Читать книгу The Loyalist - James Francis Barrett - Страница 6

I

The Corner of Market and Front Streets was brisk with life and activity at twelve, the change hour, every day. Here assembled the merchants of the city, members of the upper class who cared enough about the rest of the world to make an inquiry into its progress; men of leisure about town whose vocation in life was to do nothing and who had the entire day in which to do it. All conditions, all varieties of character joined the ranks. Soldiers, restless from the monotony of army life and desirous of the license usually associated with leave of absence; civilians eager in the pursuit of truth or of scandal; patriots impatient with the yoke of foreign rule; Tories exasperated with the turn of the war and its accompanying privations; – all gathered together at the Old London Coffee House day after day.

It stood, an imposing three-storied, square structure, with a great wing extending far in the rear. Its huge roof, fashioned for all the world after a truncated pyramid with immense gables projecting from its sides, gave every indication of having sheltered many a guest from the snows and rains of winter. A great chimney ran up the side and continually belched forth smoke and sparks, volumes of them, during the days and nights of the cold winter season. A portico of no particular style of architecture ran around two sides of the ancient building and afforded a meeting place for the majority of the guests. It was furnished with many chairs, faithfully tenanted when the season was propitious.

Thither Stephen and Mr. Allison were directing their steps more than a week after they had last met at the home of the latter. It was by the merest chance they encountered. Stephen was seeking a healthful reaction from a vigorous walk through the less-frequented part of the city; Mr. Allison was making his daily visit to the Coffee House. Stephen had often heard of the tavern, but had never been there. Still he was resolved to seek an introduction to its clientèle at the first propitious moment. That moment had now come.

Upon entering, their attention was at once arrested by the animated discussion in progress at a table in the nearest corner of the room. An officer of the Governor's Guard, in full regimentals, booted and spurred, in company with a gentleman, finely dressed, was talking loudly to Jim Cadwalader, who was seated before them holding a half-opened newspaper in his hand. It was plain to be seen that the soldier was somewhat under the influence of liquor, yet one could not call him intoxicated.

"Gi' me that an' I'll show y'," exclaimed the soldier as he grabbed the paper from Cadwalader's hand.

"Y' were told," he went on to read from it, "that it was t' avoid the 'stabl'shment 'r count'nancin'," he half mumbled the words, "of Pop'ry; an that Pop'ry was 'stabl'shed in Canada (where 't was only tol'rated). And is not Pop'ry now as much 'stabl'shed by law in your state 's any other rel'gion?" "Just what I was sayin'," he interpolated. "So that your Gov'nor and all your rulers may be Papists, and you may have a Mass-House in ev'ry corner o' your country (as some places already 'xper'ence)."

"There!" he snarled as he threw back the paper. "Isn't that what I wuz tryin' t' tell y'."

"You can't tell me nothin', Forrest," retorted Jim.

"Course I can't. Nobody kin. Y' know 't all."

"I can mind my own bus'ness."

"There y' are agin," shouted Forrest, "y' know 't all, ye do."

"Don't say that again," Jim flared back at him. "I'll – I'll – I'll – . Don't say it again, that's all."

"'Cause y' know 'ts true."

"It's a lie," Jim interrupted him. "Ye know it's a lie. But I don't 'spect much of ye, 'r of the Gov'nor either. None of ye 'll ever be Papists."

"Now you're talkin' sens'ble; first sens'ble thing you've said t'day. No Papists here if we kin help it."

Stephen and Mr. Allison, keenly interested in this remark, moved nearer to the table. Cadwalader was well known to Mr. Allison. The others were total strangers.

"What's he goin' t' do about the help from France? Refuse it 'cause it's from a Catholic country?" asked Jim.

"He don't like it and never did."

"Is he fool 'nough t' think we can win this war without help?"

"He won it once."

"When?"

"Saratoga."

"That's his story. We didn't have it won and it won't be won without troops and with somethin' besides shin-plasters." He turned sideways, crossed one leg over the other and began to drum upon the table.

"We must hev help," he went on. "We must hev it and it must come from France 'r Spain."

"They y' are agin," repeated Forrest, "as if one wuzn't as much under th' Pope as th' other."

"Forrest!" he turned toward him and shook his finger at him in a menacing sort of way. "Don't say that agin. Mind what I tell ye. Don't say it again – that's all. When I'm mad, I'm not myself."

"Is that so? I s'pose I'm wrong agin, an' you're right. Tell me this. What did yer fool leg'slature in Vi'ginya do th' other day?"

"I don't know," murmured Jim. "What did they do?"

"There y' are agin. I thought y' knew it all. Think y' know ev'rythin' an' y' know nothin'. Passed a resolution fur a Papist priest, didn't they?"

"And why?" pronounced Jim, flushed with anger, his lower lip quivering with emotion. "'Cause he did more fur his country, than you or I'll ever do. Father Gibault! And if it wazn't fur him, Colonel Clark'd never hev op'nd th' Northwest."

"That's just what I say. The Papists'll soon own the whole damn country."

Stephen and Mr. Allison moved as if to join the discussion, which had at this juncture become loud enough to lose the character of intimacy. Jim was well known to the guests of the house. The man who was known as Forrest, was, it was plain from his uniform, a Colonel in the army. The other man was a stranger. Much younger than his companion, tall, manly, clad in a suit of black, with his hair in full dress, well-powdered and gathered behind in a large silken bag, he gave every appearance of culture and refinement. He wore a black cocked hat, whose edges were adorned with a black feather about an inch in depth, his knees as well as his shoes adorned with silver buckles.

"If they did own th' country," was Jim's grave reply, "we'd hev a healthier place to live in than we now hev."

"An' whose doin' it?" shouted Forrest. "The Papists."

"Thou liest!" interrupted Mr. Allison, intruding himself into their midst, "a confounded lie. Remember, the Catholics have given their all to this war – their goods, their money, their sons."

"Heigh-ho! who're you?" asked the soldier. "What d' you know 'bout the army? Hardly 'nough 'f them to go aroun'."

"A malicious untruth. Why, half the rebel army itself is reported to have come from Ireland."

"How do you know?"

"From the testimony of General Robertson in the House of Lords. And if these soldiers are Irishmen, you can wager they're Catholics. And why should we pass laws 'gainst these crowds of Irish Papists and convicts who are yearly poured upon us, unless they were Catholic convicts fleeing from the laws of persecution?"

"What ails ye, Forrest," rejoined Jim, "can't be cured."

"Take care 'f yourself," angrily retorted the Colonel, "an' I'll take care o' myself."

"If ye did, and yer likes did the same, we'd git along better and the war'd be over. I s'pose ye know that yer friend Jay lost Canada to us."

"What if he did. Wazn't he right?"

And then he explained to him.

II

Canada had been surrendered to England by France in a clause of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, with a stipulation, however, that the people of the territory in question would be permitted the free use of the French language, the prescriptions of the French code of laws, and the practice of the Catholic religion.

South of this region and west of the English colonies between the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers, stretched a vast expanse of territory known as the Northwest Territory, where dwelt a large population without laws, with no organized form of government save the mere caprices of petty military tyrants, placed over them by the various seaboard colonies who severally laid claim to the district. At the request of the people of Canada it was voted by the English Parliament to reannex the territory northwest of the Ohio to Canada and to permit the settlers to share in the rights and privileges of the Canadian province. This was effected by the Quebec Act in 1774.

It was truly a remarkable concession. The inhabitants of this vast stretch of territory were freed for all time from the tyranny of military despots, their lands and churches secured to them and their priests given a legal title to their tithes. It was the freest exercise of the Catholic religion under the laws of the English Government.

But what a storm of abuse and protestation was raised by the fanatical portion of the Protestant population! The newspapers of the day abounded with articles, with songs and squibs against the King and His Parliament. The mother country witnessed no less virulent a campaign than the colonies themselves. "We may live to see our churches," writes one writer to the Pennsylvania Packet, "converted into mass-houses, and our lands plundered of tithes for the support of a Popish clergy. The Inquisition may erect her standard in Pennsylvania and the city of Philadelphia may yet experience the carnage of St. Bartholomew's day." Processions were formed about the country and in some places the bust of George III, adorned with miter, beads and a pectoral cross, was carried in triumphal march.

The forms of protest found their way ultimately into the halls of the First American Congress which convened in Philadelphia in 1774. The recent legislation was enumerated among the wrongs done the colonies by the mother country. Feeling became so bitter that an address was issued by the Congress on the fifth of September, 1774, "to the people of Great Britain" saying: "We think the Legislature of Great Britain is not authorized by the Constitution to establish a religion, fraught with sanguinary and impious tenets, or to erect an arbitrary form of government in any quarter of the globe." "By another act the Dominion of Canada is to be extended, modeled and governed, as that being disunited from us, detached from our interests by civil as well as religious prejudices, that by their numbers daily swelling with Catholic emigrants from Europe, and by their devotion to administration so friendly to their religion, they might become formidable to us, and on occasion be fit instruments in the hands of power to reduce the ancient free Protestant colonies to the same state of slavery with themselves." Little did they think that the breach they were attempting to heal was widened by their procedure. The author of the address was John Jay, a lawyer from New York, with whom Papaphobia was a mania.

Nor did the failure of this method of diplomacy become apparent until several years later. The measure of appreciation and the expression of sentiment of the Canadian people in regard to this ill-timed and unchristian address, conceived in a fit of passion and by no means representative of the sentiments of the saner portion of the population, took expression at a more critical time. When, in 1776, the members of the same Congress, viewing with alarm the magnitude of the struggle upon which they had entered and to whose success they had pledged their honor, their fortunes and their lives, sought to enlist the resources of their neighbors in Canada, they met with a sudden and calamitous disappointment. To effect an alliance with the border brethren, three commissioners were appointed – Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Father John Carroll, a Jesuit priest, was invited by the Congress to accompany the party.

Arriving in Canada, it soon became evident to the committee, that their mission was to be unproductive of results. The government did not take kindly to them, nor would the Bishop of Quebec and his clergy trust the vague expressions of the United Colonies, whose statute books, they pointed out, still bore the most bitter and unchristian sentiments against all priests and adherents of the ancient church. Bigotry had apparently defeated their purpose. How it had done this was still quite obscure, until it was discovered that the British Government had taken John Jay's address, translated it into French and spread it broadcast throughout Canada. "Behold the spirit of the Colonists," it went on to remind the people, "and if you join forces with them, they will turn on you and extirpate your religion, in the same manner as they did in the Catholic colony of Maryland."

The effect is historical. The commissioners were compelled to return; the brave Montgomery was killed before the walls of the city; Canada was lost to the Colonies and forever forfeited as an integral part of the United States; all of which was due to the narrowness and intolerance of those who in the supreme hour could not refrain from the fanaticism of bigotry.

It must be said, however, out of justice to the colonists that they did not persist in their spirit of antagonism towards the Catholics. The commencement of the struggle against the common foe, together with the sympathetic and magnanimous concurrence of the Catholics with the patriots in all things, soon changed their prejudice in favor of a more united and vigorous effort in behalf of their joint claims. The despised Papists now became ardent and impetuous patriots. The leaders in the great struggle soon began to reflect an added luster to the nation that gave them birth and to the Church which taught them devotion to their land. The rank and file began to swarm with men of the Catholic faith, so many, indeed, that their great Archbishop, John Carroll, could write of them that "their blood flowed as freely (in proportion to their numbers) to cement the fabric of independence, as that of any of their fellow citizens. They concurred with perhaps greater unanimity than any other body of men in recommending and promoting that government from whose influence America anticipates all the blessings of justice, peace, plenty, good order, and civil and religious liberty."

Only among the few was the spirit of intolerance still rampant, and among these might be numbered Colonel Forrest.

III

"See now who's t' blame, don't ye? The likes o' ye an' that poltroon, Jay, up there in New York. See who started this affair, don't ye?"

"That's what you say. Egad, I could say all that an' save half the breath. I've got my 'pinion, though, and that'll do fur me."

"Ye're so narrow, Forrest, ye've only one side."

"Is that so? Well, so is the Governor."

"Is that his opinion, too?" impatiently asked Mr. Allison.

"What?"

"Does he view matters in that light?"

"Did I say he did."

"Yes."

There was no further response.

Stephen had, by this time, become thoroughly exasperated with this man, and was about to eject him forcibly from the room. His better judgment, however, bade him restrain himself. A tilt in a public drinking house would only noise his name abroad and perhaps give rise to much unpleasantness.

"How can a man consistently be subject to any civil ruler when he already has pledged his allegiance, both in soul and in body, to another potentate?"

This from the man in black, the fourth member of the party, who heretofore had maintained an impartial and respectful silence, not so much from choice perhaps as through necessity. His name proved to be John Anderson.

"You mean an alien?" Stephen inquired.

"If you are pleased so to term it. The Pope is a temporal lord, you understand, and as such is due allegiance from every one of his subjects."

And then Stephen took pains to explain, clearly and concisely, the great difference between the two authorities – the civil and the religious. The Prince of Peace had said, "Render unto Cæesar the things that are Cæesar's, and to God the things that are God's," which declaration admitted of an interpretation at once comprehensive and exclusive. He explained how the Catholic found himself a member of two distinct and perfect societies, each independent and absolute within its own sphere, the one deriving its charter from the natural law, the other directly from God. He then pointed out how these societies lived in perfect harmony, although armed with two swords, the one spiritual, the other temporal, weapons which were intended never to clash but to fight side by side for the promotion of man's happiness, temporal and eternal.

"But it is inconceivable how a clash can be avoided," Mr. Anderson reminded him.

"Not when it is remembered that each authority is independent of the other. The Church has no power over civil legislation in matters purely secular, nor has the state a right to interfere in ecclesiastical legislation, in matters purely spiritual, nor over spiritual persons considered strictly as such. In every Catholic country the King, as well as the humblest peasant, is subject to the laws of his country in secular matters, and to the laws of his church in matters spiritual."

"Yet at the same time he cannot fail to recognize that the one is superior to the other."

"Only in so far as the spiritual order is superior to the secular."

"Not in temporal affairs as well?"

"Not in the least. Only in the recognition of the fact that the salvation of the soul is of more importance than the welfare of the body. In this is the mission of the state considered inferior to that of the Church."

"If this be true, how can a Catholic pay allegiance to a society which he believes to be a subordinate one?"

"He does not consider it subordinate. It is supreme within its own sphere. Theoretically it is subordinate in this: that the care of the soul comes first; then that of the body. The state is the greatest institution in matters secular, and in this respect superior to the Church. The Church makes no pretense of infallibility in statesmanship. Hence, a Catholic who is true to his Church and her teachings makes the best citizen."

"Why?"

"Because, to him, patriotism is inculcated by religion. Throughout his whole life his soul has been nurtured by his Church on a twofold pabulum, – love of God and love of country."

"The Catholic Church expressly teaches that? I thought – "

"Exactly," agreed Stephen, interrupting him. "The Catholic has been taught that the civil authority, to which he owes and pays allegiance, is something divine; for him it is the authority of God vested in His creatures and he gives ear to its voice and yields to it a sweet and humble submission as befits a child of God, doing His Will in all things. For he recognizes therein the sound of the Divine Voice."

"I see."

"He remembers the teaching of his Church, derived from the words of St. Paul writing on this subject to the citizens of Rome, 'Let every man be subject to higher powers, for there is no power but from God; and those that are, are ordained of God,' and the letter of St. Peter, the first Pope, 'Be ye subject, therefore, to every human creature for God's sake; whether it be to the king as excelling; or to governors as sent by him – for so is the will of God.'"

"You must have been reading the Bible," interrupted Mr. Allison with a smile.

"I have," answered Stephen, as he continued with little or no attention to the interruption.

"The Catholic obeys the voice of his rightly constituted authority because he feels that he is obeying the voice of his God, and when he yields obedience to the law of his land, he feels that he is yielding obedience to God Himself. His ruler is the mouthpiece of God; the Constitution of his state a most sacred thing because it is the embodiment of the authority of God and he would rather die than commit any untoward or unlawful deed which might undermine or destroy it, precisely because it is from God."

There was no response. All had listened with attention to Stephen as he emphasized point after point. All, save Colonel Forrest, who wore a sardonic smile throughout it all.

"You should 've talked like that on Guy Fawkes' Day," he muttered, "if you wanted t' hev some fun. We'd hev some hot tar fur you."

"Thank God!" replied Stephen. "We shall witness no more such outbreaks of fanaticism. They have long enough disgraced our country. They are, I trust, forever ended."

"The Pope Day Celebration ended?" asked Anderson in surprise.

"I hope so. Since General Washington issued the order soon after taking command of the army, abolishing the celebration, the practice has never been resumed."

"Wash'ton thinks he owns th' country," mumbled Forrest in a half articulate manner. "Likes th' Papists, he does. No more Pope Day! Cath'lic gen'rals! French al-lies! P'rhaps 'll send fur th' Pope next. Give 'm 'is house, p'rhaps. Give 'im th' whole coun'ry. No damn good to us, he ain't. No damn good – "

The next moment Stephen was upon him with his hands about his throat, his face flaming with rage and passion.

"You hound! No more of that; or your treason will end forever."

He shook his head violently, tightening his fingers about his throat. As he did, Forrest writhing in the chair under his attack, began to fumble with his hand at his hip as if instinctively seeking something there. Stephen's eyes followed the movement, even while he, too, relaxed his hold to seize with his free hand the arm of his adversary. Only for a moment, however; for he immediately felt himself seized from behind by the shoulders and dragged backwards from his man and completely overpowered.

The man who was known as Anderson took charge of the Colonel, helping him to his feet, and without further words led him to one side of the room, talking softly but deliberately to him as he did so.

A moment later they had passed through the door and vanished down the street in the direction of the Square.