Something troubling stirred in Richard. He recalled the three days that
Constellation
had stood off and on the French base at Basse-Terre and Captain Truxtun's frustration at not finding any American warships on patrol there. At least now he understood where
Constitution
and
United States
were during that time. But for the life of him he could not understand why these two frigates so vital to the American cause were so far off station in an area of the Caribbean that these days was locked up safe under British control. John Barry of
United States
and Samuel Nicholson of
Constitution
were, respectively, the two top-ranking captains in the U.S. Navy. Surely there was justification for what they had done. But goodwill visits? Coordinating patrols? That made no sense.
“Ah, Richard? Your mind's wandering. You were going to tell me about the war.”
“So I was. Sorry.”
For the next quarter-hour, as the carriage rumbled along the hard dirt road at a comfortable pace, Richard relayed vignettes from his life at sea, emphasizing the points he assumed would be of most interest to Caleb: the design of
Constellation
, her performance under sail, the composition of her crew, how he injured his shoulder. Ordnance and battle tactics interested Caleb less, which is why Richard suspected early on that their father was right about Caleb. His brother was as tried and true a sailor as any man afloat, but he was more at home in a merchant fleet than a naval squadron.
A FEW MINUTES PAST NOON, the carriage juddered to a stop within a pleasant compound shaded by mahogany and tamarind trees towering over colorful exotic plants. Two substantial one-story houses and a number of smaller outbuildings graced the compound. They were arranged in an oblong circle, with the plantation houses on the north and south arcs and the pebbled drive running through it east to west. Both houses were constructed of coral stone and brick. The windward side of each was built in a semicircle designed to resist hurricane winds.
Northward beyond the circle, in an area less stately yet still pleasing to the eye, were cottages housing the plantation administrators: the agent and his family, the overseer of slaves, and the boatswain, the man who managed the multistep processes of sugar and rum production. Farther on were the slave quarters: simple dwellings of wood and stone that nonetheless bespoke a certain pride, plotted as they were in tidy rows. Each dwelling abutted a cultivated area that yielded a variety of vegetables and fruits to the individual slave families, the members of which, as a rule, were never separated or sold away from one another. A long-standing principle of Cutler slave ownership dictated that Africans and Creoles held in bondage were afforded a degree of self-sufficiency and self-respect. It was a policy neither replicated nor much appreciated by other English planters. Nonetheless, Robin and John were convinced that it was the reason why, year after year, Cutler sugar production outpaced that of its neighbors.
The clop of hooves entering the compound alerted those waiting inside. Julia Cutler was first out the door, smiling broadly as she strode toward the carriage. Once Richard had stepped down, she took him joyfully though carefully into her arms.
“My dear, dear Richard,” she exulted, her rosy skin aglow in the noonday sun and her tongue alive with Scottish brogue. She gave him a happy buss on each cheek. “How absolutely wonderful to see you!” She kissed him again, on the lips, laughed a delighted laugh, and then embraced him again as hard as she dared.
Richard hugged her back with his good arm. Julia had been a favorite of his since those sun-drenched days when he and Katherine had stayed with her and Robin on what had then been a second Cutler plantation on the island of Tobago. The family had sold that plantation in March 1782, after the island fell to the French, and had invested the proceeds of the sale in rum production on its larger holding on Barbados. During that visit Julia and Katherine had become the closest of friends, sharing as they did a common birthright, similar dispositions, and a passion for horseback riding.
Cynthia came up to greet him next, though in a more dignified fashion and with less fanfare. She looked thinner than he rememberedâperhaps, he thought, from the stress of the long voyage to England and the disappointing results of that voyage.
John and Robin held back until Robin's three older children had added their own mix of greetings. Seth, the oldest at thirteen, had inherited his mother's ruddy complexion, his father's tall and wiry build, and his family's love of the sea. “He'll make a fine ship's master one day,” Richard had often remarked, and that same thought occurred to him today as he felt the boy's firm grasp, Seth holding his gaze with an unusual confidence of self that had inspired Richard's observation in the first place. Richard then turned his attention to Seth's sister, Mary, a demure, red-haired lass of eleven who swept a low, graceful curtsy before him, and finally to her brother Benjamin, a lad of six who alone among his siblings possessed the square jaw, bright blue eyes, and yellow hair that defined the seeds of the Cutler family tree.
“Peter's inside, asleep,” Julia informed him. “You'll meet him later. Caleb told you about him?”
“He did, Julia, first thing. Congratulations to you and Robin. And to little Peter, for having such a lovely and loving mother.”
“And here's Joseph,” Cynthia remarked. She beckoned with her right hand for a boy in the shadows to come forward. He did so, reluctantly.
“Come and greet your Uncle Richard from America, Joseph,” she urged with forced gaiety.
Richard stepped forward. “Hello, Joseph.” He offered his left hand. Joseph took it in his right. His grip was light and his skin was cool to the touch. When he looked up and gave Richard a faint smile, Richard saw written in those hazel eyes and delicate facial features a deep sadness, as though even at his tender age Joseph had grasped that the gulf between his inner world and the real world outside was too vast, too unfathomable, ever to be crossed. Joseph released Richard's hand and dropped his gaze to the ground.
“Well, son,” his father said after several awkward moments. “Why don't you and your cousins go on inside and have your dinner. We'll be along shortly.”
“Yes, Father,” Joseph replied dutifully.
When Joseph and the other children were beyond earshot, John Cutler said, “I'm sorry your arrival here can't be all joy, Richard. We
are
so pleased to have you back with us.”
“Good God, John, don't apologize on my account.” He gave John a light one-armed embrace and a slap on the back, followed by another for Robin. “There really is nothing that can be done for Joseph?”
“It would seem not,” Cynthia said with a heartfelt sigh. “We consulted the best doctors at the Royal College of Physicians, and they offered us no hope. They're as baffled by his condition as the doctors here are. They were kind to him. Everyone is kind to himâCaleb especially. Your brother is a godsend, Richard. Joseph appears happiest when he's with him, if he could ever be said to be happy.”
“As are the young ladies of Barbados,” John sniffed. In reply, Caleb gave him a cheerful grin. “But I must agree with Cynthia. We are eternally in your debt, Caleb, for the comfort and care you have given our son.”
As if by tacit consent, for the remainder of the day and into the next, business and other weighty issues were put aside in deference to personal matters. Julia was especially keen to learn as much as she could about Katherine and the children.
“Will was such a wee babe when you and Katherine sailed home to America, Richard. Yet after all that time, your dear wife still writes me a letter every month or two. Because of her I feel as though I know you and your family as well as your neighbors in Hingham do.”
“Probably better than most,” Richard commented. It was late afternoon, and he was sitting at a table with a cup of hot tea before him.
About him were the pots and pans, utensils, and bowls and dishes that defined a well-appointed English kitchen. Except that the wood-burning stove was in a separate room connected to the kitchen by a breezeway, to keep the heat of cooking away from the main house. “I wish I could be out on the grounds with Robin and John, to see the new mill we purchased. I mean no offense in saying that, Julia. I do very much enjoy your company.”
Julia laughed. “No offense taken, dear Richard. Don't fret. You'll be out of that wretched sling soon enough. In the meanwhile, what harm could there be in walking out to the fields just for a look?”
“A lot, according to the doctors. One slip is all it would take to break the clavicle outright and cripple me for life. I'm ordered to stay put until a doctor here says I can take off the cast.”
“Well, you must absolutely heed your doctor's advice. In the meanwhile, Cynthia and I and the children are delighted to have you all to ourselves for at least part of each day.”
“I am the beneficiary of that,” Richard said.
“And we all have our wishes,” she went on as she brought over the kettle for a refill. “Mine? I so wish I could travel to England this summer for Captain Hardcastle's wedding. What joy it would be to see Katherine again. Alas, I cannot travel with a wee babe, and I cannot leave him here with Anna. It simply wouldn't do. I'm urging Robin to go, however. It would do him a world of good. He so wants to see his parents and Lizzy and little Zeke. And guess what? Captain Hardcastle has invited Robin to sail with him to England on
Redoubtable
. His ship is being recalled to Deptford for maintenance during the hurricane season. Quite convenient, isn't it, though I suspect Admiral Parker had a hand in that decision. He's quite fond of Captain Hardcastle.”
“So I have observed. I met with them both in Jamaica last summer. That's when Hugh told me about his engagement to Phoebe. Where is Captain Hardcastle now?”
“In English Harbour. He'll be away for a while, though he promised to make every effort to be back in time for the ball.”
“What ball?”
“Why, the ball we're hosting in your honor. At Government House. Hugh made the arrangements before he sailed for Antigua. It's to be held on June tenth. You'll be out of that dreadful sling weeks before then.”
For Richard, the hours rolled pleasantly into days and the days into weeks. The countryside blossomed in spectacular yellows and reds and
whites and pinks as the tropical sun intensified its grip on the Windward Islands in springtime. By the end of March he was allowed to walk into the fields to observe the grinding work of the cut-stone boiling house. The sugarcane juice was channeled into a series of copper kettles and transformed into a sweet syrup, and then either poured into cooling troughs, where sugar crystals hardened around a sticky core of molasses, or transferred directly to the distillery, where the syrup was fermented into rum and aged in charred oaken casks to give it the rich, dark consistency characteristic of Mount Gay rum. March, too, saw a flurry of letters from Hingham now that his family knew where he was and where he would remain for five more months.
Receipt of letters was a highlight of each week. As was her custom, Katherine wrote regularly, numbering her letters in sequence and keeping him informed of the children's progress and the decisions every parent must make on behalf of their children. Often she would seek his advice on some matterâwhether a certain teacher at Derby Academy should be dismissed for overzealous use of the cane, perhapsâknowing full well that a decision had to be made before her husband could possibly respond. That didn't matter. What did matter was his sense that he was part of the parenting process. Richard's letters in reply were necessarily brief, but he found as time went on that if he rested his forearm on a table he could scratch out letters that were halfway legible.
As much as the letters from his wife warmed him, those from his father intrigued him. Just as Caleb had described during their numerous discussions on the subject, Thomas Cutler proposed opening a shipping office in Baltimore after peace with France was declared. And that, he believed, would happen soon. Napoleon Bonaparte had consolidated his power in Paris and, according to authorities in the State Department, was keen to end the war with the United States. He had publicly stated that he viewed the rift with America as a distractionâa “family quarrel,” he had put itâand he now wanted to focus his military efforts exclusively on Europe. What Bonaparte also wanted, in Thomas Cutler's opinion, was a cooling of relations between the United States and Great Britain that would leave England ever more isolated on the world stage.
Further, it was his father's conviction that Caleb should manage the Baltimore office, assuming that Richard and other family members agreed. And he wrote to say that he had initiated negotiations with John Endicott on opening trade routes to the Orient. First, however, he wanted to better understand what was at stake and what investment
would be required. Seizures of American merchant vessels in both the Caribbean and the Mediterranean had fallen off sharply, he explained in one recent letter, and as a result, insurance rates and other costs of doing business had fallen as much as 50 percent. At the same time, worldwide demand for sugar and rum was outstripping the supply, a market dynamic that ipso facto caused prices and revenues to rise for all planters and shippers. Such enhanced profits, Thomas Cutler reasoned, could finance new business initiatives, eliminating the need to borrow funds from a third party or to encumber existing family investments or annual financial distributions to family members.
“What do you think?” Richard asked John and Robin after he had received this letter and allowed his cousins to digest its contents. It was a hot, breezeless day in late April and they were sitting in the center of the compound on two cool, stone-slab benches set beneath the giant trunk of a banyan tree that had been brought over as a sapling from the East Indies.