Morris tried to keep up the credit of the North American Land Company by announcing a dividend early in January 1797, but he had no money. He called for Nicholson to pay it, a vain hope. Nicholson"s creditors also pursued Morris, who had endorsed his partner"s notes. Morris wrote: "I consider you as the sole Author of all the perplexities about Laws t.i.tles & you must extricate them." He admitted on February 1 that the company could not survive: "The money for dividends is run out & I have no more, so that I suppose its credit will be dissolved." Three weeks later a broker told Nicholson that he could dispose of Morris"s and Nicholson"s notes at 10 on the dollar.
Morris and Nicholson still owed Henry Lee $21,500 for property in and around the illusory city of Matildaville. Unable to pay, they tried in March to sell their holdings to James Greenleaf, who declined to buy. Morris then offered to sell the land back to Lee. Lee needed to raise money to pay George Washington; he wished to sell, not buy. The partners forfeited their interest and wrote off their investment as a loss. By April 13, Greenleaf was in the custody of the sheriff at the debtors" prison. He wrote to a consortium of creditors: "take my Books, my papers, my Property & do with them what you please.... I am distroyed solely by having suffered myself to be led on by too ardent a desire of saving others from destruction." I am distroyed solely by having suffered myself to be led on by too ardent a desire of saving others from destruction."
To placate George Washington, Henry Lee gave him in the early months of 1797 a doc.u.ment from the firm Reed & Forde obliging them to transfer to Washington seventy shares of stock in the Bank of Columbia. Washington reluctantly accepted, only to find that the shares, nominally worth $40 each, were selling on the open market for $33. Lee"s remittance not only fell short by $500 but came late. Reed & Forde lacked the cash needed to buy bank stock for Washington, partly because Robert Morris had not repaid $5,000 he had borrowed. Morris wrote to them: "My mind is continually on the rack and I am daily employed in Search of ways and means."
Of course, the bill of exchange Morris drew on James Marshall to repay Lee"s large loan came back protested. Morris said in July that he hoped to be able to pay soon. Two months later he admitted that he could not send Lee anything. Lee kept writing for four years, to no avail.
In Williamsburg, at Christmastime, 1796, and in the first weeks of the new year, St. George Tucker wrote a play about Robert Morris. He called it The Wheel of Fortune: A Comedy The Wheel of Fortune: A Comedy. The character resembling Morris is "Buckeye, a Land Jobber." He cheats foreign investors and sells vast tracts of land, as well as lots in the Federal City. Tucker"s hero, Freeman, explains the play"s t.i.tle: "Some favorite plan of Speculation presents itself-money is wanted and must be had, at any price. One purchase is made upon a Credit of sixty days, to enable the purchaser to pay another sum of money in thirty; the Wheel is kept continually turning till it either ruins, or makes, the party engaged in the Operation." Of course, the traditional wheel of fortune would bring low those who once rode high. One character, a defrauded land buyer, reveals Buckeye"s methods: he sold 20,000 acres, "which he described as an earthly paradise, uniting every advantage soil, climate, Waters, Rivers, and intercourse with a populous Country. Here is a map in which it is described. Would not one suppose it was the Garden of Eden! This is the description of that miserable spot." Amid the drama"s conventional schemes, plot complications, and recognition scenes, Tucker"s denunciation of speculators is the recurrent leitmotif. In the ba.n.a.l and predictable ending, lovers are united and speculators are ruined.
In hopes of getting his play produced in Philadelphia during the spring of 1797, Tucker submitted it to Thomas Wignell, manager of the Chestnut Street Theatre, the best house with the best actors in the United States. The ornate building, modeled on Covent Garden Theatre and the Theatre Royal in Bath, with 1,165 seats, had been constructed with financial aid from Robert Morris. Wignell"s season lasted until May 6. He was running a deficit. He declined to produce The Wheel of Fortune The Wheel of Fortune, saying that Morris and Greenleaf were "suffering so severely for their Speculations" that they ought not to be "exhibited to Ridicule on the Stage" in Tucker"s characters Buckeye and O"Blunder. He added that the play was too long and needed revision.
Wignell was actually letting Tucker down gently, sparing him the truth. The play was old-fashioned, differing little from Samuel Foote"s The Bankrupt The Bankrupt of twenty-five years past or from satirical plays about the South Sea Bubble seventy years past. The modern public preferred a different kind of drama, not moralizing about political economy and civic virtue. At Drury Lane Theatre in 1797, Matthew Lewis began a successful run of his new play of twenty-five years past or from satirical plays about the South Sea Bubble seventy years past. The modern public preferred a different kind of drama, not moralizing about political economy and civic virtue. At Drury Lane Theatre in 1797, Matthew Lewis began a successful run of his new play The Castle Spectre: A Dramatic Romance The Castle Spectre: A Dramatic Romance. Robert Merry, husband of Thomas Wignell"s lead actress, Ann Brunton Merry, had written The Abbey of St. Augustine The Abbey of St. Augustine for the 1797 season. He again tried to capture the new fashion in a play he submitted to Wignell a few months after Tucker"s. It was for the 1797 season. He again tried to capture the new fashion in a play he submitted to Wignell a few months after Tucker"s. It was The Tuscan Tournament: A Tragedy in Five Acts The Tuscan Tournament: A Tragedy in Five Acts. The last act was almost all pantomime. The public enjoyed excitement and sentiment and mystery. In The Tuscan Tournament The Tuscan Tournament, the curtain rises to reveal "Scene-The Appenines-A Ruin"d Castle-A Storm-Thunder & Lightning. Enter Ximenes disguised as a Friar." Wignell moved to New York for the summer and fall to repair his company"s fortunes. In the Greenwich Street Theatre he presented Isabella; or, the Fatal Marriage Isabella; or, the Fatal Marriage, with the t.i.tle role played by Elizabeth Whitlock, Sarah Siddons"s sister.
Robert Morris no longer left his house in the autumn of 1797. He avoided the sheriff by remaining indoors, except when he took the air by going out on his roof. But he was only buying time. He said: "property will not command money and the world have shut me out of their confidence."
After his release from prison in Philadelphia, Justice James Wilson spent some time in jail in Burlington, New Jersey, in September until he raised $300 to pay a judgment. He took refuge in Edenton, North Carolina. There he was jailed in April 1798 at the suit of the holder of a note he had endorsed. Once released, he stayed in Edenton, refusing to declare himself insolvent and give up all his property so that he could return to Philadelphia. From Kentucky, David Meade sent word that unless Wilson soon paid the arrears of his purchase of two quarter-shares in the Dismal Swamp Company and of nearby land, Meade would foreclose his mortgage and resume possession. Meade had no sympathy with Pennsylvania speculators. His son-in-law, Charles Willing Byrd, had gone unpaid by Robert Morris throughout 1797. Wilson did not care what Meade did. Dressed in shabby clothes, he sat listlessly in his tavern room, looking out the window at the waves of Albemarle Sound, facing away from the Dismal Swamp.
George Washington had grown exasperated with Henry Lee. None of Lee"s extemporized devices yielded cash. Lee gave Washington what he called "a negotiable note" for $1,000, drawn on Jesse Simms, in the summer of 1797. Washington sent it to his banker, who told him in January 1798 that Simms refused to pay. Washington wrote to Lee: "Let me entreat you to believe, that at the time I entered into the contract with you for the property I held in the Dismal Swamp, I had no conception of such disappointments, and that it is a mode of dealing to which I am not accustomed." Washington grew angrier upon hearing that Simms spread rumors that Washington was speculating in Simms"s notes. Every step Lee took seemed to make matters worse.
Leaving Washington unpaid, Lee acquired Champe and Maria Carter"s portion and Richard and Rebecca Parke Corbin"s portion of the Saura Town property in the Land of Eden. Champe and Maria Carter had sold their one-eighth interest for $2 per acre; Lee paid more than twice as much. He offered this one-fourth of the Land of Eden to Patrick Henry. Henry still held the note James Wilson had drawn on Lee as Lee lent Wilson $8,000 to buy Henry"s worthless Green Sea tract. Lee had no cash with which to pay Henry and redeem the note. James Wilson, sitting in Edenton, could not repay Lee. So Lee urged Patrick Henry to take, instead of cash, one-fourth of the Land of Eden, a.s.suring him that it was worth $4 to $6 per acre.
Robert Morris knew on Thursday, February 8, 1798, that he must enter debtors" prison the following week. He wrote: "The Punishment of my imprudence in the use of my Name and loss of credit is perhaps what I I deserve, but it is nevertheless severe on my Family and on deserve, but it is nevertheless severe on my Family and on their their account I feel it most tormentingly." In the past two years he had watched his wife, Mary White Morris, change from "a remarkable well looking woman...blooming as a rose in June" to her present state, "pale, wan, dejected & spiritless." He entered the Prune Street prison on Friday, February 16. He lived in a furnished room, an "ugly whitewashed vault," in which he received visitors, and he dressed as usual in neat, old-fashioned suits. Every morning from six until eight he walked in the garden, counting his turns by dropping a pebble at the end of each lap. He knew that he must surrender all his property to gain release. He wrote: "I confess I do not like the idea of dieing here." The North American Land Company had no offices. If it had managers, no one knew who they were. In the subsequent liquidation of Morris"s a.s.sets, the company"s shares sold for 7 each. account I feel it most tormentingly." In the past two years he had watched his wife, Mary White Morris, change from "a remarkable well looking woman...blooming as a rose in June" to her present state, "pale, wan, dejected & spiritless." He entered the Prune Street prison on Friday, February 16. He lived in a furnished room, an "ugly whitewashed vault," in which he received visitors, and he dressed as usual in neat, old-fashioned suits. Every morning from six until eight he walked in the garden, counting his turns by dropping a pebble at the end of each lap. He knew that he must surrender all his property to gain release. He wrote: "I confess I do not like the idea of dieing here." The North American Land Company had no offices. If it had managers, no one knew who they were. In the subsequent liquidation of Morris"s a.s.sets, the company"s shares sold for 7 each.
James Wilson went into his final decline in July and August. He contracted malaria. In the Edenton tavern overlooking Albemarle Sound he lay in bed, talking about returning to his circuit duties as a justice of the Supreme Court. After suffering a stroke in August he spoke deliriously of debts, bankruptcies, and jails. On Tuesday, August 21, he died.
"I shall be able to close my contract," Henry Lee promised Washington that week; "this is an object I have much at heart, & which if Judge Wilson had not treated me very illy would have long ago been compleated." Lee"s latest idea for remittances was to ship corn up the Potomac from Stratford to Mount Vernon and to offer Washington houses and lots in the Federal City. Lee added: "the time is fast approaching when property like mine must be in great demand."
"You know perfectly well what my inducements were to part with the property you purchased of me," Washington wrote. But Lee refused to understand that he was supposed to furnish cash or property of unquestioned t.i.tle convertible to cash. Washington already had a supplier of corn. He held no illusions about the value of lots in the Federal City: "it is a question of very equivocal solution." He grew tired of Lee"s improvisations, a.s.surances, and excuses. He entrusted the matter to his nephew, Bushrod Washington, who would give a deed to the Dismal Swamp Company quarter-shares or not give it, as he thought best after dealing with Lee.
The death of James Wilson left Patrick Henry holding Wilson"s note for purchase of the Green Sea land, payable by Lee. Lee had little prospect of recovering from Wilson"s estate the $8,000 Wilson had borrowed. Patrick Henry had little hope of getting money from Lee. Even so, Henry did not wish the Green Sea tract returned to him by default. The two men agreed to an exchange. Patrick Henry deeded his acres of reeds in the Green Sea to Lee, and Henry Lee deeded about 6,300 acres of the Land of Eden to Henry.
Two and a half years after Henry Lee"s first payment to George Washington ought to have been made and six months before his last payment was due, he had made no more headway in finding $20,000 for four quarter-shares in the Dismal Swamp Company. He wrote: "all my endeavors are vain. I shall never recede from my exertions till I do accomplish the end, for no event of my life has given me more anguish." He found that conversations with Washington intensified his feelings of regret. He offered to return the quarter-shares and forfeit payments he had made. "The loss of money I am used to," he said; "the loss of mental quietude I cannot bear & pained as I am, I wish to regain tranquility." Lee resolved not to see Washington again until he could pay everything. He said he was sure he could do so in the next few months.
Aiskew Birkett, William Anderson"s partner, did some work for his former employer, Samuel Gist, in 1795. To help John Wickham pursue Gist"s suits in United States Circuit Court in Richmond, Birkett gave depositions and affidavits in London. As Gist"s former clerk, he swore under oath to the validity of accounts showing the debts Wickham sued to collect. Gist meant to miss no opportunity. As sons of the late Governor Thomas Nelson, Jr., strove to settle his indebted estate, Gist filed a claim. Nelson owed money to William Anderson & Company, but that did not mean he owed Gist. Robert Andrews, agent for Nelson"s creditors, wrote in his list of claimants: "Gist no Evid of any sort furnished." By the summer of 1795, William Anderson & Company had disbanded for the second and last time. Aiskew Birkett sent his ship Ceres Ceres to the James River in search of a cargo of tobacco. He now belonged to the firm Birkett, Sh.o.r.e & Reeves. to the James River in search of a cargo of tobacco. He now belonged to the firm Birkett, Sh.o.r.e & Reeves.
Early that year in Richmond, Nathaniel Anderson complained that his brother William"s letters from London were "Crusty & harsh." William Anderson"s health was failing. He had reason to feel bitter. Events had not gone his way. At the age of fifty-four, he was sick, while his father-in-law remained vigorous and sharp at seventy. Anderson had lived comfortably in London with his wife and niece and nephew, but he had never obtained an independent fortune from Samuel Gist. Nor had he succeeded as a merchant.
Anderson"s condition worsened during the summer. He and his wife and her sister went to Chesterfield in the hills of northern Derbyshire. There he lay "in a low state of Health" until New Year"s Day, 1796, when he died. With him died the last threat to Samuel Gist"s control of the property he had left behind in Virginia thirty years earlier-plantations, slaves, and three quarter-shares in the Dismal Swamp Company. Edward Jacquelin Smith, son of Gist"s late stepson, Joseph Smith, had died in 1794. Except for nagging from Thomas R. Rootes, son by an earlier marriage of Joseph Smith"s widow, Gist faced no challenger.
Three weeks after Anderson"s death, Gist proved his son-in-law"s will in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. He made himself "the chief, if not sole acting" executor of the estate. Its main a.s.sets were outstanding debts Virginians owed to the Old and New Concerns known as William Anderson & Company. The executors commissioned a partner in the defunct company, Henry S. Sh.o.r.e, and George Syme in Virginia to collect from debtors and remit to Gist. Within six years they sent almost 1,500 sterling. On Gist"s behalf, John Wickham won more suits in federal court. John Lyons, Gist"s attorney in Hanover County, went to court to seize forty-nine slaves, collateral for an unpaid bond. They were to be sold to satisfy Gist"s demand for more than $3,000.
Despite a financial crisis in 1797, Gist"s investments in government funds and in stocks yielded a large income in his retirement. If he read Adam Smith, he could chuckle over one sentence: "though many people have made a little money by insurance, very few have made a great fortune." Gist had bought some land in England after the American War. He now stepped up his purchases. Other moneyed men in the City transformed themselves into landed gentry; he could do so as well. His favorite holdings lay in northern Gloucestershire, in the upper division of Tewkesbury Hundred and the lower division of Kiftsgate Hundred, midway between Gloucester and Stratford-upon-Avon. Gist bought the crumbling manor house at Wormington and with it the lordship of the manor and the patronage of the parish church. The parish held about ninety people. The occupants of one farm and of six cottages in the village became his tenants. A little more than a mile from the church Gist began a new house, Wormington Grange, a two-story masonry building with bay windows. In the small fourteenth-century church, against the chancel"s north wall, near a later Tudor arch, Gist added a plain monument: Sacred to the Memory ofWILLIAM A ANDERSON, ESQR.WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE, THE 1ST DAY OF J JANUARY 1796, 1796,.
AGED 54 54 YEARS YEARS.
Later, Gist bought the lordship of the manor of Dixton, a few miles southwest of Wormington. His purchases in Gloucestershire amounted to 2,180 acres.
Aiskew Birkett died in September 1798. His sister, Elizabeth Birkett, was his executrix and heir. His estate had a right to one-fourth of the money owed to William Anderson & Company, collected under the direction of Samuel Gist. Remittances kept coming from Virginia, eventually nearing a total of 4,000. Gist once paid Elizabeth Birkett 150. Three other times he gave her small sums totaling 50. Through a broker, formerly Aiskew Birkett"s clerk, she repeatedly pressed Gist to make further payments. He refused, saying that she had not yet settled with her late brother"s creditors. Gist would "retain the Money in his Hands until some Arrangements had been made."
In the same year that Aiskew Birkett died, William Anderson"s brothers and sisters brought suit against Gist in the High Court of Chancery in Richmond. They accused him of violating Anderson"s will by neither paying the estate for the plantations Anderson had bought at Gist"s instructions nor returning these plantations to the estate. Instead, he still cultivated them for his own profit. John Wickham filed Gist"s answer with the court in 1799. He said that one of the plantations belonged to Mary Anderson, not William Anderson, and that the estate of William Anderson owed money to Gist.
The treaty between Britain and the United States ratified in 1795 provided for establishment of a joint commission on debts owed by Americans to Britons. The commission met only once and resolved nothing. But in 1798 and 1799 it compiled a register of claims. These included a memorial and claim from Samuel Gist, with a list of 545 debts for which he sought recompense.
A young Virginian, Littleton Dennis Teackle, traveled in England in 1799. His father, John Teackle, had done business with William Anderson & Company. The son carried letters of introduction, one from George Syme to Gist. Gist invited Teackle to dine at Number 37, Gower Street on Sunday, May 26. There he met Mary Anderson and young Maria Anderson with two other women. Teackle enjoyed their sprightly conversation around the silver-laden dinner table. He had heard that his host"s yearly income was 10,000. Gist, he noted, liked to let people see that he was rich. Teackle had been told that he was "parsimonious," but the old man did not stint himself. Soon after dinner the ladies withdrew, and Teackle and Gist chatted for several hours. That night Teackle wrote in his diary: "upon the whole I form"d no very favorable oppinion of him. I thought I perceiv"d more of design design in his countenance, than any person I had been in company with in England." in his countenance, than any person I had been in company with in England."
In subsequent months Gist bought from the d.u.c.h.ess of Dorset the manor of Hardwick in Oxfordshire, as well as several farms in Neithrop Parish. He acquired more than 1,000 acres in the county. As leases on these fields of wheat, barley, turnips, and beans expired, he raised rents.
Managers of the Dismal Swamp Company summoned their partners to gather in Suffolk for a "full meeting" on October 15, 1796. A meeting took place on Friday, November 18, but only the managers attended: William Nelson, Jr., Alexander Macaulay, and John Jameson. They approved the company"s contract with Thomas Shepherd and purchase of sawmills as an aid to the company"s drive to profit from timber. They authorized Macaulay to hire an overseer for Dismal Plantation and to buy six young male slaves. They resolved to invest $10,000 in United States government bonds bearing 6 percent interest. And they declared that no single partner-meaning, Alexander Macaulay-would be allowed to draw money from the company"s a.s.sets. Macaulay signed the minutes. Three weeks later, he made his largest withdrawal, more than $8,000.
John Driver died in the last week of April 1797. To succeed him as the company"s resident agent in Suffolk, the managers chose his son-in-law, Thomas Swepson, a resident of Nansemond County and surveyor of customs for the Port of Suffolk. Thomas Shepherd still supervised hired slaves felling trees and cutting shingles.
The company needed to exclude trespa.s.sers who were stealing trees. It must repair its mills and cut ca.n.a.ls to float logs to them. In Richmond, Alexander Macaulay met a newly arrived young English architect and engineer, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who knew about "the old dismal Swamp Company," as he called it. On a visit to Mount Vernon in the past summer, Latrobe had heard George Washington give "a detailed account" of it, saying that he "gave up all further hopes of any thing effectual being done for their interests, and sold out his shares in the Proprietary at a price very inadequate to their real value." In the first week of June 1797, Latrobe accepted Macaulay"s invitation to work for the company. On Tuesday, June 6, the large Macaulay and the slender, curly-haired Latrobe entered a stagecoach and headed down the James River, toward the Dismal Swamp. Their traveling companions were two Frenchmen who spoke no English, an actress, Margaretta West, and a Virginian who started drinking mint juleps at six-thirty in the morning.
Macaulay commissioned Latrobe to resurvey the company"s tract and to cut a lane around the edge of its 40,000 acres, clearly marking a boundary. He was also to select the courses of ca.n.a.ls leading to the sawmills. At dawn on Friday, June 9, Macaulay, Latrobe, and Thomas Swepson left Suffolk. After breakfast at Dismal Plantation, they went into the swamp, accompanied by two black men. The group walked along the narrow ca.n.a.l or ditch leading to Lake Drummond until the water in it became deep enough for canoes. "Millions of Muskitoes surrounded us," Latrobe said. Trees, both "immensely large" and "younger and smaller" enveloped them-gums, maples, elms, bald cypress, and white cedar-and, as they advanced, stands of bamboo grew taller and thicker. Latrobe was impressed by Lake Drummond, its silent immobility ringed by "the most gigantic trees in the world." He said of the lake: "It absorbs or expells every other idea, and creates a quiet solemn pleasure, that I never felt from any similar circ.u.mstance." On their way back to Dismal Plantation, the five men were drenched by a thunderstorm.
Over the weekend and in the following week Latrobe and Macaulay visited the mills. Latrobe met Thomas Shepherd and identified repairs the mills needed. He stayed in Suffolk for two weeks, then went to Norfolk to order tools and supplies. Joining him, Macaulay brought a letter from Governor James Wood. Latrobe had submitted designs for a new state penitentiary. Governor Wood wrote that these had been accepted; Latrobe must return to Richmond at once. Macaulay released him from his engagement with the Dismal Swamp Company. Latrobe later returned $200 he had received from the company, and he refunded the cost of his expenses in Norfolk and in traveling to Richmond, another $100. As the summer"s work on the penitentiary advanced, he encountered criticism from the superintendent of construction and received little cash from the state. He lived in a "Doghole," paying high rent. Looking back on his lost opportunity to work for the Dismal Swamp Company, he said: "I had a choice of difficulties, & I fear I chose wrongly."
Two months after Latrobe left the swamp for Norfolk, Thomas Shepherd sent Alexander Macaulay an estimate of the cost of rebuilding his sawmill. Macaulay had other things on his mind. He owed a great deal of money, almost $13,400 of it to the Dismal Swamp Company, and his creditors" suits moved through the courts. Knowing that his a.s.sets would not suffice, he tried to protect some of his creditors by executing a deed of trust on November 15, 1797. Those named in the deed were to have first rights to the proceeds of his land, his shares in the Dismal Swamp Ca.n.a.l Company, his two quarter-shares in the Dismal Swamp Company, his livestock, vessels, household goods, and slaves, all held by trustees. Among the preferred creditors were his brother-in-law, Francis Jerdone, and John Jameson, who understood, without anything in writing, that 5,000 Virginia currency owed to him included Macaulay"s debt to the Dismal Swamp Company.
Benjamin Henry Latrobe, pa.s.sing the winter of early 1798 in his ugly, expensive rooms, worrying about money, tried to cheer himself by writing a play, a comedy. He had drawn designs for a new theater which the impresario Thomas West hoped to build in Richmond. In the old theater, West"s company performed Latrobe"s comedy on January 20, 1798, as a benefit for one of West"s actresses, Mrs. J. J. Green. An Apology An Apology was a satire on Alexander Hamilton and his newspaper ally "Peter Porcupine"-that is, William Cobbett, represented by the character Skunk. Latrobe"s t.i.tle alluded to Hamilton"s recent admission that he had had s.e.xual relations with Maria Reynolds, a married woman whose husband tried to blackmail him while he served as secretary of the treasury. Apologizing for adultery, Hamilton denied that he was guilty of malfeasance or speculation. Latrobe intended his comedy for the friends of "liberty and morality." His audience showed charity, but the performance was a fiasco. The actors had not learned their lines, and the evening"s biggest laugh came when five actors stood on stage, none knowing what to say next, whereupon all walked off. Latrobe said: "You may guess at my feelings." Three days later, after a bad performance of Shakespeare"s was a satire on Alexander Hamilton and his newspaper ally "Peter Porcupine"-that is, William Cobbett, represented by the character Skunk. Latrobe"s t.i.tle alluded to Hamilton"s recent admission that he had had s.e.xual relations with Maria Reynolds, a married woman whose husband tried to blackmail him while he served as secretary of the treasury. Apologizing for adultery, Hamilton denied that he was guilty of malfeasance or speculation. Latrobe intended his comedy for the friends of "liberty and morality." His audience showed charity, but the performance was a fiasco. The actors had not learned their lines, and the evening"s biggest laugh came when five actors stood on stage, none knowing what to say next, whereupon all walked off. Latrobe said: "You may guess at my feelings." Three days later, after a bad performance of Shakespeare"s Richard III Richard III, the theater burned down.
Thomas Shepherd felt the lack of Latrobe"s services in protecting the Dismal Swamp Company"s boundary. Some residents of Nansemond and Norfolk counties grew bolder in stealing timber from the company"s tract in 1798. Among them were men who had claimed land in the swamp, then lost it to the company in the new survey for the grant of 1784. They said the t.i.tle was not good, offering as proof the company"s failure to stop them from taking trees. They "bid defiance" to the Dismal Swamp Company and to Shepherd, pa.s.sing "boldly over the line, a running main bridges to & fro as they think proper" and "cutting and a Slaying the Timber in a most horrid manner." Shepherd knew who they were: William and John Bartee, the b.u.t.t brothers, Willis Wilkins, and others. He reported to the company"s managers: "I prepared to drive them off, but my friends advised me to desist, otherwise I would certainly be killd, as they so frequently threaten my life." There was money in shingles and lumber. Although wartime seizures of vessels on the high seas interrupted trade with the West Indies, construction of new buildings in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and the Federal City kept up demand. Shingles sold for $10 per thousand. Shepherd wrote: "Every persons, Owners of the lower Swamps is Opposed to the Dismal Swamp Company I believe they hate me upon the Earth."
Writing to an English friend in May 1798, Alexander Macaulay said that he long had been ill. He could neither defend himself against his creditors" lawsuits nor pay judgments issued against him. In the summer a writ of execution hung over his property, threatening him with a general auction. His trustees hoped to save his plantation and slaves. Before the sheriff came to carry out the court"s order, Macaulay died.
After the estate auction, Elizabeth Jerdone Macaulay felt bitter. She had not received protection and consideration of the kind extended to Joanna Tucker under similar circ.u.mstances thirty years earlier. She wished to keep the plantation, livestock, furniture, and tools, as well as slaves "for the crop that is now growing." To raise money to "get this burthen of Debt Settled," she hoped to sell some of her late husband"s land, including his two quarter-shares in the Dismal Swamp Company and his lots in Hanover-Town, the late Mann Page"s city that refused to grow. But that property did not attract bidders, while property she expected to save with a token bid attracted compet.i.tors. "Negroe buyers" with rolls of cash "bid on every Negroe." She bought nineteen and lost four. Neighbors in Gloucester and York counties, "who had profest the greatest friendship for poor Mr. Macaulay," bid against her for furniture, livestock, and slaves, "expecting I should be discouraged & give over." At a cost of almost 1,300 she kept the plantation intact. The only concession to her was a low price for the house and lots in York Town, "which was sold rather in a private manner."
Just before Christmas, William Nelson, Jr., John Jameson, and John Brown held another meeting of the Dismal Swamp Company. They resolved to put its accounts in order and to sort out Macaulay"s land transactions. They believed that the company ought to buy Macaulay"s two quarter-shares if Thomas Swepson said that "the funds in hand will justify it." Elizabeth Jerdone Macaulay thought she had made a sale. Eight months later, however, she had received no money. Through a friend, she asked to be paid. The company"s managers were still considering the purchase ten years later.
Swepson advised the managers to combine Jericho Mills west of the company"s tract with a purchase of 600 acres adjoining the tract"s western boundary-Lemuel Ridd.i.c.k"s Paradise Plantation, for sale at a price of $3,000. They could take oak and "excellent pine" from Paradise Plantation, then cut a ca.n.a.l through it, connecting Jericho Mills to thick stands of white cedar in the swamp"s interior, drawing water from Lake Drummond to float logs to the mill. Swepson tempted them with images of tree trunks 6 feet in diameter rising as much as 70 feet above the ground before putting out their lowest branches. The managers followed his advice in 1799.
On the eastern edge of the company"s land, trespa.s.sers worked faster. Thomas Shepherd guessed that each month they were cutting 100,000 shingles, which they sold to George Cap.r.o.n, contractor for the Dismal Swamp Ca.n.a.l Company, the same man diverting water away from Shepherd"s mill pond. As a further insult, Cap.r.o.n built "a very Elegant Saw Mill" along Deep Creek at the ca.n.a.l"s northern end. Trespa.s.sers also were "selling the Timber to people by the thousand which makes prodigious destruction." The company"s hired slaves, working the western reaches of the swamp, cut shingles, but in the spring much was lost in a fire set by "incendiaries." Nevertheless, Thomas Swepson invested in the company"s future. After Chancellor Wythe decided in David Meade"s favor in his suit against the estate of Justice James Wilson, Meade"s two quarter-shares were each sold for 1,000 Virginia currency, one to Swepson and one to Richard Willing Byrd, brother of Charles Willing Byrd. They paid the same price George Washington had charged Henry Lee.
In the last year of his presidency, a letter from Liverpool reached George Washington. It came from Edward Rushton, a poet and tavern-keeper. Rushton had served as mate in a slave ship years earlier, an experience that turned him against slavery and cost him his sight in an outbreak of ophthalmia. He had opposed Britain"s war against American independence. In his letter, which was written for publication, he praised Washington both for his services in the Revolution and for his voluntary retirement from power; but he then went on to reproach the president for continuing to own slaves. Having "conquered under the banners of freedom" and having served as "the first magistrate of a free people," he ought to serve liberty. "Your friend Jefferson" Rushton wrote, "has endeavoured to show that the negroes are an inferior order of being, but surely you will not have recourse to such a subterfuge. Your slaves, it may be urged, are well treated-That I deny-man never can be well treated who is deprived of his rights."
Rushton could hardly have contrived a series of remarks better suited to irritate Washington. People said that he disliked slavery and wished it to end. "If your feelings be actually repugnant to slavery," Rushton argued, "then are you more culpable than the callous-hearted planter, who laughs at what he calls the pityful whining of the abolitionists, because he believes slavery to be justifiable; while you persevere in a system which your conscience tells you to be wrong." Having thus impeached Washington"s integrity, Rushton then attributed this lapse to a base motive. "Now, Sir, are you sure that the unwillingness which you have shewn to liberate your negroes, does not proceed from some lurking pecuniary considerations? If this be the case, and there are those who firmly believe it is, then there is no flesh left in your heart; and present reputation, future fame, and all that is estimable among the virtuous, are, for a few thousand pieces of paltry yellow dirt, irremediably renounced." Publishing his letter in Liverpool just before Washington left the presidency, Rushton added a note, telling his readers that "a few weeks ago it was returned under cover, without a syllable in reply."
George and Martha Washington owned 316 slaves in 1799, dispersed among five Mount Vernon farms. This was twice as many as the farms needed, he said. "To sell the overplus I cannot, because I am principled against this kind of traffic in the human species. To hire them out, is almost as bad, because they could not be disposed of in families to any advantage, and to disperse the families I have an aversion. What then is to be done? Something must or I shall be ruined." In the four years since he had advertised his lands for sale, Washington had received from purchasers a total of $50,000. That sum, he said, "has scarcely been able to keep me afloat." He must consider establishing more plantations on his land elsewhere to make his slaves productive. He said of his retirement: "A mind that has been constantly on the stretch since the year 1753, with but short intervals, and little relaxation, requires rest, and composure." At Mount Vernon these still eluded him.
Washington wrote a new will in July 1799. It opened with the customary injunction to pay his debts, "of which there are but few, and none of magnitude." Then came the major bequest to his wife of a life interest in all his estate. After these, his first concern was the future of his slaves. The terms of the dower right by which Martha Washington inherited her first husband"s slaves and their descendants prevented George Washington from freeing them lawfully. He said that he "earnestly wished" to free all slaves he owned. He thought that doing so would "excite the most painful sensations, if not disagreeable consequences" among the people inherited by his wife, owing to "intermixture by Marriages" among the two groups. His will directed that his slaves, 124 of the 316, be freed upon Martha Washington"s death, with provision for support of the old and infirm and with tenancy or apprenticeship for the others. He added: "I do hereby expressly forbid the Sale, or transportation out of the said Commonwealth, of any Slave I may die possessed of, under any pretence whatsoever."
The will ordered the sale of his property other than Mount Vernon, dividing proceeds among members of his and his wife"s families. He added to the will a "Schedule of property...with discriptive, and explanatory notes." Again and again his notes read "valuable," "extremely valuable," "no richer or more valuable land in all that Region." For tracts sold by the estate within three years of his death, his estimates proved reasonable, even conservative. Not all of his property found buyers, however, and his executors heeded the will"s advice "not to be precipitate" in selling at a lower price. Washington defended his longtime confidence in the Dismal Swamp. He said of the land east of Suffolk bought jointly with Fielding Lewis and Dr. Thomas Walker: "comprehends part of the rich Dismal Swamp; is capable of great improvement; and from its situation must become extremely valuable." He set its worth at $8 per acre. Long afterward, Bushrod Washington noted: "5$ is the best offer the Executors have had for this land."
After contracting a severe inflammation of the throat and submitting to unhelpful medical treatment, George Washington died on December 14, 1799. Fourteen years later, Walter Jones, a Virginian appointed United States attorney for the District of Columbia by President Thomas Jefferson, wrote an essay on a "perilous" topic: George Washington. Jones saw flaws in both political parties. Federalist polemical writers were worse than Republicans, he thought, in "gross, brutal, and unsparing...calumny & detraction." He wished to rescue Washington from their embrace. In his essay, sent to Thomas Jefferson for comment, Jones tried "taking Genl Washington on my shoulders, to bear him harmless through the federal Coalition." Jefferson praised his endeavor and described Washington"s bearing and demeanor, the workings of his mind, his integrity. "He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man." If pressed to name the strongest feature in Washington"s character, Jefferson would choose, he wrote, "prudence, never acting until every consideration was maturely weighed." And, in promoting development in America, Washington was, Jefferson recalled, "liberal in contributions to whatever promised utility; but frowning and unyielding on all visionary projects."
In the last year of the Revolutionary War, the General a.s.sembly of Virginia made private emanc.i.p.ation of slaves easier. About 15,000 black people eventually were freed under the new law. But emanc.i.p.ation on the scale undertaken by George Washington remained rare. In 1790, Virginia held about 306,000 black people, of whom almost 13,000 were free. Five years later, in connection with his lectures on law and policy at the College of William and Mary, St. George Tucker began to think about general emanc.i.p.ation in Virginia. He said that he would "endeavour to do justice to the rights of human nature, and to banish deep-rooted, nay, almost innate, prejudices." But he acknowledged that this was "a task, perhaps, beyond the power of human nature to accomplish." He suspected that continuation of slavery was "now perhaps unavoidable." Nevertheless, he offered the General a.s.sembly his proposal.
Tucker published it in Philadelphia in the fall of 1796. It opened eloquently: "Whilst America hath been the land of promise to Europeans, and their descendants, it hath been the vale of death to millions of the wretched sons of Africa." His system was complex, and his approach cautious. Slaves would be freed gradually; blacks would still be held to forced labor in their youth; former slaves would not have the same civil rights enjoyed by whites. Slavery would last another one hundred years. Tucker sought to end it, yet avoid the fate of whites in Saint-Domingue. "The calamities which have lately spread like a contagion through the West India Islands afford a solemn warning to us of the dangerous predicament in which we stand." Oppression invited war of blacks against whites, but so did the idea that blacks could be equal to whites. Tucker hoped to end one danger without running into the other.
He sent a copy of his proposal to the House of Delegates and a copy to the Senate. From the Senate he received bland congratulations. In the House he met sharp criticism, though he doubted that anyone had read the doc.u.ment before denouncing it. Some delegates wished to send his pamphlet back to him; the House voted to table it. Tucker said he did not have "the smallest hope of advancing a cause so dear to me as the abolition of slavery. Actual suffering will one day, perhaps, open the oppressors" eyes. Till that happens, they will shut their ears against argument."
The General a.s.sembly heard from some const.i.tuents on the subject of emanc.i.p.ation. A pet.i.tion from 214 citizens of Mecklenburg County said that a right to own slaves was part of the liberty won in the Revolution and secured by the new American government. An attack on that right was an attack on America: "a very subtle & daring Attempt is on Foot to dispossess us of a very important Part of our Property. An Attempt made by the Enemies of our Country, Tools of the British Administration, and supported by certain Men among us of considerable Weight, to effect our Destruction by Subtlety & Craft." The text cited scriptural authority in defense of slavery and argued that emanc.i.p.ation would bring poverty and ruin to whites, famine and death to infants and the aged among blacks. It would lead to "the Horrors of all the Rapes, Robberies, Murders, and Outrages, which a vast Mult.i.tude of unprincipled, unpropertied, vindictive, and remorseless Banditti are capable of perpetrating." The pet.i.tioners also disapproved of the new law facilitating private emanc.i.p.ation and asked that it be repealed. They said: "many of the Slaves liberated by the said Act, have been guilty of Thefts, & Outrages, Insolence & Violences."
Thomas Swepson"s father Richard Swepson signed the pet.i.tion. Familiar names appeared among the signers-the same men who had irritated Robert Munford twenty years earlier by demanding harsher punishment of Scottish storekeepers-names such as Reuben Vaughan, Philip Poindexter, Sr., Philip Poindexter, Jr., and Joseph Royster. The pet.i.tion originally held 215 signatures, but the name of John McCann was scratched out. Next to it, Samuel Dedman wrote: "McCann is condemned a Tory and his name ought to be Erased." A friend of Britain could not be allowed to join this exposure of a British plot to destroy American liberty by freeing Virginians" slaves.
Whites learned at the end of the summer of 1800 that hundreds of slaves, especially in and near Richmond and Petersburg, had plotted an uprising. Thomas Prosser"s slave Gabriel, with help from others, recruited followers for months. He envisioned a military campaign, beginning with seizure of arms in Richmond. His brother afterward described Gabriel"s intent: "we might conquer the white people and possess ourselves of their property." On the night chosen for rendezvous and an attack on Richmond by 1,100 men-Sat.u.r.day, August 30, 1800-a severe thunderstorm dispersed or disoriented the insurrectionists. Whites discovered the plan; militiamen mobilized. Trials, thirty-five executions, and other punishments followed through September, October, and November. A letter from Richmond late in September said: "The conspiracy of the Negroes occupies all our thoughts." Two years later, another alarm led to more executions in Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, though evidence of an intent to burn Norfolk was thin. Writing from Williamsburg early in 1802, Chapman Johnson asked: "Is it not miserable, is it not shameful, is it not unworthy the character of Virginians, or of men, thus to live the unsafe trembling tyrants of an unhappy people?"
Republicans held a majority of seats in the House of Delegates in November 1799. They elected one of their own as speaker and removed the previous clerk from office "for his federal politics." On the recommendation of Thomas Jefferson, they replaced him with young William Wirt. He later wrote of those days: "You know how high parties then were-& how they hated each other." The contests were bitter during the administration of President John Adams. Federalists" hostility to France, leading to augmentation of America"s army and navy, convinced many Republicans that the administration, as a tool of Britain, wished to go to war with France. Federalists" laws and arrests directed against agents of sedition, as they called it, showed Republicans that the administration threatened to destroy liberty and self-government. After Bushrod Washington demonstrated his "zeal against the subverters of all Government," the subverters of all Government," President Adams appointed him to the Supreme Court. John Page called Federalists "the Anglo-monarchico-aristocratic Faction," supported by "british Merchants, old Tories, Speculators, & place-hunters." William Wirt knew that, by winning the clerkship, he had made enemies of the Federalists and their leader, John Marshall. This did not prevent his election to the Buchanan Spring Barbecue Club, whose members, Richmond"s leading men, gathered on summer Sat.u.r.days to eat and drink well. The rules forbade talk of politics. President Adams appointed him to the Supreme Court. John Page called Federalists "the Anglo-monarchico-aristocratic Faction," supported by "british Merchants, old Tories, Speculators, & place-hunters." William Wirt knew that, by winning the clerkship, he had made enemies of the Federalists and their leader, John Marshall. This did not prevent his election to the Buchanan Spring Barbecue Club, whose members, Richmond"s leading men, gathered on summer Sat.u.r.days to eat and drink well. The rules forbade talk of politics.
John Page, After Gilbert Stuart. Courtesy of the Henry E. Huntington Library. Page while he was governor of Virginia and his friend, Thomas Jefferson, was president of the United States.
William Nelson, Jr., did not agitate himself about the course of politics, as his friend John Page did. He rode circuit in eastern Virginia, then spent time with his daughters at Westover. Under the guidance of their grandmother, Mary Willing Byrd, and their unmarried aunt, Anne Byrd, Nelson"s four youngest daughters, as well as their half sister, were growing into "a groupe of sweet interesting girls." Nelson"s preference for the company of women and books at Westover-his love of pondering and joking, rather than "boldness and prompt.i.tude"-confirmed in some minds his reputation for "slowness, or want of power." William Wirt said that if Nelson"s mind had been "less comprehensive & fertile" and his "heart less delicate and scrupulous," he "would have made a much more distinguished figure in the public estimation than he did." After a stay in Virginia a French officer wrote: "The Americans are phlegmatic, extremely serious, always engaged in their business, and that of the state. They are with their wives only to take tea or some other drink."
John Wickham, A. Rosenthal, after Charles Balthazar Julien Fevret de Saint-Memin. Courtesy of the Henry E. Huntington Library In December 1802 the General a.s.sembly elected John Page governor. He dedicated himself to "the Republican Cause, & the const.i.tutional Independence of the State-Governments." Grateful to receive a salary, he paid his outstanding bills at stores and cleared up some of his old debts. The Pages lived more comfortably in the governor"s house in Richmond than in the mansion at Rosewell.
As Page took office, William Wirt left the clerkship of the House of Delegates to become a judge of the High Court of Chancery for eastern Virginia, sitting in Williamsburg. Contrary to his expectations when he accepted the post, Wirt moved to Williamsburg a married man. A widower, he had earlier declared his love to Elizabeth Washington Gamble, eighteen-year-old daughter of Catharine Gamble and Robert Gamble, a leading merchant in Richmond. Elizabeth returned his love, but, William said, "for certain reasons of state of state, I was discarded." In his early days in Virginia, Wirt had acquired a reputation as "a hearty good fellow" around town; but he had reformed, and in the summer of 1802 his courtship prevailed. Elizabeth and William were married on Tuesday evening, September 7.
Arriving in Williamsburg, the Wirts entered a hospitable society. Residents fond of parties held frequent b.a.l.l.s, striking visitors as "gay and extravagant." The town nevertheless slowly decayed. The value of property did not rise. St. George Tucker, wishing to speak well of the place, said: "Williamsburg has seen its worst days." Bishop James Madison rescued the statue of Lord Botetourt from its indignities. He and the professors in the college bought it from the state for $100. Removing it from the ruins of the old capitol, they set it in front of the college building. An iron plug reattached Botetourt"s head, and his lost marble nose was "scientifically "scientifically renewed." The encomiums carved into the faces of the pedestal were reunited with their subject. The suave form of the dead courtier looked down Duke of Gloucester Street, cutting "a very handsome figure indeed." This was Williamsburg"s idea of exciting news. The town"s presiding deity seemed to be the "G.o.ddess of Dullness." Even so, a Virginian who reluctantly followed her husband to the Mississippi Valley wrote home: "Williams[bur]g is Paris compared with Baton Rouge." renewed." The encomiums carved into the faces of the pedestal were reunited with their subject. The suave form of the dead courtier looked down Duke of Gloucester Street, cutting "a very handsome figure indeed." This was Williamsburg"s idea of exciting news. The town"s presiding deity seemed to be the "G.o.ddess of Dullness." Even so, a Virginian who reluctantly followed her husband to the Mississippi Valley wrote home: "Williams[bur]g is Paris compared with Baton Rouge."
St. George Tucker, A. Rosenthal, after Charles Balthazar Julien Fevret de Saint Memin. Courtesy of the Henry E. Huntington Library. Professor of law, judge, and counsellor.
William Wirt decided to resign his judgeship and return to practicing law. He thought first of moving to Kentucky. His pregnant wife wept at "the idea of such a distant, and most probably final, separation from her parents and family." He soon learned that money did not flow in Kentucky, as he had supposed. A shortage of coin led to clients" paying their legal fees with livestock. An able young attorney, Littleton Waller Tazewell, having learned law under John Wickham, invited Wirt to share his new practice and attain wealth "through the progressive prosperity of Norfolk." Wirt wrote to Governor Page, resigning from the Court of Chancery in the last week of April 1803. The Wirts left Williamsburg that summer.
Edmund Pendleton died in October 1803, at the age of eighty-two. His seat on Virginia"s Supreme Court of Appeals went to St. George Tucker in January 1804. Though Tucker continued to teach law, he resigned his professorship at the College of William and Mary. His successor was William Nelson, Jr. Working at Westover in the late summer heat, Nelson put together 115 pages of lectures "on Law and right of Nature, of Nations and in government in general." Acting as agent of the Dismal Swamp Company, he at last reached an agreement with trespa.s.sers taking timber from the swamp. The b.u.t.ts and the Bartees conceded "that many trespa.s.ses and encroachments may unintentionally heretofore have been committed." They promised to respect a newly surveyed boundary. The company released them "from all suits, actions and damages" connected with their past conduct. Nelson began lecturing on Tuesday, November 20, 1804. Seventeen days later, John Page was re-elected governor for a third and final year.
William Wirt"s ten breezy essays, thinly disguised as letters from a British spy, began to appear in The Argus The Argus just after his wife gave birth to their daughter, Laura Henrietta, namesake of Petrarch"s ideal and William Wirt"s mother. The just after his wife gave birth to their daughter, Laura Henrietta, namesake of Petrarch"s ideal and William Wirt"s mother. The Norfolk Herald Norfolk Herald started reprinting them a few weeks after the Wirts arrived in the city. The pieces attracted more attention than their author had expected. The spy commented on a range of subjects: William Byrd and rich Virginians""aristocratic" pretensions, geology, oratory, unjust treatment of Indians, and the virtues of started reprinting them a few weeks after the Wirts arrived in the city. The pieces attracted more attention than their author had expected. The spy commented on a range of subjects: William Byrd and rich Virginians""aristocratic" pretensions, geology, oratory, unjust treatment of Indians, and the virtues of The Spectator The Spectator. The pa.s.sage provoking most reaction sketched well-known Virginians, unnamed but easily recognizable: James Monroe, John Marshall, John Wickham, and Edmund Randolph. Though free from malice, these portraits did not flatter. Wirt heard that Mary Ambler Marshall "was exceedingly angry" about his description of her husband. Once one knew, as readers soon did, that the letters came from the pen of an ambitious young attorney, it was easy to guess why he chose these four. Wirt had studied most closely men who had risen to wealth (Wickham), to the nation"s highest judicial office (Marshall), or to high political office (Monroe and Randolph), beginning as attorneys. Wirt sought to detect their gifts and frailties. Exposing these with an air of condescension, he seemed to be making light of his subjects" eminence, which he privately envied. As his work in book form went into a third edition within two years, he contemplated writing a series of "lives of our Virginian revolutionary characters of eminence." If this succeeded, he said, "it will pay a just tribute of honor to the dead, will perpetuate their memory, stimulate the rising generation and present them with the best models by which to form their own characters, besides offering to myself a decent harvest of reputation and-cash!"
John Wickham did not hold a grudge against Wirt. The Letters of the British Spy The Letters of the British Spy was a slight irritant to one enjoying Wickham"s success. His practice embraced "every variety of cases"; for his legal opinion he charged a fee of $100. His offices held "a most extensive and judiciously selected library." His house became the most hospitable in Richmond: "All the world was at Mr. Wickham"s last night-and we had a profusion of rarities & dainties." Upriver from Richmond, in Goochland County, he bought part of the plantation Tuckahoe, 2,100 acres overlooking the James River. There his slaves grew wheat, corn, and oats, while he kept the best thoroughbred horses in the county. A British visitor said that Wickham"s "manners and mode of life would do honour to the most cultivated societies." was a slight irritant to one enjoying Wickham"s success. His practice embraced "every variety of cases"; for his legal opinion he charged a fee of $100. His offices held "a most extensive and judiciously selected library." His house became the most hospitable in Richmond: "All the world was at Mr. Wickham"s last night-and we had a profusion of rarities & dainties." Upriver from Richmond, in Goochland County, he bought part of the plantation Tuckahoe, 2,100 acres overlooking the James River. There his slaves grew wheat, corn, and oats, while he kept the best thoroughbred horses in the county. A British visitor said that Wickham"s "manners and mode of life would do honour to the most cultivated societies."
Wickham wrote periodically to Samuel Gist, reporting on his progress in extracting payment of old debts. In May 1803, Wickham filed a bill against the attorney general of Virginia and the state auditor in the High Court of Chancery. He demanded that the state repay to Gist profits sequestered from his Virginia plantations during the Revolutionary War and paid into the state treasury by William Anderson. Wickham"s careful search of public records yielded evidence convincing Chancellor George Wythe to rule in Gist"s favor. Wickham collected more than $7,500 in princ.i.p.al and interest. This money, less Wickham"s $750 commission, soon lay in Gist"s hands.
For eight years, beginning in May 1803, Samuel Gist enjoyed a new hobby: pursuing another claim for compensation. In the first year of Jefferson"s administration, the British and American governments concluded an agreement to settle the question of prewar debts. The United States paid Great Britain 600,000-$3,000,000-in installments to discharge all remaining private debts owed by Americans before 1776. To disburse this money among creditors, the British government appointed three commissioners: Thomas Macdonald, Henry Pye Rich, and John Guillemard. At their offices in Great Marlborough Street they acc.u.mulated rooms full of doc.u.ments-claims, with reams of evidence, seeking, in all, eight times as much money as the American government paid. Gist filed a memorial asking for 45,896 8s. This, he wrote, was the total of his debts lost as a consequence of the American War, with accrued interest.
The commissioners worked with "a.s.siduity and intelligence." If they were not cynical when they began, they soon became so. They rejected almost 80 percent of the claims. Among the papers lying before them were reports from special agents in America, men hired to investigate claims submitted by American loyalists seeking compensation for losses. In Virginia, William Waller Hening tried to verify debts in Samuel Gist"s schedule of losses. Hening found many "Suspicious Circ.u.mstances." Some debts had been paid before the war; some debtors had died before the war. For other debts, Gist had won court judgments before leaving Virginia, but debtors had absconded or turned up insolvent. These were ordinary bad debts in business in peacetime, not losses inflicted upon Gist by reason of his loyalty to the Crown. Hening reported on Gist"s claims: "some of his lists appear to be the mere sweepings of his compting room."
Gist turned eighty at the start of 1805. He enjoyed "very good health," his faculties "perfectly sound & as good as ever they were." To handle his business in the City he employed Leighton Wood, Jr., who had come to London from Virginia after working for William Anderson & Company. Gist set up Wood in offices at Number 12, Copthall Court, off Throgmorton Street, formerly the home and offices of Anthony Bacon. With safe, productive investments in land, Bank of England stock, East India Company stock, and government funds, Gist had ample leisure to pester Thomas Macdonald, Henry Pye Rich, and John Guillemard. He sent them a deposition by Leighton Wood, Jr., attesting to the solvency of his debtors in Virginia. He reminded the commissioners: "time with me is precious." But they refused to be rushed. Their deliberations went on for years. Gist wrote to them in the last week of April 1808: "I hope my time is come."
On Monday, May 9, Gist was called to Great Marlborough Street to testify under oath about his claim. The commissioners told him that ledgers he had submitted as evidence did not support his list of losses. The disparity was so obvious that they asked: "Have you examined the books which have been produced by you at this office-so as at least to know the general nature of each of them?" Gist replied: "I have-and I do not know that there is any error in them." Instead of submitting records of daily business, he had given the commissioners some journals and two ledgers, "one of which," they told him, "appears to have been in many instances recently made up." Entries in the ledgers did not match those in the journals. Where were the original records? Gist said that he might still have them somewhere, or they might have been destroyed. If he found any, he would submit them.
Then the three commissioners addressed specific entries. Gist"s representatives in Virginia had collected old debts in recent years and had sent money to Gist. Yet his books given to the commission did not deduct these payments from the losses for which he claimed compensation.
Q: How do you account for this?A: By money paid to Thos Sh.o.r.e as Collector not entered in my books.Q: Have large sums been recovered and remitted to you by Thos Sh.o.r.e, John Wickham & others in payment partly of the debts claimed on & partly of others?A: Yes.Q: The Board observe that there is no account in your Le[d]gers produced, for Thos Sh.o.r.e later than June 1782. Have those remittances been subsequent to that period?A: Yes.Q: How does it happen that no account is to be found in your Le[d]gers of those remittances?A: The Books have lain by & no entries of such credits or remittances have been made, but accounts have been rendered of the payments made to them.
To close their questioning, the commissioners asked why fifty folios had been inserted into Ledger Number 1. Gist said that the volume had been filled with entries and needed more folios. The commissioners noted that entries in the fifty new folios did not correspond to the ledger"s original index.
Q: How do you account for this?A: By supposing it a mistake in the Index.
The commissioners had no more questions.
Samuel Gist went home to Gower Street unhappy. He was not accustomed to this sort of treatment. He protested to the commissioners several times in the weeks after his testimony. He said that he felt "Hurt at your repeated observations at the defective state of the Accounts." He a.s.sured them: "I would not for all the Money in England lay a single Accot. before you that I knew there was an error in." He reminded them that he was no ordinary memorialist trying to wheedle the commission into doing him a kindness. "I trust my reputation stands as high as any Merchant"s in London exceptg. none." He sent them some letters from Thomas Sh.o.r.e, just found, he said, among his papers. He promised to render a full account of any further remittances from Virginia. In July, Gist wrote: "I should hate myself if I did not act by the nicest principles of Justice, Honesty & Honor in all my transactions." Two days later he returned to the offices in Great Marlborough Street. He waited for ninety minutes but did not see the commissioners. They had found another remittance of more than 300 which he had received without deducting it from his claim. He attributed his lapse to "the almost total decay of my memory."
In the following year, after receiving a