The law on the sea. He was that, and that very morning the people of Williamsburg had had a very dramatic demonstration of the fact, as fifteen men were marched to the gibbet set up on the tidal flats of the James River and hanged by the neck until dead.
It was just two years before that an Act of Assembly had given the colonies the right to try men for piracy, rather than transport the accused to London, and Nicholson had leapt at that chance, for he hated piracy with a nearly religious zeal. A court of oyer and terminer had been appointed, a jury sworn in, and the men captured on the beach on Smith Island brought up on charges for their crimes.
It had not been a lengthy trial.
From the start of the thing it seemed unlikely that the men would be found innocent, even if the evidence against them had been less overwhelming. But as it happened, there were a few mariners in the tidewater whose ships had been taken and plundered by the accused, and they provided a most damning testimony. That, combined with what Marlowe had to tell and the evidence found aboard the Patricia Clark, was more than enough to find them all guilty.
The three youngest among them were given life in prison in consideration of their youth. A fourth managed to convince the jury that he had been forced against his will to join the pirates-a not uncommon occurrence-and he had been set free.
The rest had been sentenced to die.
Sheriff Witsen had his orders. “You are to hang the said Pyrates upon a Gibbet to be executed by you for that purpose up by the neck until they be dead, dead, dead…”
And that was what he had done, before an enthralled crowd of four hundred men, women, and children who lined the banks of the James River. It took two hours to kill them all. The people gasped and shook their heads, pointed to the swinging bodies, showed their children what became of those who did not mind their parents.
It had been a high time for Marlowe, who was once more the center of attention. All of the great men of the tidewater made a point to congratulate him again, to be seen in company with him. Governor Nicholson sat by his side for the duration of the thing. The only thing missing to complete his happiness was Elizabeth, but she had told him, in a tone of disgust, that she had no stomach for such things and would not attend.
Bickerstaff had kindly waited until the end of the day to inform him of what had happened to the tobacco crop during his absence.
They sat in silence for a long moment, Marlowe and Bickerstaff and King James. Marlowe could feel the anger receding again, receding for good. In its place, an objective view of the situation. “It’s damned awkward, you know,” he said at last. “We shall have no profit from the plantation this year. I’ll have to pay the hands out of pocket, as well as buy all of our supplies.”
Of course, he had taken from the pirates three times what the crop would have fetched, and hoped to do more of the same, but he did not care to tell Bickerstaff as much. Still, he had hoped to use the crop to explain his sudden increase in wealth. Now he would have to be more circumspect about spending the money.
But those considerations were nothing compared to the great insult he had suffered at the Wilkensons’ hands. What they did was beyond the pale, and more so because it was
dressed in the guise of law enforcement. It could not go unanswered.
“You know, Tom,” Bickerstaff looked up from the table, “I’m not one for vengeance-it is the Lord’s domain, not ours. Nor do I care to see this thing go on. But setting your people free is one of the most decent things you have ever done, and it was their profit, innocents that they are, that the Wilkensons destroyed, as well as yours. It grieves me to see them get away with such egregious behavior.”
“It grieves me as well.”
“Yes, well, it occurs to me that in your position as captain of the guardship, your duty is not just to chase pirates. It is also your duty to enforce His Majesty’s trade and navigation laws.”
That was absolutely true. Marlowe had all but forgotten that part of it, which was no surprise since he had never intended to enforce them. There was no profit in it. Waste of time. What was more, he intended to raise his stock among the planters and aristocrats of the tidewater. Levying fines on those very people, making them obey the law, would accomplish little to that end.
Marlowe stared out the window, pondering Bickerstaff’s oblique suggestion. The Wilkensons could work the laws ashore to their own advantage, but he, Marlowe, was the law on the sea.
“You are quite right, Bickerstaff, quite right,” Marlowe said at last, and smiled for the first time since hearing the news. “I have been shamefully negligent in my duty. If George and Jacob Wilkenson will keep an eye on the quality of the colony’s tobacco, and so selflessly defend the good name of the tidewater planters, then it is only fair that I should do the same.”
Chapter 18
ONCE A year the great fleet of merchant ships from England and the colonies assembled in Hampton Roads to take on board the eighty thousand or so hogshead casks containing the year’s tobacco crop from Virginia and Maryland. It took nearly one hundred and fifty ships to carry it all, and the duty on that crop, when it was unloaded in England, would yield the government ?300,000 sterling.
The government was thus highly motivated to see that it got there.
For that purpose, the Plymouth Prize, with her clean and tight bottom, fresh rigging, new sails, and now enthusiastic crew, dropped down from Point Comfort and took up her station, anchored to windward of the fleet. She would escort the tobacco ships one hundred leagues from land, through the cordon of seagoing vultures that hovered around the Capes, and out into the deep water where they would be protected by the vastness of the ocean.
One hundred leagues from Land’s End in England, on the other side of the Atlantic, another ship of the Royal Navy would rendezvous with the fleet and escort it to London, protecting it from the dangers lurking in the English Channel. And thus the great wealth rising from the earth of the Crown Colonies poured into Old England, and the taxes on that wealth poured into the government that had organized the whole affair.
And His Majesty’s naval representative in the colony, the man who exercised ultimate authority over the fleet once it had passed beyond the purview of Governor Nicholson, was one Thomas Marlowe, Esq., Master of HMS Plymouth Prize.
He was all but laughing with anticipation as he clambered up the side of the Wilkenson Brothers.
The Brothers was the merchant vessel owned by the Wilkensons, one of the few families wealthy enough to ship their tobacco in their own bottom. Few planters owned ships. Most had to contract independent merchantmen to carry their crop.
The Wilkenson Brothers was a big ship for a merchantman, and well armed. Indeed, as far as size and firepower was concerned, she was more powerful than the Plymouth Prize, and she would have been quite able to see to her own defense if the Wilkensons had shipped enough sailors to simultaneously sail the vessel and fight her.
But they had not, because they did not care to spend that much money, and because they would never have found that many seamen even if they had wanted to. There were precious few qualified mariners to go around, and each vessel had just enough men to sail her, and not one more.
Marlowe stepped through the gangway and onto the deck, stepped aside to make way for Bickerstaff, directly behind him, and the dozen or so armed and dangerous-looking men from the Plymouth Prize who were following him.
George Wilkenson was aboard, as was his father, just as Marlowe had hoped they would be. He was staging the show for their benefit. They had been conferring with the master of the vessel up until the moment they spotted the Plymouth Prize’s long boat heading toward them. Now the three men stood by the main fife rail, an early frost in their eyes, arms folded, awaiting an explanation of this most unwelcome intrusion.