CHAPTER 2
AT PRAYER
As he bent over his bed, the privateer’s form was echoed by the shaving mirror on the wall, and it reflected him in shades of brown: his face had been burned very brown by the sun and showed every one of its thirty-four hard-fought years; his clothes were a deep brown, and though neat, were modest to the point of plainness. His hair was brown, lightened a bit by the sun and cut in the modern vogue, short and combed forward over the temples; long side-whiskers advanced down either jawline and were also in the time’s dashing fashion—“ but on Gideon the whiskers looked more severe than gallant.
It was August of 1813; he had commanded General Sullivan for more than a year. The year had seen disaster for the young America on land— one entire army surrendered along with the entire Northwest, and other armies beaten or driven back in humiliated defeat. Only on the sea had the United States been able to inflict a surprising series of defeats on British arms: Constitution had defeated and sunk both Guerriere and Java, Wasp had captured Frolic, Hornet had sunk Peacock, and the frigate United States, on which Gideon’s cousin Favian Markham served as lieutenant, had not only captured Macedonian but brought the British frigate home to an American port. The victories had stunned Europe and heartened a bitter and divided America, but they would not win the war. Gideon Markham knew what would.
As a good New England Federalist and an admirer of Congressman Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts, Gideon looked upon the war with suspicion. He would rather have fought the French— assuming the United States was to fight anybody at all— for the French had disregarded the rights of neutrals as callously as had the British, and Gideon would rather have had the strength of the mightiest navy in the world on the side of America instead of against it. But war had been declared against George III rather than Bonaparte, and therefore Gideon felt it must be the will of God that England fight the United States. And as it was the will of the Lord, Gideon had become a privateer.
Privateering was a Markham family tradition, for Gideon’s father, uncles, and grandfather had all in their own time been privateers. Privateering was by now the only profession for a New England seaman that could hope to show a profit. With luck Gideon might be able both to do the Lord’s work and bring himself out of the endless condition of debt into which the disastrous Non-Intercourse Acts had plunged him.
For almost an entire year General Sullivan and other American privateers had virtually wiped out the British West Indian trade; they had laid naval siege to Jamaica, and the British had utterly failed to produce a ship capable of catching the swift, big-sparred American clippers. Recent British reinforcements had made the pickings in the vicinity of Jamaica a good deal less easy— even if they couldn’t catch the privateers, they could recapture the prizes— and so General Sullivan had been forced to sail farther abroad in search of prey. But Gideon knew that privateering was the only hope America had of winning the war.
The United States had a long, irregular seacoast, hard to blockade efficiently; England’s trade was spread thinly and was often unprotected by the Royal Navy cruisers, which were concentrated off Europe’s coast. England was a merchant nation, and her trade was vulnerable; if enough ships were taken, if Consols dropped thirty points and forced the resignation of the government, if enough cargoes were auctioned off in American ports, and if the insurance underwriters were afraid to guarantee cargoes except at twenty or thirty percent, then England would be willing to make peace.
And Captain Gideon Markham, privateer and deacon, was prepared to squeeze the British as hard as he could and make himself the richer thereby. Two weeks before the British squadron had appeared off Cuba, Gideon had captured three prizes at once off Anguilla, filled with drygoods and plantation equipment destined for Jamaica. Gideon had filled General Sullivan’s hold with the goods from the smallest vessel and set it free along with his prisoners; the other two craft he took in company.
The British presence made it risky to take captures back to an American port, and Gideon thought he’d had a better idea. He knew a Spanish planter in Cuba, one who owed him a favor from before the war. Don Esteban de Velasco y Anaquito had riches enough and influence enough to dispose of Gideon’s captured cargoes, and at good prices in a Cuba desperate for European goods. Velasco’s principal plantation, Rio Lagartos, was also situated comfortably near the mouth of a river where the cargoes might be easily landed. Gideon would not dare to enter any Spanish port; the Spanish authorities had been seizing and condemning any American privateer entering their jurisdiction, and although the seizures were illegal, the American government, hard-pressed by the British, had no hope of enforcing any demands.
A small, private arrangement was what Gideon had proposed: General Sullivan and her two prizes had been taken over the bar and anchored in the center of the little bay where they could be guarded and kept safe. Gideon had gone ashore by boat. Don Esteban had been friendly and interested but had been in no hurry. They had haggled for two days, ever nearing agreement. Now, the morning of the third day, a British squadron had appeared.
This called for assistance from God Almighty; and so Gideon prayed.
It was Gideon’s opinion that the Lord rarely allowed his children to be beset by difficulties but that he also created opportunities to be exploited. That belief had been sorely tried during the Embargo, but Gideon had managed to maintain his faith; and now Gideon attempted, through urgent and systematic prayer, to discover any such opportunities the Lord may have left within his reach.
He had no doubt that the British would attack. The situation was obvious: an American-built schooner armed as a privateer, with two captures, found anchored quietly in Spanish waters, protected by a bar and low tide. The Spanish authorities would not interfere.
The tide was not great here, two or three feet at its highest, but it would not be as safe for the British vessels to venture over the bar until the tide was in their favor. Gideon would not face attack until after nightfall. But when it came, would the attack be delivered by boats, or by the ships of war themselves?
Lord, let me see thy path clearly, Gideon prayed, but somewhere in the back of his mind was the thought, What would Malachi do? Malachi Markham, his uncle, was the most spectacularly successful privateer of his family, and perhaps of his generation; Gideon had been raised on legends of Malachi’s genius and conquests, and a copy of Malachi’s biography by his former first officer, John Maddox, lay in Gideon’s sea chest next to his prayer book and bible.
“The greatest natural sailor I have ever seen,” Josiah Markham had said, Gideon’s father and Malachi’s brother; and from Josiah that was no mean praise. The praise had been echoed by Malachi’s former brothers-in-arms, many of whom Gideon had known around Portsmouth in his youth: Captain Andrew Keith, John Maddox, the blaspheming and free-living Finch Martin— all agreed on Malachi’s skill, charm, and brilliance. Malachi had gone barefoot and bearded in an age when merchants affected gentility; he had fought a duel, and in battle recklessly exposing himself to danger; he was impious, profane, and indiscreet; he could judge the wind within half a point and steer his privateer by the seat of his pants; and his love for an English noblewoman was a family legend.
Josiah and Malachi had cruised together for years. They had destroyed the British frigate Melampe and captured a stunning bag of prize ships, including a thirty-gun Indiaman; but Malachi alone was responsible for his stunning victory over the British fifty-gun man-of-war Bristol, the only such ship taken in open sea battle by the American forces during the entire war— bigger, in fact, than any of the large English frigates America had captured during the current struggle.
Gideon had absorbed the family legends eagerly and had sought out stories of the uncle he had never known. Malachi’s portrait, “drawn from life,” had sat on his desk, and his daydreams pictured himself as Malachi’s loyal lieutenant, standing by him on his quarterdeck as the grapeshot whirred. Josiah had tried to protect his son from the more extreme elements of Malachi’s example, pointing out that though Malachi’s bravery and talent were to be admired, much of what he’d accomplished had gone to waste due to a lack of attention to his duties to God and to Christian civilization, as well as to a lack of steadiness which only a true, unpolluted moral sense could provide.
Josiah need not have worried; Gideon was safe. His natural tendencies were conservative, and his moral sense unimpaired. Gideon had established a reputation as not only a practicing Christian, but a preaching one. But what would Malachi have done? Embayed on a Spanish shore with an English squadron just over the bar? No doubt Malachi would have done something desperate and daring, bringing off his prizes while humiliating the British at the same time; but Malachi’s nephew could find no such means.
Gideon explained his dilemma to God: the bar, the British, the narrow, deep river, the two unloaded prizes anchored in the bay. Fearing his appeal lacked clarity, Gideon explained the situation again; and this time he began to see a ray of promise. Perhaps he could not save General Sullivan, perhaps he could not save his captured goods, but he could fight and kill Englishmen as his God intended.
He could not help thinking as he rose from his knees and strapped on his sword that Malachi would have approved his decision.