations in a direct line took his family back to a royal bar sinister, which, I believe, is the last proof of nobility in England, and on that account he patronized all Kentuckians, saying they were merely an offshoot and younger branch of the old Virginian stock, which may be true. Nevertheless, Sanford was a most zealous republican, an inconsistency I have long since given up trying to solve; I see it too often. Next to him sat Wilson, a stout squarely-built Pennsylvanian, and on the other side of the table was Adams—Arthur Adams, of Boston, who was of kin to old President John Adams, and, of course, to his son John Quincy Adams, who was to be our President too some day, and to all the other famous Adamses of Massachusetts, who must be nearly a million in number, and he could never forget it. But the most of us were Westerners or Southerners.

The talk very naturally turned upon our troubles with England and France, especially England, since the last seizure of our vessels had been made by that country, and all, except the Federalists of New England, had begun to look upon her as our chief enemy, forced to such a belief by the threatening events which were occurring almost every day. The views of these men were very different from those of Major Northcote, and it was easy to see that the things which were his ambition could never become theirs. Only one voice was heard to protest against the general condemnation of the old country, and it was that of Adams, though he objected mildly and soon became silent in the face of the fierce attack that he invited.

The conversation was interrupted by Wilson, the Pennsylvanian, who produced a bundle of English newspapers come over in the last mail.

“I’ve a trading uncle over in London,” said Wilson, “trying to get some satisfaction for two ships of his seized in the Baltic by English cruisers and confiscated more than a year ago. He sent me these papers to show what lovely things our kind and affectionate blood kin are saying about us. There’s the Courier and the Times and the Post; in fact, all the London papers and a dozen or so from the provincial cities. I’ve marked the articles about us. Would you like to have me read some of them?”

“Yes, yes! read them!”

“Which will you have first?”

“Read something from the Courier,” said Courtenay. “That’s their ministerial organ and perhaps we can tell from it what their Government thinks.”

“All right,” said Wilson. “Here’s an editorial article on our financial honour, or rather our lack of it, as the Courier thinks or pretends to think. Listen!”

Then he read a lot of trash which made my blood hot, trash and lies though I knew it was, and I think that every one present must have felt as I.

“There is no honour among the merchants and traders of the United States,” said the newspaper. “They are trying to build up a great commerce and great wealth in defiance of the powers of Europe, and they stop at no falsehood or trickery to achieve their purpose, and they know nothing of the sacredness of contracts.”

A full half column closed with a strong appeal to the British Government to crush utterly this impertinent trade, which was proving so annoying to bluff and honest Britons. “Let the mistress of the seas,” said the paper, “prove that she really and truly reigns over her own.”

“That isn’t so very bad,” said Mercer. “It’s mild compared with some others that I have read. I suppose we ought to recognise that all the seas, including the bays and inlets that have the misfortune to project into our own country, are England’s exclusive and private property, and we should get a permit from her every time we presume to set a ship sailing over salt water.”

“It’s come to that already,” said Sanford. “I’ve seen her fleets watching at the entrance of the harbours of New York and Norfolk, and I saw them bring in the dead sailors whom she murdered on the Chesapeake.”

The senators and members of the House were silent, thinking, perhaps, it was best for them not to discuss such affairs in so promiscuous a company, but I could see the flush of anger on some of their faces, and as they made no criticism of our proceedings I suggested to Wilson that he read more.

“Here’s an article from the Times,” he said. “‘Barbarians’ is the pet name of the Times for us. This one is on the ridiculous pretensions of the ‘barbarians,’ and has special reference to our navy. That ought to be of great interest to you, Charlton.”

Charlton was a junior naval officer on shore leave just then.

“Read it,” he said, all attention.

“I’ll condense it for you,” said Wilson. “The Times says in effect that while all the pretensions of the American barbarians are ridiculous, the most ridiculous of all is the idea some of them seem to have of making war upon Great Britain. It calls attention to the fact that the British fleets upon the American coast already outnumber the whole American navy at least five to one in ships, guns, and men. It says that in case of war not an American ship would dare to come from port, and England could have nothing to fear from a few bundles of fir planks under a striped rag.”

Charlton was red with wrath.

“All we ask is a chance against them, ship for ship!” he cried. “See what we did against the Barbary corsairs and against the French in ’98! If Mr. Jefferson hadn’t been so crazy with his gunboat policy we would have a fine fleet now, and could make it a war on their shores, and not on ours.”

Wilson read the other articles. They were all of the same kind, full of savage abuse and direct falsehood, or a kernel of truth swelled into a mountain of untruth. It is a fact that after failing to conquer us in our Revolutionary war the English set out to defame us before all the world in their books and their newspapers and through their public speakers, and now they affect to wonder why so many of us do not like them. I admit that we had many friends among the English—the best nation in Europe in spite of all that has happened—but they could not make their views heard amid the storm of abuse.

I felt pained and depressed. I was one who had been willing to see the old breach between England and us caused by the Revolution healed up, and the two Anglo-Saxon nations go forward as friends to a great destiny, and that it was not so, I believed, with all others of the West, was almost wholly the fault of England. It seemed a bitter thing to me that the fiercest and falsest abuse of us should come from the land of our ancestors, and I felt my anger against England rising, though I could not forget the great deeds of her history, and that often she had been the champion of liberty and freedom in Europe—though not then.

Not caring to hear more, I left the table and went out into the fresh air. Mercer overtook me there and showed that he was in a sour humour, saying that all of us were for war with Great Britain and we wished it declared at once, but made no preparations to fight it. He supposed, so he said, that we had reached the summit of human wisdom and could carry on war victoriously without an army, navy, or military resources. It was one of the virtues of the new republic to overcome everything with enthusiasm, which would stop no cannon balls.

“Nevertheless,” he said, “the people are for war, and so are you and so am I; we are all fools together.”

I left him to vent the rest of his ill humour upon whomsoever else he might meet, and returned to the office, where I found Mr. Gallatin ahead of me, and with documents already a foot deep around him. The thoughts of most people in Washington must have been on the same subject that day, for after an hour of hard work, in which the silence of the room was interrupted only by the rustling of paper and the scratching of pens, Mr. Gallatin turned suddenly to me and said:

“You are in favour of making war on England, are you not, Mr. Ten Broeck?”

“Yes.”

He said not another word, but I noticed presently that the character of the papers he passed over to me for classification and filing was changing, and seemed to bear upon the topic that everybody was discussing then. A document that crinkled in my hands as I smoothed it out was a petition from the people of Ohio for two additional regiments of regular troops to help defend them against the expected attack of the Northwestern tribes.

“A legitimate request, is it not?” said the Secretary carelessly.

“Yes.”

“So the Secretary of War thought, and he referred it to me, as I am expected to furnish the money to pay for the regiments. Of course you, as my clerk, know where the money is to be found.”

“No, I do not.”

“Hm! That is bad. What is the manuscript which you are tying up so carefully?”

“A recommendation to the Government, signed by most of the substantial people of Baltimore, that, owing to the probability of war, we ought to begin at once the construction of six line of battle ships. They say that these ships would be useful as a peace measure; that the fear of them would deter our enemies from attacking us, and if war should come anyhow they would be extremely useful for fighting.”

“Very well put. A line of battle ship would cost about a half million dollars, and six would cost three millions. Not quite so much as our whole annual expenditure, but an addition nevertheless. Of course, you could find the money for these ships in the Treasury, could you not?”

“No.”

There was no satiric twinkle in his eye and no curve of his mouth to indicate humour, but I knew well his purpose, for he continued to pass to me documents which showed our want of money to do the things that the country demanded—demands often reasonable, even wise enough, had there been any one to pay for doing them. I understand his motive now better perhaps than I did then, for I know that there come times even to old men in high station when they wish to justify themselves in the eyes of youth. After these brief comments he was silent until the moment for my going came, when he said:

“I’ve let you see this afternoon some of our difficulties. Come with me to-night and I will show you why this country needs diplomacy and tact. There is to be a Cabinet meeting at the White House and we will need a clerk. You shall serve and be silent. You can do both, I believe.”

I assented with the greatest willingness to what was an order rather than a request, and closing my desk with the feeling of a schoolboy whose day at his books is over, bade the Secretary good afternoon, and rushed out into the sunshine. The wind was coming from the southwest now and was warm. Though it was February there was a suspicion of spring in the air. I thought I could see tender green shoots nestling in the dry grass, and on the trees across yonder I was sure the buds were beginning to come.

The sun was setting in a cloudless sky, and the big round globe was all red flame. Everything caught the glow and sent it back. The windows of the Capitol blazed with fire. Common wooden houses turned to castles and palaces. Bars of light fell across the river, colouring it red and gold in the sunshine, leaving it gray and dark blue in the shadow. In the far sky a flock of wild geese flew northward.

It was beautiful to me, who had been shut up in a room since morning, and I walked about in the fresh air, meaning to enjoy it as long as I could before going to the Secretary’s house in order to accompany him to the Cabinet meeting. Without laying any such plan in my mind I found myself in five minutes walking before the house of Cyrus Pendleton. Two horses were hitched at the gate, and Marian and Bidwell were passing across the lawn together toward the front door. I had no claims of proprietorship over her, no actual words of love had passed between us, and yet, at the moment, I felt a pang of jealousy. Fortune had made the way so easy for him: the old man, her father, was continually his ally, and the sense of obedience and loyalty was strong in her. All these things might wear away any resolution. But they saw me, and she tossed over the fence to me a little bunch of evergreen that she held in her hand. I pinned it on the lapel of my coat and passed on, thinking for the time but little of wars and the rivalries of nations.

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