The Whiskey Rebels (62 page)

January 1792

I
t was early evening. Having already eaten my dinner, I was in my room alone, reading quietly and sipping at a glass of watered wine, when my landlady knocked at the door. I had a visitor below, but he was of the sort she could not admit to her house, lest she receive complaints from the other tenants. I immediately apologized that she should be troubled by such a person and descended the stairs. I remained calm in my demeanor, though in truth I was very anxious, for I feared my visitor might be one of the whiskey boys, having encountered some trouble dire enough to risk visiting me in my home.

I knew not if I should be relieved or dismayed to find Mr. Reynolds on my stoop, leaning against the stone rail and spitting tobacco juice into the street. He looked at me, grinned, and took off his hat. “A moment of your time, Mrs. Maycott.”

“I cannot imagine it would be anything but a moment wasted.”

“No need to be so harsh to a man come maybe to help you,” he said. “Maybe, I don’t know, but I got a feeling I might. You’ve seen enough of me, I think, to know I’m loyal to no one and nothing. If it pays, that’s all I care for, so here’s a chance for me to make some money, if I know you right.”

“Know me right about what?”

“About Captain Saunders. He stands against Mr. Duer and so do you.”

“You misunderstand me if you think I’m not Mr. Duer’s friend.”

“And you misunderstand me if you think I trouble myself one way or t’other. I work for Duer, true, but he ain’t no friend of mine. And you forget what I know already, so do you want to help Saunders, or do you want to leave him where he is?”

“Where is he?”

“Where he can’t get out,” Reynolds said, “and at Pearson’s mercy, which ain’t a great place for him.”

“Are you telling me he’s somehow been abducted?”

“Not somehow. I helped capture him, and now I’m willing to help you set him free, if you want to pay for what I know.”

“You were paid by Pearson to abduct him, and now you wish to be paid to free him?”

“Clever, ain’t it?”

I would not comment on that point. “Where is he?”

“Can’t tell you that.”

I had, perhaps, erred in making Saunders so vital to my plans, for things with him were coming undone rapidly. I had only just received word from his slave that he had been forced to break with Saunders. It appeared that Saunders had freed Leonidas without bothering to tell him, and Leonidas believed that he could no longer stay by Saunders’s side. His logic was that if he did not respond with appropriate resentment, Saunders would begin to grow suspicious. It was perhaps true, but hardly convenient.

Leonidas had assured me their rupture would in no way interfere with Saunders’s ability to thwart Duer. His capture by Pearson, however, was another matter. If Saunders was tucked away in some basement or garret somewhere, he would not be able to act against Duer in the morning, and nothing right now was more important than keeping Duer from taking control of the Million Bank. If he had the bank’s credit at his disposal, he could conceivably be too powerful to be stopped, and we would not only have failed, we would have aided our enemy in achieving a wealth and power never before conceived of. It would not stand.

“How much?” I asked.

“Twenty dollars.”

“Agreed.”

“Too quickly agreed, in my opinion. Fifty dollars.”

“I don’t like you very much, Mr. Reynolds.”

He shrugged. “Nobody seems to. But in the end, they pay me.”

R
eynolds informed me that I would need the help of another man in retrieving Saunders, so we stopped by Dalton’s boardinghouse and he joined our little party. Next, Reynolds led us north to a deserted pier, one abused and abandoned by the British during the war. Underneath it we found a diabolical little cage, and therein was Captain Saunders, sitting against the far wall, his arms folded. A chain and picked lock lay at the door, a scattering of abandoned ropes lay strewn in the sand.

“I told Pearson it was a mistake to leave Saunders unattended. Look at him.”

“I’m still imprisoned,” he observed, his tone dry.

“Not for long, eh?” Reynolds said. “I’ve brung these folks to offer up their services in freeing you.”

Saunders looked at us but did not move. “Freeing me? And not, let us say, killing me, which I should very much object to?”

I could hardly be surprised at his suspicion, and had he known to what extent I hoped to manipulate him, I could not doubt his anger; even so, it pained me—surprisingly—that he should be so suspicious. “Hardly, Captain. I have told you before that I believe we both stand for the same things.”

“What about him?” He gestured with his chin toward Dalton. “He abused me and threatened me outside the Statehouse. He told me a sharpshooter would murder me if I did not act as he wished.”

“There’s no point in holding a grudge, lad,” Dalton said. “Perhaps this rescue will even things for us.”

“Mr. Dalton did not yet know you to be an honorable man.” I had anticipated certain concerns on Captain Saunders’s part, and I’d troubled myself to construct some plausible stories during the journey here. “We believed you one of Duer’s men at the time. Only later did we understand our error. Come, let’s get you out of there, and I shall tell you everything on the way back to your room.”

Mr. Dalton and Reynolds both planted their feet firmly in the earth and grabbed hold of the bars of the door. Captain Saunders bent over, gripped hold of two bars slightly beneath their positions, and pushed. The door moved slowly but steadily, and in a few seconds was open wide enough for the captain to slip out with relative ease. As we walked to the carriage, he maintained a silent if agreeable demeanor, as though there were nothing unusual in our little outing, but I watched his eyes. Even in the dark he it was plain that he scanned each of us slowly and carefully, taking full measure of our moves, weighing our intents. I don’t know that I would have made an effort to manipulate him had I understood him to be quite so vigilant, quite so clever.

When we reached our transport, I asked him, if he would not object, to ride alone with me in the carriage, and when he assented I sent Reynolds and Dalton up to ride with the coachman. Dalton would understand, and Reynolds was being well paid for his discomfort.

Once we were seated, he turned to me. “Reynolds works for Duer, for Pearson, and for you?”

“Reynolds will work for who will pay him. He took money from Pearson to imprison you, and then came immediately to me because he believed I would pay for your release.”

“Perhaps it is time you told me why you cared to pay for my release.”

“I thought we were friends,” I said. “It is no more than I would do for any friend.”

“Please, Mrs. Maycott, do not attempt to manipulate me. How do you know the big Irishman? Dalton, you called him.”

“I know him from the West, and I am proud to call him my friend as well. He and I are patriots, Captain. Just as I believe you do, we stand against Duer, who is a vile man whose ambitions will undo the country if he is not checked. He has already stolen from the nation. Is he now to be allowed to bankrupt it?”

“Stolen? What do you mean?”

I had held on to this little bit of knowledge, but now seemed a good time to use it. Save something too long, and it becomes worthless. If, despite all that had happened to him, Saunders was still to attempt to thwart Duer tomorrow, I would need to use everything I could muster. “Before the ratification of the Constitution, Duer served as director on what was then called the Board of Treasury. It was a powerful position and he was a trusted man, yet he abused that trust. He procured for himself $236,000, which he has never returned.”

Saunders said nothing for a moment. “You have proof?”

“It can be proved,” I said, “though I can offer you no documentary evidence. I doubt not that Hamilton could prove it, had he the will, but of course he is Duer’s lapdog.”

I knew that Saunders disagreed and my accusation irritated him, but he was careful not to let himself be distracted. “Why did Dalton—and I presume you—wish to keep me from searching for Pearson?”

“Because of Mrs. Pearson,” I answered. “Duer’s men were threatening her to keep her quiet. Duer wanted Pearson’s money invested in his schemes, and he feared that if Pearson was apprehended by Treasury men, he would be forced to repay his loan rather than lose more money in Duer’s projects. I could not risk harm to Mrs. Pearson.” These were more lies, but I could not tell him the truth: that we had all along manipulated him, hooked him like a fish and pulled him where we liked.

“Many ladies care for their friends,” he said, “but few employ giant Irishmen and secret sharpshooters to aid them in their efforts.”

“Then they have never lived on the border,” I answered. I don’t know that my answer satisfied him, but it silenced him long enough that I was made to explain no more before arriving at Fraunces Tavern.

“You are a mysterious woman, Mrs. Maycott,” he said. “I am not a fool, and I know you will not tell me what you wish to keep secret, but I must beg you to be more open with me. You say you are my friend and we stand together, yet you tell me little or nothing. You have saved me from, at the least, an unpleasant day or two in that cold cage, and quite possibly from an even more terrible fate. I am grateful, as you must know. But I am not content.”

“The time has not come for you to know more,” I said. “But soon.”

And so he departed. If he recollected that I had promised to tell him everything in the carriage, he did not hold me to it. I believe I understood him well enough to know he did recall and chose not to attempt to hold me to a promise he knew I would never keep.

Ethan Saunders

I
t was now half past nine. I had lost several hours, but no more than that. My plans to thwart Duer were as solid as ever, and my hatred of Pearson equally strong. What could he do to me that would make me despise him more than I did for what he’d done to his own wife? As for Mrs. Maycott, her actions tonight, her association with the whiskey Irishman, only confirmed that she was a more significant actor in these affairs than she would admit, but for the moment, at least, she appeared to be an actor who favored my success and Cynthia’s safety.

There was but one person in New York who could now answer my questions, so after cleaning myself and concealing the bulk of my injuries, I went to the home of Senator Aaron Burr, where his girl directed me to a local coffeehouse, and there I found him, holding court for a large group of political clients—or perhaps men to whom he was a client. I hardly knew, but I was quite gratified to see him gesture to me to take a seat and indicate that he would be with me when he could.

Soon Burr rose and came over to my table. There were still men where he’d sat, but they seemed to have enough to say that they did not require his presence at the moment.

“How may I help you, Captain?”

“It is rather important, I’m afraid, and I must keep it between the two of us. I had hoped you might be able to tell me more about Joan Maycott.”

“I know little of her myself,” he said. “She appeared upon the scene less than a year ago. She is a fashionable lady, a wealthy woman, and a widow. She and her husband traded his soldier’s debt for land out west, where he made something of a success as a whiskey distiller, but after he died she returned to the East. If pressed, she will speak against Hamilton’s whiskey tax on this account.” He shrugged to indicate he had no more to add.

“When did she move to the West?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “She mentioned to me once having lived in New York with her husband during the ratification of the Constitution, so it could not have been so long ago.”

I thought about this for a moment. “How did her husband die?”

“She has never chosen to speak of it, and a man is never inclined to inquire too deeply of a dead husband to a pretty widow. There is no shortage of opportunities for a man out west to meet his death, and yet…” His voice trailed off.

“You have the impression that there is some bitterness there,” I proposed. “That she believes there was an injustice.”

His eyes brightened. “That is exactly right.” He looked over his shoulder.

“I see you must return,” I said. “Thank you for your time.”

He wrinkled his brow. “But I have told you nothing.”

I shrugged, and that seemed to be enough for him. We rose and shook hands. He pretended not to see how badly cut and scraped was my hand and went back to his men. As he did so, I thought about how interesting he was. He could not be ignorant of my reputation, of the things said about my past, and yet he chose to attend to me in public. He could not help but notice that hardly a day went by that I did not have some injury. It seemed to me that Burr was a man like myself, one who enjoyed courting a little bit of scandal, so long as it was only a little bit. I hoped this tendency would not lead him into any great difficulties.

In the meantime, though he thought he had told me little, he had in reality explained a great deal. Mrs. Maycott and her husband would not have traded war debt for land had they not been needy, and yet she returned from the West, after only a few years, a wealthy woman. I did not think any amount of success as a whiskey distiller could have produced significant money in so short a span. Either she and her husband had, in that time, inherited a fortune or there was far more to her past than she was making public. One thing seemed certain: Something terrible had happened to her husband out west, and if he had traded his debt for land, it seemed to me likely he had traded, directly or indirectly, with the largest and most energetic architect of these exchanges: William Duer.