I downed a gram of Dover’s powder to quiet my racing pulse, and waited for the opiate to steal my anguish from me. The letter on my desk this eighteenth day of August had catapulted my pulse and deranged my every thought.
I paced my chamber, some wildness keeping me from sitting myself down and reading the letter from Secretary of War Eustis a second time to measure its deadly impact. I pressed the lids of my eyes shut, wanting to drive out the sight of that awful missive, which had been written in mid-July but only now found its way to my hands.
Such was my agitation that the powder did not take hold entirely; no peace filtered through me, but only a leaden weariness that did not allay my anxiety at all, but perhaps even deepened it. I was tempted to take another gram, but put the thought behind me.
At last I felt my pulse slow, and my jumbled thoughts slow with my pulse, and I supposed that soon I could reduce the chaos of my heart to good order. Without the powder, I might have suffered an apoplexy beyond repair.
I seated myself again in the squeaking chair and let myself stare at the fluted white woodwork of my office, the seat of government of Upper Louisiana, a territory comparable to the whole of the original United States of America, though I don’t suppose those back East ever fathomed that.
I watched the progress of my hands, sweaty and trembling at first, and spastic in their motions. They dried. I regained control of them. I could hold the letter without smearing the ink or straining my eyes.
It had been opened by Secretary Bates, who no doubt was even now trumpeting the tidings to his cronies, with many a joyous smirk and expression of hypocritical and pious horror. I reached to the cut glass decanter and poured a measure of ruby port and discovered as I lifted the glass that my hands were once again obedient to my will. I sipped, and again.
The letter from Secretary Eustis professed puzzlement about the expedition I had sent forth in May to return She-He-Ke to his Mandan village. Or rather, it expressed puzzlement about what the hundred and twenty trappers would do once they got above the Mandan villages. He said the government had no understanding of any of that, or where the commercial party was heading, or whether it would even remain in United States territory, and I should have inquired before acting.
This was official dissembling, the genteel lying of bureaucrats; he knew exactly what the trappers of the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company would do after they had delivered the Mandan chief to his village because I had thrice written Eustis in great detail about the arrangement, and what was required because the regular army would not do the job. I had enclosed a fair copy of the contract with the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company.
All this the secretary knew, but now professed ignorance, which is the venerable way of effete functionaries to say no, or rebuke underlings, or express disapproval. James Madison’s pinchpenny secretary of war was not only no friend, but was now grimly undermining my every effort to secure the territory from the designs of the British, who continued to stir up the tribes against us.
I detected the Machiavellian hand of Frederick Bates in all this: those snide asides, those grandiloquent objections to my every voucher, those raindrops of dissent descending on the governor, all had their effect. His noose was tightening around my vulnerable neck.
The secretary of war wrote, in that dry, passive voice of his, that after his department had approved the seven thousand dollars for the expedition, “it was not expected that any further advances or any further agency would be required on the part of the United States.”
He would, therefore, reject the voucher I had issued at the last moment for the additional five hundred dollars to purchase more gifts for diplomatic concourse with the tribes.
The voucher would be my own responsibility. I now owed every penny of it to the merchants who had trusted my signature on a government draft.
But Secretary Eustis wasn’t done with me. “The President has been consulted and the observations herein have his approval.”
So Mr. Madison was rebuking me, too. There was no sympathetic ear in official Washington. It was a vote of no confidence. It was a blatant if unspoken suggestion that I resign. No governor can govern without the power of the purse, and Eustis knew it.
It was, I felt certain, Frederick Bates’s carefully executed coup d’état.
His office was but a few doors away, but I did not storm toward it. I reread Eustis’s letter and resolved to fight. The first step would be a reply in this very day’s post. I would again provide the exact details of the fur company expedition, the exact plans of the company after it had fulfilled its official function, and the exact costs. I have never been one to surrender under adversity, especially to the withered gray hand of bureaucracy, and so I wrote, the calmness adding to my lucidity, the powders subduing the clawing at my heart.
I explained to Eustis that the feelings his letter excited were truly painful, and I reminded him that I had always accompanied my drafts with detailed explanations of what the funds were purchasing. And I concluded, “If the object be not a proper one, of course I am responsible, but if, on investigation, it does appear to have been necessary for the promotion of the public interest, I shall hope for relief.”
And I reminded him that “I have never received a penny of public money but have merely given the draft to a person who has rendered public service, or furnished articles for public use, which have been, invariably, applied to the purposes expressed in my letters of advice.”
I fancied that it was one of the best of my letters to the secretary; and when I was done I signed it, sealed it with wax, and posted it myself rather than letting Bates see my correspondence.
But I was not sanguine about the effect of that letter. If I wished to retain office, I would have to go east, at once, and sit down with the president and secretary and anyone else who might help me, and make my case.
I dozed.
Will Clark startled me awake. I peered up at him, shaking the cobwebs from my brain.
“What’s this about a voucher?” he asked.
So Bates had been telling the world after all. I handed the letter to Clark, who read it, frowning.
“This indicts us all,” he said. “The fur company as well as your offices in setting up the expedition.”
He had a steely set to his face I had seen only a few times before. An angry Will Clark was a force to be reckoned with.
“So Eustis is feeding you to the hogs,” he said.
“Where did you hear about the voucher?”
“Ben Wilkinson. He asked whether the government would honor your warrants. He has several bills outstanding.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Who told Wilkinson about the letter?”
“He just passed it off as rumor.”
“Bates,” I said. “He’s the one who received and opened it and placed it on my desk.”
Clark grunted. “You can’t answer backstabbers by writing letters. If you want to bend an official, look him in the eye. We’ll both have to go to Washington.”
I nodded.
He stared at me. “Are you indisposed?”
“Just tired.”
“How soon do you think you can be off?”
“I don’t know. A week, maybe. I hate to leave the territory in his hands.”
“Bates is too hidebound to do anything. He’s an absolutely rule-obsessed man. Put him in charge of anything, and he’d spend days trying to find a rule giving him the legal right to sneeze. You have no need to fear him.”
Will could not have been more wrong, but I said nothing.
“You’re indisposed,” he said. “Maybe that’s best. Go to your rooms and close the door and rest.”
He left, leaving me to face my creditors. I drew my ledgers out of a drawer and began totting up my debts, which came to four thousand dollars. If more warrants were rejected, I would owe more. I needed cash, and fast.
There was one hope: I had never made use of my land warrant from the government, the sixteen hundred acres given me as my reward for leading the expedition. Land was cheap. There was more than enough. But maybe if it were auctioned in New Orleans, I might get two dollars an acre for it, a better price than I could obtain here. All right. I would take the warrant to New Orleans, and see what came of it. With luck, that might cover half of my debt—if Eustis didn’t reject any more of my vouchers. I had the crawling fear that he would, especially egged on by Frederick Bates. If they wanted to ruin me, they could without much effort.
I drew up a list of creditors, and calculated. If I returned two of the farms I had purchased from Auguste Chouteau, I would cover my debt to him. If I placed the remaining farm in the hands of my creditors, and my several city lots, that would cover more debt. But there would be other debts remaining, such as the back salary I owed my servant, John Pernia. And the warrants. I didn’t have enough to cover everything. I didn’t have enough to afford a trip to Washington, much less the return to St. Louis.
No one had pressed me as yet. But with every commotion in the corridor, I expected one or another St. Louis businessman to burst in and skin my hide. That no one burst through my door was good. If I wanted to demonstrate my intent and my honor, I would go to them first, before they were forced to come to me.
I examined my ledgers, made my choices, and headed into the suffocating afternoon with the documents in a portfolio. I would see an attorney and draw up some papers empowering certain friends to handle my financial affairs. Then, in a day or two, I would face my creditors. Let no man say I am without honor.