Abbott had half-expected to find difficulty in gaining access to the Tower and to Washington. But he did not. The guard in the small booth just outside the main entrance seemed to be expecting him, and when he showed the man the letter from Hartleb he was ushered immediately through the portcullis gate, and taken by another man along a stone walkway with a crenellated wall to his left, and finally to a stone-floored small room with the door standing open.
“There he is,” the man said. He pointed into the room and left. A tall man had been standing at the barred window, looking out. He turned quickly around at the sound of the guard’s voice.
So far as Abbott could tell at a glance, Washington was none the worse for wear—still very tall and very large in every proportion—strong neck, broad shoulders and huge hands. He was, however, dressed in an American uniform that had one epaulette missing and was otherwise almost in tatters.
“Excellency, please allow me to introduce myself. I am Ethan Abbott, and I am most honoured to meet you.” He nodded his head slightly and started to continue, “I am...”
“I know who you are, Colonel. A hero of Saratoga. I wasn’t there, but General Gates told me later of your bravery, and how your actions under fire saved so many others but cost you a part of your leg. It is I who am honoured to meet you. I thank you for your service to the army and to our country and for the glory you have bestowed upon them both.”
Washington’s words took him aback. He had not expected the General to know anything at all about him. “Thank you, Excellency. I simply did my duty like any other soldier.”
Washington glanced at Abbott’s lower leg. “I see you disguise your injury rather than flaunt it.”
“I flaunt it when I need to.”
Washington smiled. “In any case, as pleased as I am to meet you, Colonel, no one told me you were coming, and I do not know why you are here. Can you enlighten me?”
“Yes, of course. I have been appointed by the Continental Congress as an Ambassador Plenipotentiary to negotiate your release. But first, I must ask if you are in good health and well treated.”
“I am well, thank you. When I arrived I was examined by a physician from the Royal College of Medicine, who pronounced me fit. The food is good and I have not been ill-treated in any way.”
“I am pleased to hear that. I am prepared to share my instructions with you and take your lead on how we should go about our negotiation.”
Washington nodded and pointed at the room’s side walls, which appeared to be made, not of stone, as Abbott had expected, but of wood.
“We should of course discuss your instructions,” Washington said. “But we should do it elsewhere. Because they recently brought in two new prisoners, neither looking very much like a felon, and placed them in cells to the left and right of this one. And I note their doors are not locked at night.”
“Spies, in other words.”
“Yes. And if you peer down from my window you’ll see a man down below pressed up against the wall, no doubt hoping to hear some words of mine transported to him on the breeze.”
Abbott walked to the window and looked down. There was indeed a gentleman below leaning against the wall, trying to make his presence look casual.
“This is ungentlemanly,” Abbott said.
“I think the British left that concept behind long ago, at least as concerns our Revolution. And there is one more thing. The man who captured me—Colonel Black—is also lodged here in the Tower, although in a different part.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“Not only have I seen him, but he has come by to visit with me. Twice.”
“And you treated with him?”
“Yes, of course. We had cordial enough relations from the moment he seized me at my headquarters until we disembarked from the ship at Portsmouth. He seems not even to begrudge me my attempts to escape, agreeing with me that it is a soldier’s duty to try.”
“Did he say why he comes to see you now?”
Washington grinned. “I think he has been appointed by someone to make certain I don’t try to escape again.”
Abbott walked over to the door and examined the lock, a very large metal bolt, turned by key, and designed to fit into a hasp on the doorjamb. “They lock you in at night?”
“Always before midnight. Sometimes sooner.”
“Are you permitted to leave the room during the day?”
“Oh, yes. There are a few areas which I’m forbidden to visit. Otherwise I seem to have freedom during daylight to go where I wish. They refer to me as a guest.”
“A guest who is locked in at night and cannot leave.”
“Precisely. Which is why I am always followed by at least two soldiers.” He gestured into the adjoining hallway, and Abbott noticed for the first time two soldiers with bayonets loitering at a distance.
“There are only two?”
“Sometimes there are more. I have tried to befriend them. I have been friendly and talked with them when they wanted to talk.”
“You’d best be careful they are not also spies.”
“I am. Let us stroll together upon the parade, where I think we will be less likely to be overheard.”
“Of course, Excellency.”
They moved to the parade, a long broad stone walkway, which was overlooked on the one side by the White Tower and on the other by a storehouse of some sort. “I must warn you,” Washington said. “Yesterday, they permitted individuals into the storehouse and they stood in the windows and threw fruit and eggs at me as I walked along here.”
“You joke.”
“No. When I first arrived at the Tower there were crowds waiting outside, and they were friendly, cheering me actually as I entered. But now someone within the government has decided to show me the other side of British hospitality.”
“Perhaps, Excellency, they will not be there now, it being night.”
“We shall see.”
“Before we discuss my instructions, Excellency, please permit me to ask another question of you first. If you have been well taken care of since your arrival, why have they not provided you with suitable clothes?”
“It is my choice. I wish to wear my uniform, and all that they have offered me are civilian clothes.”
“We must find a solution to that.”
“There is an easy one, I think. For many years, my supplier of fine English goods, including fine cloth, was here in London. His name is Richard Washington.”
“Is he a relation?”
“No. But assuming he is still amongst the living and still in business, he might yet have my measurements.” He laughed. “Although the finished clothes he shipped rarely fit well, so in the end he just sent the cloth. He can come here with a good tailor. If he is willing.”
“I believe I have enough funds to pay for at least two uniforms, so I will see to it first thing tomorrow.”
“You won’t likely need to use your funds, which I assume are limited. Upon the outbreak of the Revolution, I was unable to take delivery on several things I had on order from Mr. Washington at the time. He wrote me and said the amount I had paid him in advance would remain on account as a credit.”
“And if the authorities will not permit you to receive those clothes from him?”
“Then I will eventually need to appear in my undergarments. The embarrassment will be theirs, not mine. And if I do manage to get a new uniform, I have promised the soldiers each a button from this old one.” He laughed. “I am apparently famous, even here.”
There was a shout from the second story of the warehouse. “There he is!” A piece of fruit smashed against the stones near them, then a second and third, their pulp splashing on the ground. It seemed to Abbott, however, that those who were throwing did not intend to hit them, which they could certainly have done had they wished to do so. The shouting grew louder, a chorus of voices yelling, “Traitor! Hang him! Hang him high!” There followed a volley of eggs.
Washington seemed unmoved by the tumult. “Over there,” he said, “is a niche at the base of the storehouse where their projectiles can’t reach.” He pointed.
They moved into the niche, and Abbott said, “This is unpardonable. You must be correct that the government is behind it. I will let Mr. Hartleb, who is Lord North’s assistant, know and protest in the strongest terms.”
All of a sudden, the shouting stopped and the fruit stopped flying. “Perhaps now we can discuss my instructions,” Abbott said.
“What are they?”
“I am to insist on full independence no matter what, but agree to stay within the Empire for purposes of tariff-free trade only for a period of ten years. Twenty years if I can do no better. We are to receive all British lands as far west as the Mississippi, but they are to keep the Caribbean islands, Florida and Canada and we are to promise not to invade them.”
“And in exchange?”
“You are to go free and be permitted to return to America.”
“Is that it?”
“No. You are to be permitted to negotiate different terms so long as full independence is one of them.”
“Colonel Abbott, I can see how those terms might make sense to the faraway Congress. But they make no sense to me. I do not wish to be the gold chip on the gaming table in any kind of bargaining.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the British must gain no advantage by having captured me. If they want to keep me until the war is over, they can do that. After all, I am a prisoner of war. If they want to exchange me for a general we might capture, they can do that. But nothing else.”
Abbott steeled himself for what he needed to say, took a deep breath and said it. “But, Excellency, they plan a third choice. To try you for high treason and hang you.” He decided to leave out the part about quartering. “Or at least that is what the King desires.”
“Let them. I will go honourably to the gallows, and in the fullness of time, the gods of history will frown down upon them, and especially upon the tyrant who calls himself their king.”
“There are those who think—and I am one of them—that you are needed in America to bring the war to a favourable end.”
“There are others who can accomplish that.”
“I do not agree, Excellency.”
“Even if there are not others who can accomplish it, and the war is lost, it will be lost only for the moment. There are not enough British soldiers, nor enough money in the British treasury, to subdue the spirit of liberty that has been unleashed in our land. Their soldiers will be fired at for years—decades if needed—from behind every rock and tree and every house and barn. Eventually they will give up and go home.”
“You will not defend yourself in a trial, then?”
Washington was quiet for a long time. Abbott could sense he was thinking how to respond to the question. He took a deep breath and said, “I will defend myself. It will present an excellent opportunity to argue our case directly to the British people, who, by the way, have many similar complaints about their own loss of liberty.”
“In that case, you will need a lawyer to help you make your case most effectively.”
“I am not sure I need one, but perhaps you are right. You are a lawyer, are you not?”
“Yes, but obviously not admitted to the bar here.”
“Who, then?”
“Edmund Burke stopped by to see me yesterday to volunteer for the role, without pay.”
“Now, that is an astonishing thing, I must admit. And flattering. But he is only partly on our side. He defends us but insists Parliament must remain sovereign over us even if it does nothing—for now—to bring that sovereign power to bear.”
“You will reject his offer?”
“Yes. With thanks, of course. Instead, I want an American. Someone born over there but admitted to the bar here.”
“I know of no such person.”
“I am aware that there were many Americans here studying to be lawyers when the war broke out. Some of them must by now be members of the bar. Or others who came before. Go find them.”