Commander Cantrell in the West Indies(82)

So was Thomas Warner’s patent of nobility still effective, his governorship still legal? Not under the aegis of English law, but until someone took the island from him, the dispute was pointless. And given how these uncertain times required his full attention and involvement in the well-being of his now isolated colony, Tromp would have been surprised had he been the visitor to St. Eustatia. But there was another likely candidate. “Lieutenant Governor Jeafferson?”

“Bravo, Maarten! Your powers of deduction are undiminished. It was Jeafferson himself on the sloop, which must have left St. Christopher’s in the dark of the night to be here so early. And you know what that means—”

Tromp sighed. Jan van Walbeeck was arguably the single smartest, most capable man he had ever met, and he had met plenty of them. But his irrepressible ebullience—even at this hour of the morning—was sometimes a bit wearing for, well, normal people like himself. “Yes, Jan, I think I do. He’s here to finalize and sign our five-year lease of the lands south of Sandy Point.”

“Exactly. And thereby kill two birds with one stone: we get the arable land we need, and Thomas Warner gets the guards he wants. And frankly, we need to reduce the number of soldiers we have here on St. Eustatia.”

Tromp laid aside his protractor and looked up from his charts. “And you feel certain this will not bring us into conflict with the French colony on the island?”

Van Walbeeck blew out his cheeks. “Who is certain of anything, Maarten? Indeed, who can say who will hold power over us, or these islands, when the lease is up in five years? But this much is true. The French had only one ship arrive last year, and that was before we arrived. As best we can tell, Warner’s colony has grown to almost nine thousand, maybe more. The French have barely a tenth of that. So I think that it is unlikely there will be any trouble.”

Tromp frowned. “So then, if that is true, I ask—as I have before—why is Warner so concerned with having our guards? What are we not seeing—and he not saying?”

Van Walbeeck nodded. “I think I have a little more perspective on that, now that our farmers and his farmers are talking with each other on a regular basis. Firstly, Warner has all his people gainfully employed, and most in food production of one sort or another. Would that we could say the same. So the same people who man his militia are also the only ones available to oversee the workers and the plantations.”

“You mean, guard and drive his slaves.”

“Maarten, I know how you feel about slavery, and I share those feelings, but these are the conditions as we found them, and the best we can do is work to change them. And it won’t be easy, given the tales our planters are telling his.”

Tromp stared at his charts, at the outline of St. Christopher’s. “I can only imagine. Our decision to prohibit slaveholding has not made me a popular man.”

“You? You?” Jan leaned forward. “Maarten, you are not the president of the Politieke Raad. You don’t have our planters screaming for your blood. Well, not so loudly as for mine, at any rate.”

“And Corselles is still no help?”

“How can he be? I frankly feel sorry for the poor fellow. He arrived here with maybe two hundred and fifty souls, all of whom were assured that they will grow rich like the English planters. Which meant, in short hand, that they will own plantations and the slaves that allow the land to be worked at such a fabulous profit.

“And then, just a year after they arrive, we separately descend upon them like a horde of locusts, almost three thousand strong, ninety percent young or young-ish males, short on rations, and with our military leadership determined to eliminate slavery. Which was what pushed almost half of our farmers into league with their farmers.”

Tromp nodded. “And this connects to Warner’s want for our guards—how?”

Jan sighed. “Let us presume that he does indeed see that our survival may be the key to his, and vice versa. We are both without support from our homelands, albeit for very different reasons. But if we hang on to St. Eustatia long enough, we’ll start seeing flags from our home ports. At that point, the advantage is ours. For Warner is a man without a country. So, while he still enjoys the advantage of being our breadbasket, he will naturally wish to enter into accords with us which will stand him in good stead when that balance of power shifts. And his power is in the food he makes, so he is not eager to have his overseers as his full-time militiamen. Food production will drop and with it, his fortunes.”

Tromp looked up from the map. “That seems to track true, yes.”