Caribbee Part 20

as part payment for the sight drafts, but Winston had refused the bait.

It was men and provisions, he insisted, nothing else.

Winston. May G.o.d d.a.m.n his eyes. . . .

Footsteps sounded along the gravel pathway and he turned to examine the line of planters approaching through the dusk, all wearing dark hats and colorless doublets. As he watched them puffing up the rise of the hill, he found himself calculating how much of the arable land on the island was now controlled by himself and these eleven other members of the Council. Tom Lancaster owned twelve hundred acres of the rolling acres in St. George's parish; Nicholas Whittington had over a thousand of the best land in Christ's Church parish; Edward Bayes, who had ridden down from his new plantation house on the northern tip of the island, owned over nine hundred acres; John lynes had ama.s.sed a third of the arable coastal land on the eastern, windward side of the island.

The holdings of the others were smaller, but together they easily owned the major share of the good cane land on Barbados. What they needed now was the rest.

"Your servant, sir." The planters nodded in chorus as they filed into the darkened curing house. Every man had ridden alone, and Briggs had ordered his own servants to keep clear of the curing house for the evening.

"G.o.d in heaven, this much already." Bayes emitted a low whistle and rubbed his jowls as he surveyed the long rows of sugar molds. "You've got a fortune in this very room, sir. If this all turns out to be sugar, and not just pots of mola.s.ses like before."

"It'll be white sugar or I'll answer for it, and it'll be fine as any Portugal could make." Briggs walked to the corner of the room, returning with two flasks of kill-devil and a tray of tankards. "The question now, gentlemen, is whether we'll ever see it sold."

"I don't follow you, sir." Whittington reached for a brown flask and began pouring himself a tankard. "As soon as we've all got a batch cured, we'll market it to the Dutchmen. Or we'll ship it to London ourselves."

"I suppose you've heard the rumor working now amongst the Dutchmen?

That there might be an embargo?"

"Aye, but it's no more than a rumor. There'll be no embargo, I promise you. It'd be too costly."

"It's not just a rumor. There was a letter from my London broker in the mail packet that came yesterday on the _Rotterdam_. He saw fit to include this." Briggs produced a thin roll of paper. "It's a copy he had made of the Act prepared in the Council of State, ready to be sent straight to Commons for a vote." He pa.s.sed the paper to Whittington, who un-scrolled it and squinted through the half-light. Briggs paused a moment, then continued, "The Act would embargo all shipping into and out of Barbados till our a.s.sembly has moved to recognize the Commonwealth. Cromwell was so sure it'd be pa.s.sed he was already pulling together a fleet of warships to send out and enforce it. Word has't the fleet will be headed by the _Rainbowe_, which was the king's flagship before Cromwell took it. Fifty guns."

A disbelieving silence enveloped the darkened room.

"And you say this Act was set to pa.s.s in Parliament?" Whittington looked up and recovered his voice.

"It'd already been reported from the Council of State. And the letter was four weeks old. More'n likely it's already law. The _Rainbowe _could well be sailing at the head of a fleet right now as we talk."

"If Cromwell does that, we're as good as on our knees." Tynes rubbed his neck and took a sip from his tankard. "What do you propose we can do?"

"As I see it, there're but two choices." Briggs motioned for the men to sit on a row of empty kegs he had provided. "The first is to lie back and do nothing, in which case the royalists will probably see to it that the a.s.sembly here votes to defy Commons and declare for Charles II."

"Which means we'll be at war with England, G.o.d help us." Lancaster removed his hat to wipe his dusty brow.

"Aye. A war, incidentally, which would force Cromwell to send the army to subdue the island, if he hasn't already. He'd probably post troops to try and invade us, like some people are saying. Which means the a.s.sembly would doubtless call up every able-bodied man on the island to fight. All the militia, and the indentures. Letting the cane rot in the fields, if it's not burned to cinders by then."

"Good Jesus." Whittington's face seemed increasingly haggard in the waning light. "That could well set us back years."

"Aye, and who knows what would happen with the indentures and the slaves? Who'll be able to watch over them? If we have to put the island on a war footing, it could endanger the lives of every free man here.

G.o.d knows we're outnumbered by all the Irish Papists and the Africans."

"Aye, the more indentures and slaves you've got, the more precarious your situation." Lancaster's glazed eyes pa.s.sed down the row of sugar molds as he thought about the feeble security of his own clapboard house. He also remembered ruefully that he owned only three usable muskets.

"Well, gentlemen, our other choice is to face up to the situation and come to terms with Parliament. It's a bitter draught, I'll grant you, but it'll save us from anarchy, and maybe an uprising."

"The a.s.sembly'll never declare for the Commonwealth. The royalist sympathizers hold a majority." Whittington's face darkened. "Which means there's nothing to be done save ready for war."

"There's still a hope. We can do something about the a.s.sembly." Briggs turned to Tynes, a small, tanned planter with hard eyes. "How many men do you have in your regiment?"

"There're thirty officers, and maybe two hundred men."

"How long to raise them?"

"Raise them, sir?" He looked at Briggs, uncomprehending. "To what purpose? They're militia, to defend us against attack by the Spaniards."

"It's not the Spaniards we've to worry about now. I think we can agree there's a clear and present danger nearer to hand." Briggs looked around him. "I say the standing a.s.sembly of Barbados no longer represents the best interests of this island. For any number of reasons."

"Is there a limit on their term?" Lancaster looked at him questioningly. "I don't remember the law."

"We're not adjudicating law now, gentlemen. We're discussing the future of the island. We're facing war. But beyond that, it's time we talked about running Barbados the way it should be, along economic principles.

There'll be prosperity, you can count on it, but only if we've got a free hand to make some changes." He took a drink, then set down his tankard.

"What do you mean?" Lancaster looked at him.

"Well sir, the main problem now is that we've got an a.s.sembly here that's sympathetic to the small freeholders. Not surprisingly, since thanks to Dalby Bedford every man here with five acres can vote. Our good governor saw to that when he drew up the voting parishes. Five acres. They're not the kind who should be in charge of governing this settlement now. I know it and so does every man in this room."

"All the same, they were elected."

"That was before sugar. Think about it. These small freeholders on the a.s.sembly don't understand this island wasn't settled just so we'd have a batch of five-acre gardens. G.o.d's blood, I cleared a thousand acres myself. I figured that someday I'd know why I was doing it. Well, now I do."

"What are you driving at?" Bayes squinted past the rows of sugar cones.

"Well, examine the situation. This island could be the finest sugar plantation in the world. The Dutchmen already claim it's better than Brazil. But the land here's got to be a.s.sembled and put to efficient use. If we can consolidate the holdings of these small freeholders, we can make this island the richest spot on earth. The a.s.sembly doesn't understand that. They'd go to war rather than try and make some prosperity here."

"What are you proposing we do about it?" Lancaster interjected warily.

"What if we took action, in the interests of the island?" Briggs lowered his voice. "We can't let the a.s.sembly vote against the Commonwealth and call down the navy on our heads. They've got to be stopped."

"But how do we manage it?" Tynes' voice was uneasy.

"We take preventive action." He looked around the room. "Gentlemen, I say it'd be to the benefit of all the free Englishmen on Barbados if we took the governor under our protection for the time being, which would serve to close down the a.s.sembly while we try and talk sense with Parliament."

"We'd be taking the law into our own hands." Tynes shifted uncomfortably.

"It's a question of whose law you mean. According to the thinking of the English Parliament, this a.s.sembly has no legal standing anyway, since they've yet to recognize the rule of Commons. We'd just be implementing what's already been decided."

"I grant you this island would be wise not to antagonize Cromwell and Parliament just now." Whittington searched the faces around him. "And if the a.s.sembly won't take a prudent course, then . . ."

"What we're talking about here amounts to overturning the sitting governor, and closing down the a.s.sembly." Lancaster's voice came through the gloom. "We've not the actual authority, even if Parliament has . . ."

"We've got something more, sir." Briggs met his troubled gaze. "An obligation. To protect the future of the island."

What we need now, he told himself, is responsible leadership. If the Council can deliver up the island, the quid pro quo from Cromwell will have to be acting authority to govern Barbados. Parliament has no brief for the a.s.sembly here, which fits nicely with the need to be done with it anyway.

The irony of it! Only if Barbados surrenders do we have a chance to realize some prosperity. If we stand and fight, we're sure to lose eventually, and then none of us will have any say in what comes after.

And in the long run it'll be best for every man here, rich and poor.

When there's wealth--as there's sure to be if we can start evicting these freeholders and convert the island over to efficient sugar plantations--everybody benefits. The wealth will trickle down, like the mola.s.ses out of these sugar cones, even to the undeserving. It's the way things have to be in the Americas if we're ever to make a go of it.