AND FINALLY, AFTER TEN DAYS OF OMINOUS SILENCE, THE miracle happened.
The chiefs began coming down to Vincennes bringing the white belt, begging peace. First came Tobacco’s Son of the Piankeshaws, full of remorse at having turned against his old brothers the Big Knives. Then came Crooked Legs, of the Ouiatenons, then Loon, of the Kickapoos, then others. They wanted a truce until the peace council. They asked that the council be held at Vincennes, a place they knew, instead of the unfamiliar Clarksville. And as they yet had to provide for their women and children for the coming winter, they asked that the truce be extended until the next spring, instead of this November.
The officers could not believe such good fortune. With this one desperate bluff, Long Knife had turned his first failure into a triumph, and had gained Kentucky half a year’s reprieve—maybe even a permanent one—from the Indian invasions. And just in time. Their provisions had run out, and they would have to quit the fort and go back to Kentucky. They gathered to celebrate one night in late October after the last chief had left in peace. William’s admiration of his brother was wider and deeper even than it had been when he was three years old.
“God in heaven,” Levi Todd said. “Gen’l, I think Vincennes is your blessed place! Here you take your longest chances, and here you come out best. Hear, hear!” he cried. “A toast with Spanish rum to Long Knife at Vincennes!” They all roared approval and hoisted their cups.
That night the officers and troops finished the last of Bazadone’s rum. William passed out with a smile on his face. George enjoyed the rum very much.
If he could have foreseen the troubles it would soon be causing him, he probably could not have swallowed a drop.
25
MULBERRY HILL
April, 1787
JUDGE HARRY INNES WAS NOT A CLOSE FRIEND OF THE CLARK family, but having been a classmate of George and Jonathan in Rev. Robertson’s school, he was a cordial acquaintance of long standing. And so when he came to Mulberry Hill in April of 1787, riding up the road between the budding locust trees through a gentle, misting spring rain, he was greeted warmly by John and Ann Rogers Clark, presented to the daughters, given tea, and shown the premises.
He spoke with the Clarks about mutual acquaintances, dwelling at some length on Elizabeth’s beau, Richard Clough Anderson, now a Colonel, and on James Wilkinson, whom he seemed to hold in higher esteem than did the Clarks. “He came here once,” George said. “Borrowed some papers of mine.”
“Really?” Innes seemed surprised, as if it were unusual for Wilkinson to do something without his knowledge. “Pray, what sort of papers d’you mean?”
“Some reports on the Vincennes expedition, proceedings of the court-martial on the Spaniard’s goods. Such things.”
Innes was gracious as always, but obviously preoccupied. He had come in his capacity as Attorney General of Kentucky, and had business of a confidential nature with George. Soon, therefore, the rest of the family withdrew and left them the library.
George pulled the big walnut-wood doors shut and decanted an amber liquid into crystal glasses, while Judge Innes watched him minutely and cleared his throat. “Peach brandy,” George said. “A new product of Louisville.” He was out of uniform, dressed in old-style brown wool frock coat, weskit, and breeches, lately brought out of a storage trunk to give him something to wear as a country gentleman; virtually all his wardrobe was uniforms and buckskins. Innes touched his glass to George’s, saying simply, “Health,” and studied the sharp, flat planes of the general’s face, the high, broad forehead, the new, slightly saddened aspect of the eyes, which now were surrounded by fine squint lines. But the eyes were still keen and piercing, an intimidating deep-water blue—certainly not the eyes of the addled inebriate the rumors in Eastern Virginia had him to be.
If anything, the years of experience seemed to have made him even more attractive than he had been in his youth. Innes could remember that the Tidewater lasses had been mad about young George before he had disappeared beyond the mountains. He wondered now what feminine company George might be keeping, what belle of which family might be in hopes of marrying the famous Kentuckian. Innes was addicted to social gossip, and had strangely heard no such gossip about Kentucky’s most illustrious bachelor. All he had heard was that he drank.
The judge observed, though, that George did not take his brandy like a drunkard, but merely sipped and savored it, his mind not on it but on the moment.
“Now, Harry, what brings you? I hope you’re here to look into the mutiny. Or that you’ve brought me some instructions from the Capital on the Indian treaties. They’re due, you know.”
“George, what I have is from the governor. But it’s neither of those matters. You know, I presume, that the Foreign Secretary’s trying to negotiate a trade treaty with Spain.” He cleared his throat.
“Of course. I daresay every man of sense in Kentucky speaks of it four or five times a day, afeard that they’ll barter away forever our right to float down the Mississippi.”
“Aye. Well, as y’ know, George, the majority of states want that treaty most desperately. They’ve got goods rotting in the warehouses and ships left half-finished in the yards.” Innes cleared his throat still another time, and George wondered why he should be so nervous.
“What’s this to do with me, Judge?”
“Why, George, something very direct, I’m afraid. Now, it’s not just the governor, George, but his council, and the Congress too.” He cleared his throat again. “They’ve a fear that, ahm, they … you see, they’ve learnt that you seized a Spanish boat at Vincennes.”
George’s eyes narrowed. He was detecting the drift of this, and he interjected:
“First,” he said, “’seized’ is hardly the word. I followed lawful proceedings. Second, I wonder how the Executive, who seems to have a deaf ear for anything from Kentucky, should hear o’ that obscure event so clearly.” He thought for a moment, for some reason, of Wilkinson.
“Well,” Innes said, “albeit obscure, it’s alarmed them. They’re afraid it might lose us the treaty, even provoke war with Spain.”
“War? Preposterous! He wasn’t even legitimate! He had no passport!”
“They’re also alarmed that your garrison at Vincennes could be construed as a hostile move against Spanish interests on the Mississippi.”
“What! How could they—By God, Harry! Let’s remind ’em, the Executive authorized that damned expedition! And Congress condoned it!” In his astonishment, George reached for the decanter and refilled the two glasses while protesting: “That was an expedition to save Kentucky from Indians. It had no connection with Spain whatsoever. And when we impressed those goods, we’d never yet even heard of John Jay’s precious treaty!” He was pacing like a lion fretting in a cage, and paused only to toss down his brandy. “Besides that, the garrison at Vincennes is long since disbanded. It had nothing to exist on! By God, Harry! Sometimes I swear, government’s an ass, and I’m out here pullin’ on its blind side!” His voice had been rising with his anger to the kind of volume that can carry through walls, and suddenly he brought it down. Turning to face Innes squarely, he said in a low tone, “Very well, though. I’m used to this. What would they have me do to soothe their troubled little minds, eh? Do they wish me to crawl down and kiss his Catholic Majesty’s ring and beg his forgiveness? What?”
Innes cleared his throat still again, held out his glass, and formed his reply as both gulped another dram. “No, Gen’l,” he said at last. “They’ve already apologized to Spain. What they want is … for me to prosecute you.”
George froze. His eyelids hardened, his nostrils distended. He seemed to become tense as a drawn bow, and for an instant Judge Innes actually felt a fear of physical harm. In the silence, the clock in the corner ticked menacing seconds. Innes unbuttoned the flap of a coat pocket, took out a folded and sealed packet, and held it forth.
Breathing deep with the effort to contain his fury, George snatched it, broke the seal, and shook i
t open. The first sheet was a handwritten letter from the governor.
Richmond, March 4th, 1787
Sir: By advice of Council I enclose you an act of our Board, in which you will perceive certain Complaints exhibited against you. The Council conceived themselves bound to issue the enclosed proclamation also.
I am Sir Your Mo. Ob. Serv.
EDMUND RANDOLPH
The second sheet was printed.
By His Excellency Edmund Randolph, Esq.
Governor of the Commonwealth,
A PROCLAMATION!
Whereas it has been represented to the Executive that George Rogers Clark, Esq. after having, under color of an authority wrongfully supposed to be derived from them, recruited a number of men for the support of St. Vincent’s, had moreover seized the property, of a certain subject of His Catholic Majesty to a considerable amount. In order, therefore, that the honour of this commonwealth may not sustain an injury, from a belief that the act above mentioned has in any way received the public sanction, I do hereby declare, with the advice of the Council of State, that the said violence was unknown to the Executive until a few days past, and is now disavowed; and that the Attorney-General has been instructed to take every step allowed by law, for bringing to punishment all persons who may be culpable in the premises. Given under my hand and the Seal of the Commonwealth, this twenty-eighth day of February in the year of our Lord One Thousand and Seven Hundred and Eighty-Seven.
EDMUND RANDOLPH
When George looked up at Innes, the whites of his eyes showed all around the blue, his teeth were clenched, his face was livid, his whole body was shaking. “This has been published?” he demanded. At Innes’s timid nod, he flung the papers to the floor and ground them under his heel, shouting: “He says I would injure the honor of the Commonwealth? My God! I’ve given every power and penny I ever possessed, for the honor of Virginia! And now he will sacrifice my good name, will he, to mollycoddle a Spanish king and his slimy ministers?” His voice was roaring in the confines of the room now, and there were footsteps in the hall, and creaking stairs, as if his bellowings were causing members of the family to scurry about the house.
Many men had watched George Rogers Clark strain to master his temper during his ten years of command. Now Harry Innes was seeing him vent it, without restraint, at last. George swept his hand to the floor and snatched up the papers, crumpling them in an upraised fist over Judge Innes’ head, shouting at him: “You’ve smirched your hands just carrying this paper to me! By God, Innes, if you mean to prosecute me, then you betray as staunch a patriot as this country’s ever had! And by all the Powers,” he snarled, now shaking the papers under the nose of the cringing judge, “YOU KNOW THAT’S TRUE!”
Innes was so far back in his chair that it nearly tipped backward, but he was waving his hands back and forth in a calming gesture and trying to speak. George’s fist looked as hard and heavy as a war club and his eyes were full of violence.
“No,” Innes finally gasped, “no, George, I wouldn’t do it! I’m not going to! God, no, I’d never do it!” George now stood poised over him; still thrusting the papers in his face, perhaps not really hearing him, when the doors of the room suddenly opened and Mrs. Clark stood there glaring in at the two men.
“George,” she said. “George!”
He turned to look at her, at the admonition in her imperious blue eyes, and slowly collected himself out of his threatening stance. She said simply:
“Mister Innes is our guest.”
The judge gathered his composure, bowing his head slightly toward her. And when George blinked and took a deep breath and said, “Yes, that’s so,” she curtseyed and closed the doors.
Now George stood glaring at Innes, and the judge was clearing his throat repeatedly and soothing down his lapels. Finally Innes said, “I’d never do it, George. No, there’s technicalities by which I can decline to prosecute.”
“Technicalities? Ye should refuse to on principle, God damn your little gray lawyer’s soul!”
“Aye! Surely! Surely! It’s, ah, on principle that I refuse, but by a, ahm, by a technicality. I say, I must be stirring, General, I’ve, ah, got another call in Louisville yet.” Innes was still half frightened for his safety, and was, besides, unaccustomed to being cursed; he was scowling and clenching his jaws even while going through the motions of a graceful withdrawal, bowing and offering his hand. George did not take the hand, but instead crammed the crumpled papers into it, demanding now as Innes backed toward the door:
“So ye bring me nowt but this insult? Nothing about the most pressing business at hand? The Indian councils?”
“General, you need not concern yourself about those. You have, ahm,”—he had his hand on the door handle now, and opened the door—“you’ve been, ah, succeeded as Indian Commissioner.”
George’s face now paled. “By whom?” he growled between clenched teeth.
“By General Wilkinson.”
So saying, Harry Innes darted into the safety of the hallway, where the elder Clarks sat like sentries on a mammy bench. He pulled the door shut just as a mighty bellow of rage reverberated through the room, followed by the shattering crash of glass against the inside of the door.
The corners of Ann Rogers Clark’s eyes crinkled momentarily with the chagrin she felt, both as a hostess and as a mother.
Before anyone could speak, the doors were flung open. “Harry, you’d better prosecute me,” George growled, pointing his finger at him like a pistol. “Let the facts come forth. They’ll not condemn me without a trial!” He started to close the doors, then instead advanced and snatched the papers out of Innes’s hand, and stalked back into the library. The last thing he saw before banging the doors together again was his mother’s face, full of mortification and pity.
He swallowed three more glasses of brandy in quick succession, while reading the proclamation through a second time, stung to the heart, muttering aloud its incredible words: “’Authority wrongfully supposed’? ‘Violence’? ‘Punishment’? ‘Culpable’?” He thought back over the decade in which he had exerted every cell of mind and body to maintain the defense of Kentucky against impossible odds, against the hostility of British and Indians, against the shortsightedness and indifference of the state’s own leaders; he thought of the interminable Indian councils, of his spirited harangues to his troops, of the long, excruciating marches, of the constant shortages of men and money, of the slanders made behind his back in the East, of the allegations of his sottishness, of his economic ruin. All this, he thought, to end up condemned out of hand as a criminal against his beloved state! The governor obviously had taken someone’s apocryphal account of the incident and swallowed it whole. And gave me no chance even to speak the truth! he thought. By the Eternal, he was in a hurry to throw me to the wolves!
He poured down more brandy while he brooded, and he might as well have been pouring it on a chafing dish; it leaped and fluttered like an alcohol flame over his despair and his simmering contempt for Governor Randolph. Now he snatched paper from a desk drawer. As he dipped a quill in ink, he heard his mother’s voice querying outside the locked door. “I won’t see anyone!” he yelled. “I’m not fit!” And, not hearing the words of her reply through the roaring of his emotions, he scrawled:
His Excellency
Governor Edmund Randolph
Sir: I respect the STATE of Virginia.
The information you have received hath already been stained with the blood of your country! Facts will prove themselves.
I am, Sir, yours,
G.R. CLARK
George was gone from Mulberry Hill. Nobody knew where he had gone, but they all knew the state of mind he was in, and they were very worried about him.
He had stayed in the library alone the rest of that day after Judge Innes had left. One by one the members of the family had rapped on the door and entreated him to come out for something or other, and one by one had been told to leave him at peace. Then, very late, after they all h
ad retired to their rooms, they had heard, through the hiss of April rain, hoofbeats going at a gallop from the stables down the avenue to the public road.
They found the library door open, wads of paper strewn over the floor, these proving to be awkward starts of letters to Thomas Jefferson, addressed to him in Paris, with salutations, then first lines scratched out. All the liquor decanters were empty; the room reeked of whiskey and tobacco smoke, and vomit dribbled from the sill of an open window. The pantry door was ajar and two jugs of liquor were gone. George’s room was open; his saddlebags and pistols were gone, as was his old buckskin coat from the Revolution. Cupid came to the back door to report: “Mas’ George woked me up to saddle his stalyum, nen he rad off so hawd ’e make dust in ne mud!” Prodded, Cupid admitted that George had looked like the Devil himself, and added, “Seem me he been awful fragment wi’ corn spirits, come near fall off th’ stalyum!”
The next day, John Clark put on a rain cape and rode down to Louisville, ostensibly to inquire about a shipment of seed that was due, but mainly to inquire, discreetly, whether George had been seen. As the city’s founder and most celebrated citizen, George could hardly move in Louisville without half the population knowing he was in the town and where.
John Clark went from the land office to the wharf; from the town hall to the apothecary; from the public house to the fort; finally he even made unannounced calls at the doctor’s office and the homes of a few merchants. He idled briefly or discussed business matters with them all, but his casual inquiries indicated that George either had not been through Louisville at all, or, if he had, he had gone through by night. There was hardly anyplace where he could have been in secret.