The attack was frontal and complete. Men of the Sugar Interest were revealed as enemies of the state and ruthless exploiters not only of their black slaves in West Indian Jamaica, but also of white housewives in Great Britain. The grave injustice could be solved, politicians of Massie’s persuasion argued, by the simple device of retaining Martinique and Guadeloupe, for as another pamphleteer accurately pointed out: ‘The great planters of Jamaica have promised us for the last thirty years that one of these days they were going to open up more cane fields on their island, but as my figures shew, Pentheny Croome hath selfishly accumulated thousands of new acres but cultivated not one.’
These new attacks were so factual and so persuasive that one night in 1762 the leading planters met for dinner in Sir Hugh and Lady Hester’s grand dining room. The great William Pitt, staunch proponent of holding on to the French islands, had been invited to hear arguments against doing so, but he became engrossed in Lady Hester’s account of how her latest monstrous marble masterpiece had been got through the doors of her mansion.
‘It’s entitled, as you can see, Victory Rewarding Heroism, and when it arrived, there was no way to force it through our doors. So Luigi was sent for and he came up from Florence and showed us how simple it really was. With a special saw he cut right through here, Victory left on one side, Heroism on the other, and each manageable half could be moved through the door over there.’
‘But how did you put the halves back together?’ Pitt asked. ‘I see no betraying mark.’
‘Ah ha!’ Hester cried, moving to the statue. ‘That’s exactly what I asked, Mr. Pitt, and Luigi told me: “Every artist has his secrets,” and he refused to reveal his. But there it stands … and isn’t it magnificent?’
She asked this question directly of Pitt, who replied: ‘Well, it certainly is bigger than most.’
Lady Hester’s interruption had provided Pitt with time to marshal his courage, of which he had an unlimited supply, and after Hester had withdrawn to her own room, he said frankly: ‘Gentlemen, as you know, I’ve always been in favor of retaining the big French islands. More trade for England, lower prices for sugar, strategic advantages for our navy.’ Several planters gasped and tried to dissuade him from including that stipulation regarding Martinique and Guadeloupe in the peace treaty which he was even then negotiating with the French during sessions in Paris.
They made no headway with him, but when the port was passed and the cigars lighted he leaned back, looked at each planter in turn, and confided: ‘Gentlemen, I have good news for you and bad news for England.’
‘How could any situation be so described?’ Sir Hugh asked gently, but Pitt ignored him: ‘I am being removed from our negotiating team in Paris. The Earl of Bute is to supersede me, and as you well know, he is far more partial to your cause than I ever could be.’
As he departed he threw a parting thought, generous and potentially productive, even though it operated against his own interests: ‘If I were you, gentlemen, I would have someone on my side rush out a pamphlet to counteract that persuasive affair of Joseph Massie’s. It’s doing your side real damage, you know.’ With that, he departed.
As soon as Pitt was gone, Lady Hester, who had read the Massie pamphlet with rising fury, took charge of the meeting: ‘Pitt’s right. Our side has got to answer those false charges. And we’d better do it right now.’ After only a few minutes of discussion, it was agreed that a broadsheet should be printed and distributed widely, Pentheny Croome would pay for it, but then the problem became more complicated, for none of the planters felt competent to answer the sharp criticism of Massie. Each deferred to others, until Lady Hester cut the Gordian knot: ‘My husband will write it,’ and when he blurted out a gasping refusal, she said simply: ‘I’ll help you over the difficult parts, my sweet.’
He and Hester spent the next three weeks hammering out a masterful riposte to the anti-planter pamphlets, pointing out their errors, gently ridiculing their pretensions as to international affairs, and bringing forth sharp new points of view and economic inevitables. In the writing, Sir Hugh was invariably conciliatory, Lady Hester always thrusting at the jugular. They formed an invaluable team, an elder statesman in his seventies, a forceful woman in her fifties, and in record time they had their essay scattered across London and in the major cities of Great Britain:
The pamphlet was a striking success, for it played on British doggedness, English heroism, hopes for the future and patriotism in general, while effectively masking the venality of the Sugar Interest and hiding the heavy tribute the average Briton was paying in order to maintain Jamaican families like the Beckfords, the Dawkinses, the Pembrokes and the Croomes in their lavish pattern of living.
An Unembellished Account provided powerful ammunition for the Earl of Bute as he labored on the peace treaty which would arrange affairs in Europe, India, North America and the Caribbean, for it anticipated all the ends he desired to accomplish and provided him with fresh and telling justifications. On a return trip to London he sent a signal to Sir Hugh and his planters: ‘Things look promising. You will have no Guadeloupe around your necks.’
This assurance from one so highly placed caused rejoicing among the planters, but not in the household of John Pembroke, for his frail Danish wife, kept to her bed by a series of fainting spells, had grave misgivings when he told her that the French islands were to be given back: ‘Oh, John! It seems so wrong!’
He was surprised: ‘But, darling, that’s what we’ve been fighting for. To protect the markets for our sugar crop.’
‘I know,’ she said with mild impatience. ‘But there are other considerations.’
‘What could possibly be more important to us right now?’
‘Surely the destiny of the Caribbean is to have all the islands under one grand government. It’s folly the way it is now. Like a sour porridge with raisins. A few Danish islands over here. A couple of Swedish. Some Dutch. A few Spanish, ill-governed. Some French. They could be mostly English, with a chance to invite all the remnants to join.’
He said: ‘But our entire program … get rid of Guadeloupe …’
‘John! Do the right thing now! Give our wonderful sea a united government. Do it when you have what may be your last chance … the last chance ever.’
She spoke with such vehemence that her husband said: ‘Elzabet, I never knew you were of such an opinion,’ and she said: ‘I’ve been watching and listening and reading. Nations are given one chance, maybe two, to do the right thing at the right time, and if they refuse … I see only tragedy ahead if this wonderful sea we were given is not united … now, when we have our last opportunity.’
She began to weep, and John asked in trepidation: ‘Bett, what is it?’ and she sobbed: ‘I’m homesick for the islands. Those beautiful islands …’
‘Bett, as soon as this is over, back we go. I too want to see Trevelyan again.’
‘I was so happy there …’ and within minutes she was dead. When John, in quiet anguish, asked the doctors: ‘How could you allow such a thing to happen?’ they said simply: ‘She lived intensely and it was her time to go.’
After her funeral, which was arranged by Lady Hester on his behalf, for John was too distraught to make decisions, he tried, out of respect for Elzabet’s opinions, to withdraw from the final battles on the peace treaty, but neither Sir Hugh nor Lady Hester would permit this; they drew him deeper and deeper into the negotiations prior to the all-important vote in Parliament which would accept or reject the Earl of Bute’s handiwork.
Thus, abetted by Lady Hester, who was proving a fierce defender of Jamaican interests, John arranged for an additional printing of eight hundred copies of An Unembellished Account, which she distributed personally in areas where they would do the most good. She also organized resplendent dinner parties at which arms were twisted and rural members of Parliament were instructed in the substantial advantages their district would reap if the Bute terms were accepted.
Ponderously the debate contin
ued through December of 1762 and into January and much of February of the new year, with the Sugar Interest taking great abuse because the facts were so uniformly against them, but finally, on 20 February 1763, the vote could no longer be delayed, and the great planters who practically ran Parliament watched smugly as the tally showed 319 for the treaty, with the French islands going back to France, and only 65 against.
That night William Pitt, always bitter in debate but gracious in defeat, accompanied Lady Hester Pembroke to her home from the House of Commons, and as he sat on a velvet chair in front of Victory Rewarding Heroism he watched the jubilant planters celebrating their victory. At a break in the festivities he looked back over his shoulder and pointed to the gargantuan statue: ‘Gentlemen, I must remind you that Lady Victory, immense though she seems in this room tonight, is a fickle dame. In winning, I fear you have lost the American colonies from our empire. They’re men of great fortitude over there, a new breed, and they’ll not tolerate the cruel disadvantages you have thrown into their teeth this day.’
‘What do you expect them to do about it?’ Croome asked. ‘They have no power, and we do.’
‘I expect them to rebel. To rebel against these injustices.’ With that, he went to Lady Hester, kissed her two hands, and asked her to escort him to the door and his waiting carriage.
Pitt was right, it did prove a costly victory for Sir Hugh. The energy he had expended so unceasingly over the past two years in his battle to defend sugar had exhausted him. He knew that he was wearing out, and found little pleasure when the great planters celebrated what Mr. Pitt had termed ‘your costly victory.’ He was also distressed to see his youngest son so dispirited by the loss of his wife, and day by day Sir Hugh weakened.
He did, however, find consolation in the remarkable vitality of his wife, and one evening when he knew his strength was failing, he told her: ‘Men like me, educated in England, often smiled at Jamaican planters like your father, who knew only what the land had taught them. But now I see that he, and you too, took nourishment from those fields, those forests.’ Suddenly he broke into sobs: ‘Jamaica, Jamaica! I shall never see the bridge at Trevelyan again.’
Next day he was dead, and most of the members of Parliament who were in residence in London at that time attended his funeral, for he had been the one member of the Sugar Interest that all could respect.
In the seventh week after the funeral, that is, in April when rural England was at its loveliest, a carriage drew up to the country home in Upper Swathling where John Pembroke was mourning his double loss. A woman descended at the door, ignored knocking, and burst into the room where John sat. It was his stepmother, Lady Hester Pembroke, and her message was shocking: ‘John, listen to me! You cannot fritter away your life like this. My God, you’re only fifty-four.’
He rose to offer her a chair, but she refused it, preferring to stand until she had her say: ‘I’ve loved you for many years, John. My heart was broken when you brought Elzabet home from the Virgins, but I hid it. There’s no longer need to hide anything. I’m a Pembroke, always have been, and now that we’re both free people …’
He was aghast. Stalking from the room, he watched her carriage from an upstairs window, hoping that his rudeness would force her to depart, but she did not, and after half an hour collecting his thoughts, he returned, intending to rebuke her. He failed, for when he reached her she was laughing, a big and hearty woman whose life in London had matured her and polished her into a formidable hostess with graces that women less bold never attained. When she saw his distress she said: ‘John, it’s inevitable. You know I’ll never surrender. I allowed you to run away once, and I lost you. Never again.’ She assured him that his older brother, now Sir Roger, would recognize the good sense of what she was proposing and that his and Elzabet’s three children, all safely married and living in London, would surely approve: ‘They won’t want to see you wither like a cut cane stalk left in the sun.’ The Jamaican simile emboldened her to add a relevant point: ‘Besides, John, they won’t fear that I’ve grabbed you for your money, which would otherwise come to them in your will.’
She made no headway that first day, but since she had taken rooms at a nearby inn, she saw him constantly, and in proper time the numbness of his life relaxed and he gradually saw both the virtue of what Hester was saying and its inevitability. He proposed in a curious way, one day as they walked in the glades: ‘You know, you’ll lose your title Lady. I’m not Sir John,’ and she said: ‘I’ll keep using what once was mine, and to hell with them.’ She also had an effective answer when he pointed out that the Church of England must have rules against a man marrying his stepmother: ‘No matter. We’ll be married in France. Over there they permit anything.’
She also arranged for the honeymoon, dragging him to Florence, where her sculptor friend showed her a really massive piece he had just finished. Justice Defending the Weak he called it, and she bought it on sight. Her husband, who was appalled by the monstrosity—a near-naked woman protecting six cowering supplicants—was powerless to prevent its purchase, for as he explained to Sir Roger after it had been installed in London: ‘It was her money.’
WHEN THE INFAMOUS pirate den at Port Royal on the southern shore of Jamaica sank beneath the sea during the terrible earthquake of 1692, a long, thin sliver of land escaped oblivion. It formed only a small percent of the former area, but since it contained a stout fortress with thick stone walls properly disposed to withstand attack from the sea, Parliament in London had decreed that additional gun emplacements should be added, making it strong enough to withstand any French assault.
Unlike the days of Queen Elizabeth and Francis Drake when Englishmen grew nervous anytime the Spanish made a warlike gesture, now, two hundred years later, no one took a Spanish threat seriously. It was the French whose misbehavior attracted attention, for the skilled navy of that country was a constant threat to British independence. Curiously, the great battles of this period were fought not in European waters but in the Caribbean, where fleets of the two nations met often in battle, sharing alternating victories and defeats. In one great clash in the waters off the Carib island of Dominica, Britain won a signal victory, but in the years about to be discussed, the French showed every capability and intention of striking back. To be a naval officer in this sea was to be constantly on the alert for the ominous cry from the lookout: ‘French ships on the horizon!’ for then one leaped to his battle station.
It was in such a climate of fear that the remnant of Port Royal left above water after the dreadful earthquake became of crucial importance to the British fleet, for whichever nation controlled Fort Charles, at the tip of Port Royal, controlled huge Jamaica Bay, and the heart of the Caribbean. To keep it secure, the British government in the turbulent year 1777, when the British were still trying to discipline the American colonies, placed in command an amazing young officer not yet twenty and soon to become the youngest captain in the fleet. When hardened veterans, some twice his age, saw this frail figure less than five feet five and weighing not much over eight stone, they muttered: ‘London’s sent us no more than a lad,’ but even as they said this the young fellow was looking at the vast anchorage and saying to himself: We could anchor all the ships of the world in this safe harbor, and I shall defend it with my life if need be.
He was Horatio Nelson, an unlikely lad for service at a post so distant from England: unimpressive figure, washed-out blond hair, high-pitched voice, and the sometimes unintelligible country accent of easternmost England. In fact, as he stepped forward to assume command he looked much like a newly ordained clergyman applying to some rich relative for an appointment to one of the churches on the family estates, and this would have been logical, since his father, both grandfathers and numerous great-uncles had been ministers, in the Church of England, of course.
The force under his youthful command was as frail as he, for he had seven thousand fighting men at most, while it was well known that the French commander in the Caribbean was pr
owling the sea with at least twenty-five thousand tough veterans in a fleet of ships bristling with heavy guns. So on his first evening in the fort he ate a hasty meal, then walked back and forth upon the battlements of his new command, giving himself orders: You’re to install additional guns at this point. You’re to organize musters to see how rapidly the men can reach their posts when the bugle sounds. You’re to clean away the rubble on the foreshore—we want no French spies hiding there.
As he made his rounds he became aware that a young midshipman who had sailed with him from England, a red-headed lad of thirteen, was trailing along, so without warning he stopped, whirled about, and demanded: ‘What brings you so close behind?’ and the boy said in a high voice: ‘Please, sir. I want to see our new fort too. To pick my spot when the Frenchies come.’
‘And who are you, lad?’
‘I served in the Dolphin with you.’
‘I remember, but who are you?’ and the boy gave a surprising answer: ‘Alistair Wrentham. My grandfather is the Earl of Gore and my father was an officer on the Indian Station, but he died in battle.’
Nelson, superior and aloof in manner, was excited by this information, for if the boy was in line to inherit the earldom, he might prove of enormous value to Nelson’s ambitions, but the boy disappointed him: ‘My father was the fourth son and I’m the fourth son, so I’m far removed.’ Still, recalling that on the voyage the lad had demonstrated intelligence and valor, Nelson said: ‘I shall want you close to me. To mind the little things,’ and they walked the battlements together.
Soon the soldiers and seamen stationed at Port Royal had acquired a solid understanding of their young leader. They found that he possessed a backbone of unyielding oak, an insatiable lust for fame and a devotion to heroic behavior and rectitude that was enviable. During the long night watches when no French invaders could be seen in the tropical moonlight, he revealed, never boastfully, incidents of his amazing career, for at twenty he’d had more experiences than most seagoing men had accumulated at forty.