Abbott went the very next morning to the Tower. He asked the guard if Washington was there and was told that he was. Abbott was then searched much more thoroughly than he had ever been before, and he was also accompanied to Washington’s cell by a guard rather than being permitted to find his own way.
Washington was indeed in his cell and greeted him as if nothing had changed.
“Excellency, there are two things we must discuss urgently,” Abbott said. “For both, we might walk upon the parade.”
“All right. Let us go. It is perhaps too early in the morning for the fruit throwers to be in place. Or perhaps they don’t toss fruit at the condemned.”
As they walked, Abbott said, “We have reopened the negotiations with Lord North, based on a proposal he made. I call it the ‘set the issue to the side’ approach.”
“Which issue?”
“Independence.” He explained it to Washington and said, “We have met for two days now and made good progress. We are scheduled to meet again this afternoon.”
Washington stopped, folded his arms and faced Abbott. “It is a trick and a trap. If we should settle with them without formal independence, they will sooner rather than later enter into a peace treaty with France. Whereupon they will invade us again, but we will have no French arms, men or ships to help us. Which, let us agree, have been our saviour in this war.”
“If that were to happen, we would have our own professional army to resist their invasion, unlike in 1775.”
Washington laughed. “As soon as peace is declared, the Congress will disband the army. They fear a standing army, and even if they did not, they do not want to pay for it. It has been hard enough, when our liberty is at stake, to get even our current army funded.”
“Are you instructing me to abandon the negotiation?”
“No, Colonel. You should continue. I quite understand that it will delay my execution, and a few more days on earth in this glorious English spring will please me, certainly.”
“We should start to walk again, Excellency, and just not stand here, where we will attract attention.”
“All right.”
As they walked further along, Abbott said, in as low a voice as he could muster and still be heard by Washington, “I learned certain things, confronted Forecastle, and found out, not only who he really is, but that he is planning your escape. He refused to tell me the details.”
“I do not know them either. We thought it best that way. It will come as a surprise on the day of the execution.”
“You know nothing else at all of the plans, other than that they will attempt it on the day of the execution?”
“Only one other thing—that they plan to spirit me out of the country.”
“Excellency, you have told me many times you preferred death, even the horrible one inflicted on supposed traitors, to any kind of compromise, so that you might make a speech on the scaffold. One you hoped would rally the people of Britain to our side, bring down the government and lead quickly to independence.”
“I judge that my escape, right under their noses, will be such an embarrassment to them that it will have an even larger effect. If things go well, I can return to America and lead our army to victory. Then we will have true independence.”
“I have a perhaps better idea, Excellency. One that will enrage them even more. I will explain it to you and you can tell me to abandon it or to go forward.” He explained it in detail.
When Abbott had finished, Washington, looking thoughtful, tilted his head back and forth as if weighing the options. “It would, then, Colonel, take place the night before the execution?”
“Yes.”
“Thus, if it fails, it will not interfere with Lieutenant Forecastle’s plan.”
“It would seem unlikely to interfere. But for it to work, you must stay in the Tower until the day of execution. If you are moved earlier, Forecastle’s plan—whatever it is—may still work, but mine will not.”
“I have no way to assure they will keep me here.”
“You do, Excellency. You must at all times indicate, by word and deed, that you are still possibly open to Lord North’s suggestion. But only if a few more changes are made.”
“Why will he care?”
“I believe he is desperate, Excellency, not to execute you. But he seems to feel boxed into a corner politically. He cannot wait forever.”
“Who has boxed him in?”
“The ‘never independence’ members of Parliament.” He paused. “And the King.”
“I know what was said in the Declaration about the King, but I have always thought that the King was led around by the nose by Parliament.”
“I think that is true and not true at the same time. But whatever the formal relationship, the situation seems to have left the King unhinged from logical thinking on the subject. At least if Lord North is to be believed.”
“You have gotten to know North?”
“When you spend a long time with someone locked in a room, it breeds familiarity.”
“Some would say it can breed contempt.”
“I don’t have contempt for him. I see him as a man with a problem, partly of his own making, who would like mightily to resolve it but has been unable to find a way. Or perhaps lacks the political skill to find a way.”
“The fact that his problem is my pending death makes me less understanding of him, Colonel.”
“Of course, Excellency. I did not mean to turn it into a philosophical conversation.”
“Where are you going next?”
“To meet with a friend of America, whose help I will need.”
They said their goodbyes, and Abbott added, “I will see you again very soon,” and left.
The afternoon before, right after his meeting with Forecastle had ended on such a sour note, he had returned home. Once there, he had prevailed on Polly to travel to the haberdashery and return his tricornered hat and to explain that, through no fault of his, it had shrunk. He instructed her to give it only to Mr. Joshua Laden or his nephew who ran the shop, and that they should credit his account rather than return his money. He assumed Polly would not be followed, and that even if she were, her errand would seem innocent enough and fall well within the persona he had established for himself.
Now he would go to Daughters Coffee House.