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CHAPTER 8 (continued)

On the way back from a brief visit at Mr. Johnson’s office, Camden decided to stop and eat lunch at a small shop near Independence Hall. He bought a small loaf of bread and some cheese and ate as he walked. Before he reached their boarding house, however, he was overtaken by Nat and Mr. Monroe.

“Come with us,” Nat said. “We have important news.”

“What is it?” Camden asked. “Does it concern--”

“Not here,” Monroe said. “You probably know what it concerns, but it is best that the information not be broadcast indiscriminately just yet.”

They reached the boarding house, climbed the stairs to the shared room, and shut the door.

“It concerns the plot to attack Mr. Rufus King,” Nat began. Camden gave a smile as if to say “I knew it.” Nat rolled his eyes and continued. “Benjamin Doane was arrested at his home in New York and will likely stand trial for a number of crimes.”

“Good,” said Camden. “The families of Dr. McClurg and Mr. Pinckney deserve justice, as does Mr. King.”

“Of course they do, but that’s almost a triviality at this point.”

Camden gave Nat a puzzled look. Nat glanced over to Monroe who picked up where Nat had left off.

“What is remarkable is not that Doane’s conspiracy was uncovered, but where it led. We already were fairly confident that he had been working with former English spies. However, a search of his papers revealed that he has contacts in England right now. Not merely business contacts, but at least one man who encouraged this conspiracy and provided financial and other support for it.”

“How can that--” Camden began. “Who is it?”

“His identity remains a secret for now. Doane refuses to name him at any cost. But at least for the immediate future, we must proceed under the assumption that the effort to disrupt the convention has not been merely the work of one Loyalist American lashing out in retaliation for the losses he has suffered. This is something far more pernicious, I fear.”

The three sat not only silently but also motionless for what seemed an eternity.

“What are we to do now, Mr. Monroe?” Camden finally ventured.

As Nat looked over at Monroe, Camden thought he could see Monroe ever so slightly harden his jaw before speaking.

“We press on. Perhaps this English villain thinks that the American people can be conquered if sufficiently divided, that preventing us from addressing the perceived deficiencies in our constitution will make us vulnerable, that sowing discord and creating strife will force us down into the muck from which we will have no choice but to cry out for a savior. Thus, we must press on and finish the work we were sent here to do. To fail in that task will certainly be to give our enemies one of the things they must have wanted all along.”

Camden knew that Monroe did not regard himself as an eloquent speaker. This, however, Camden thought was the sort of speech that could rouse men to action. His resolve to help Mr. Monroe had never wavered, but he was sure that it was now stronger than ever.

“That was a fine speech, Mr. Monroe,” said Nat. “But if you’ll forgive my saying so, you won’t hear the next one over my stomach unless we go and get some food.” Monroe found that remark quite humorous--quite a bit more humorous than Camden thought it really was--and they all shared a laugh.

This would be his last session taking down Mr. Monroe’s notes and Camden felt a certain disappointment. These evening sessions had been his own window into the intellect of another man, one who shared his longing for a system of government that would faithfully preserve what the previous generation had fought and died for. They sat in their usual places--Camden at the desk and Mr. Monroe in the room’s remaining chair.

“This day, the convention adjourned upon the unanimous vote of the states in attendance,” Monroe began. “Before that vote was taken, Mr. Madison rose to give a final speech. He expressed his disappointment that the convention was unable to come to an agreement that would have yielded a new charter. The proposed amendments to the Articles of Confederation, he believed, would prove insufficient to bind the states together as they must be bound if the difficulties facing the general welfare are to be remedied. He agreed, however, that remaining assembled in convention in Philadelphia much longer would be of no further benefit and supported the motion to adjourn. Whereupon a vote was taken and the motion to adjourn was adopted without a single dissenting vote.”

Monroe paused here and Camden took the opportunity to ask “What do you think Mr. Madison will do now? He and the rest of those who wanted a new constitution?”

“Mr. Madison is surely one of the most brilliant men to have attended this convention. Not only that, but he was one of the men without whom the convention would never have come to fruition in the first place. I have no doubt that he is entirely sincere in his belief that a new constitution was needed and that it must have incorporated his ideas. In the future, I am certain that the same issues we debated over these past months will arise again and that Mr. Madison and others will be at the forefront of those debates.”

“But do you suppose he will lend his support to the proposed amendments? It would seem that he still has some potential to influence Virginia and the Congress.”

“I suppose he will support amendments that he calculates will move the general government in his preferred direction and will oppose those that do not. Half a loaf of bread will seem better than no loaf at all to a hungry man.”

Camden pulled out the book in which he had been keeping all of these notes. He set it to the side for the moment in order to allow the ink on this newest page to dry. Looking at the volume, he was almost surprised at how much Mr. Monroe had remembered and how much he himself had written down. “Do you suppose it will work?” he asked.

“Will what work?” Monroe countered.

“All of this.” Camden gestured toward the collection of notes. “Will all the work that we put in prove successful?”

“That depends on one’s definition of ‘work’, would you not agree?”

Camden shrugged his shoulders, but then nodded in tentative agreement.

“From the point of view of Mr. Madison or Mr. King or Mr. Hamilton, they may be predisposed to tell you that the work of the convention will all go to waste, that the states will degenerate into disorder for lack of a new constitution, one with a more powerful national government. If such radical change was unnecessary, however, and all that was really needed was a small change here and there, then perhaps the convention will eventually prove to have ‘worked’ as well as could be hoped.”

“I see what you mean. In that respect, then I suppose you have done all that you reasonably could while here in Philadelphia. All that and more, in truth.”

“I thank you for saying so, Mr. Page. I have arranged for us to take the first coach headed south tomorrow morning. Neither of us sleeps particularly well while on the road, so I suggest we be off to bed early tonight. We have a long journey ahead of us.”

Camden was sure that Mr. Monroe was right about the journey that lay ahead. But the journey from Philadelphia back to Richmond was only part of that journey. The effort to insure that the blessings of independence were not blown away with the winds of change was also a sort of journey, much of which they had yet to face. His thoughts also inevitably drifted to Georgiana and how a long and difficult road lay between him and the prospect of not merely another face to face meeting, but a courtship, and perhaps more. In a sense, it all began tomorrow. The coach would carry them back toward Richmond, the other delegates would travel back to their respective homes, and Camden would be, he hoped, that much closer to happiness with Georgiana at his side.

The inn just outside Baltimore, where they had stopped the night before was, Camden thought, by far the finest he had lodged in for the entirety of their trip. The food served at dinner was simple, but delicious and satisfying. The bed was warm and comfortable and not the only one in their room, saving him and Monroe from having to share a bed for the night as they had had to do on their first trip. He awoke, well-rested, to the warm smell of a hearty breakfast.

After dressing, he joined Mr. Monroe--who had been awake for some time, apparently--at a small table in the dining area. He sipped some coffee from a small cup as Mr. Monroe perused a newspaper from Baltimore, dated only two days before. There was not likely to be any news about the convention’s end, but Camden was not altogether convinced, in any event, that he would care to read a newspaper account of what he had experienced more directly. He contented himself to enjoy his coffee while he waited for breakfast to be served.

Setting down the paper, Mr. Monroe broke the silence. “Mr. Page, I have wanted to ask you something for some time now. Given the time that we have spent together since leaving Richmond, I hope you will not think it too intrusive.”

“I doubt that it could be, Mr. Monroe. I know you at least as well as I know Mr. Randolph and there is no subject on which I can conceive of withholding information from him. Please ask what you will.”

Monroe appeared to Camden to still be uncomfortable to a small degree.

“Well, I know that Mr. Randolph continued to send you books from his library over the course of our time here. That is no secret, of course. Some of those books have been directly related to your apprenticeship and others have been for pleasure reading. That is no secret either. Finally, it is perhaps no secret that Mr. Randolph encloses letters in some of those books. What remains unknown to me is from whom those letters have been sent. You see now why I said that I hoped my inquiry would not be too intrusive.”

Monroe paused here to take a sip of his own drink and Camden did the same.

“You have proven yourself to be a dedicated apprentice, but I cannot help concluding that you pore over those particular letters in a way that no apprentice has ever pored over a letter from his legal mentor. May I prevail upon you to tell me from what young woman you have been receiving such regular correspondence?”

Camden felt as if he might require assistance in lifting his jaw from the table, so great was his astonishment.

“You needn’t be quite that shocked,” Monroe gently chided, a grin beginning to stretch the corners of his mouth and eyes. “I have been young and in love too. Especially to those who are in the midst of such a thing, the signs do not at all seem obvious. For a disinterested observer such as myself, however, it was not terribly difficult to deduce what was happening.”

Camden’s face felt warm, although now he was certain that was from his face flushing and not from his coffee. “You are right,” Camden finally managed to say. “Was I truly quite as obvious as all that?”

“I am afraid so, but it is surely nothing that you could have helped even if you had been aware of it. There is no need for embarrassment on that account.”

Before Monroe’s reassurance could take its full effect, however, their attention was drawn away by a hurried knocking at the entryway, after which a man in riding clothes emerged and asked whether he could buy some breakfast quickly. The man sat down at a table near them and began devouring the food on his plate as soon as it arrived. Camden wondered whether the man was tasting anything at all. About that same time, the man looked their way and spoke, spitting crumbs from a biscuit in their general direction.

“You’re Mr. James Monroe, are you not, sir?”

Given how many delegates to the convention had found themselves in dangerous situations, Camden would have understood if Monroe had been reluctant to confirm his identity. Still, if the man had meant to do him harm, now would surely not be the time or place.

“I am,” Monroe answered. “And you are?”

“Samuel Walsham. I work for the Hudson River Coach and Ferry Company, but I’ve been dispatched to carry a message to Baltimore and then on to Richmond. That is why I must eat quickly and ride on as quickly as possible. It concerns you, somewhat, sir, though not directly.”

“Really? What news are you carrying?”

“Benjamin Doane has escaped from jail, sir. It was yesterday morning that the jailer found his cell empty, almost as if he had never been there in the first place.”

Walsham stuffed the last of his breakfast in his mouth while Camden tried to think of anything that he could ask the man. He could think of nothing. Monroe, who seemed calm in the face of such stunning news, asked “There was no indication where he might have fled to?”

“None as of yet, no,” Walsham said after forcing down the last swallow of his coffee.

“Troubling,” was all Monroe said in response.

“I must be on my way, then,” Walsham said as he rose, leaving some coin on the table to pay for his food. “I wish you gentleman a safe and pleasant journey back to Virginia.”

With that, the man was gone almost as quickly as he had arrived. “How can that be?” Camden asked after several minutes had passed. “If Doane has escaped, then surely the threat he represents will continue to haunt us. What shall we do?”

Monroe drained the last of his drink and then calmly set down his cup. “We press on.”

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The Tidewater Papers

Defying Conventions (Part X)