Salute to Adventurers

s of such goods as I thought most suitable for Virginian sales should arrive at regular seasons independent of the tobacco harvest. Then I set about equipping

had been on thorns ever since I mooted my new projects. He implored me to put them from me; he drew such pictures of the power of the English traders, you would have thought them the prince merchants of Venice; he saw all his hard-won gentility gone at a blow, and himself an outcast precluded for ever from great men's recognition. He could not b

n for tobacco and other wares, and I fixed the charge for freight-a very moderate one-in advance. My plan was to clear out my store before the return of the ships, and to have thereby a large quantity of tobacco mortgaged to me. I hoped that thus I would win the friendship and custom of the planters, since I offered t

re just those I could least trust. Some fellow who was near bankrupt from dice and cock-fighting would offer me five hundred hogsheads, when I knew that his ill-guided estate could scarce produce half. I was not a merchant out of charity, a

their custom; that I did not expect, for gunpowder alone would change the habits of a Virginian Tory. But my new business seemed to them such a downcome that they passed me by with a cock of the chin. Before they had treated me hospitably, and made me welcome at their houses. I had hunted the fox with them-very little to my credit; and shot wildfowl in their company with better success. I had dined with them, and danced in t

would see such a parade of satin bodices and tabby petticoats and lace headgear as made it blossom like the rose. I went to church one Sunday in my second summer, and, being late, went up the aisle looking for a place. The men at the seat-ends would not stir to accommodate me, and I had to find rest in the cock-loft. I thought nothing of it, but the close of the service was to enlighten me. As I went down the churchyard not a m

filled my heart. I grew as peevish as a slighted girl, and would no doubt have fretted myself into some sig

like Faulkner, lived with me at the store. Also I had got four stalwart negro slaves who slept in a hut in my garden. 'Twas a

own the street of James

redfaced, bottle-nos

of apple-jack, and st

ost

twist me, but we'll put an end to that, my bully-boy. D'you think the King, God bless him, made the laws for a

my action. He shook his head, and said something about law not being everything, and England being a long road off. He had cl

to my men to keep a special guard on the store. Then I set off in a pinnace

fety's sake, for in that drouthy clime a firebrand might play havoc with them. The worst that happened was that one moonless night a band of rascals, rigged out as Indian braves, came yelling down to the quay where some tobacco was waiting to be shipped, and before my men were warned had tipped a couple of h

fool drew his shabble on me. But I would quarrel with no man, for that was a luxury beyond a trader. There had been an attack on my tobacco shed by s

little distance from the house. The Englishmen were clumsy conspirators. We watched them arrive, let them pass, and followed silently on their heels. Their bus

the hindquarters of all bo

hed him before me into the town. "If you are minded to bolt," I said, "remember you have a charge of gunpowder lobbin

efly forgathered. A dozen of them sat over a bowl of punch, when the door was opened and I kicked my Guy

your property. This is a penitent th

certain resolution in my face. Anyhow, sweating and quaking, he blurted out his stor

andsome, over-dressed fellow who had been co

will so far honour me as to come himself instead of dispatching his servant, his welcome will be the warmer. I bid you good-night and

ithout my three vessels. But I got an order from the Governor, delivered readily but with much profanity, to the commander of the frigates to delay till the convoy was complete. I breathed more free

ships and merchantmen in the south waters, and rarely came north to our parts save to careen or provision. They were mostly English and Welsh, with a few Frenchmen, and though I had little to say for their doings, they left British ships in the main unmolested, and were welcomed as a godsend by our coast dwellers, since they smuggled goods to them which would have been twice the cost if bought

how in the name of honesty could she be suffered in broad daylight to fall into such a fate? I remembered the hostility of the Englishmen, and feared she had had foul play. Just after Christmas-tide I expected two ships to replenish the stock in my store. They arrived safe, but only by the skin of their teeth, for both had been chase

small blame to them for it. 'Twas a sensible way to avoid trouble, and I for one would rather pay a modest blackmail every month or two than run the

nd had been plundered by a pirate brigantine. I got a sloop and went down the river, and, sure enough, I found the vessel newly refloated, and the captain, an old New Hampshire fellow, in a great taking. Piracy there had been, but of a queer ki

whose only friends were my own servants and a few poverty-stricken landward folk. I had found out a good way of trade, but I had set a hornet's nest buzzing about my ears, and was on the fair w

. I left him, very wrathful, and after a night's sleep I began to see reason in his words. Clearly the law of Virginia or of England would give me no redress. I was an alien from the genteel world; why should I not get the benefit of my ungentility? If my rivals went for their

asgow stairhead and his promise to help me, I had no notion who he was or how he could aid, but I had a vague memory of hi

the back of it. Old Mercer was an elder in the little wooden Presbyterian kirk, which I had taken to attending si

road Scots. "Will you drink a rummer o' toddy, or try som

his is my errand. I want you to bring me to a man or

ooked at

s hanged at Inveraray i' '68 for

d his head is as red as fire. He gav

ling it toothlessly. "It sticks i' my memory," he said, "but when and

uddenly the whole scene in the Saltmarket leaped vividly to my brai

here, and I was to tell you that the lymphads are

acancy to shrewdness and from senility

red. "Come inside, man. We'll steek the