The Whiskey Rebel

Ethan Saunders

The watchman had only finished crying out three in the morning when Lavien and I presented Hamilton ’s letter at the government’s stable. We were given two stout well-fed beasts and, a bit earlier than agreed, we began to make our way. We rode in silence; the cold and the dark and the urgency made talk seem trivial. When dawn trickled orange into the eastern sky, we quickened our pace. The horses were sure-footed in the melting snow, and we rode hard.

We traded horses in Princeton and were at the ferry in New Jersey by two in the afternoon. Once upon the New York side of the river, we took the Greenwich Road to Duer’s mansion. It had not snowed there, and the roads were dry, so we made good time. When we arrived there was a gathering of people outside Duer’s palatial estate-maybe as many as a hundred-and they looked angry. Some appeared to be Duer’s brothers of the speculation trade, dressed in fine suits and handsome coats, their own excellent carriages parked nearby. Alongside them were poor women in tattered dresses, their hair covered with rags. A boy with a dirty face clutched the hand of an angry father. A Negro man in homespun looked somewhat dazed, as though he’d been struck in the head. Some stared at the house. Some shouted at it. One man, aging and one-armed, with the look of an old soldier, held a rock that he clearly meant to throw.

Lavien and I exchanged glances, but we did not speak. We did not need to. We had come prepared to do what we must to make Duer see reason, to make him begin reversing course. We were prepared to make him, through kindness or cruelty, begin writing letters to creditors and merchants and traders. We had not come prepared for this. We had come prepared to stop his ruin. We had not come prepared merely to witness it. It seemed we were too late.

We rode around to the stables and were admitted by the liveried servant once we showed him Hamilton’s letter. I did not know if he could read, but he seemed impressed with our earnestness. Once inside, we demanded to see Duer, and if the servant we spoke to was put off by our haggard looks or the dirt of the road upon us, he did not comment. He seemed to have troubles aplenty of his own and absently led us to the parlor.

I helped myself to some wine from the sideboard, while Lavien gulped from a pitcher of water flavored with oranges. Duer, however, did not keep us waiting long. He pushed into the room after we had been there for less than ten minutes. His suit was rumpled, as though he had slept in it, and his hair was wild. Streaks of redness shot across his eyes.

“This is all the result of your meddling,” he said. “You and Hamilton and the rest of you. Have you no idea what you’ve done?”

“What is happening?” Lavien asked. “It may be we can reverse things.”

He could not have believed it, but it was something to say. I felt a chill run through me, for I heard something in Lavien’s voice I thought unimaginable. I heard fear.

“How can you not know?” Duer sneered at him. “Word of this absurd lawsuit has gotten out, and the rumor is I am to be ruined. Now my creditors gather like starving birds, ready to pick at me until there is nothing left.”

Lavien began to pace back and forth. He put a hand to his temple. “How vulnerable are you? How much do you need to make this go away? Can you placate some of your creditors and thus make the others leave you be?”

“How vulnerable am I? I am entirely exposed, that is how vulnerable I am. And you know full well that no creditor will be satisfied until he is paid.”

“Can you not even cover your most immediate debts?” I asked.

“My debts were never designed to be covered,” he said. “I am engaged in business. But now that the government has seen fit to interfere, all is falling to ruin. Your drawing back the bank’s credit, and now, with the absurd suit for money I supposedly owe, Hamilton has pulled the rug from under me.”

“What is the difference between what you have and what you owe?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Not too much above eight hundred thousand.”

I walked over to Duer and shoved him so he fell back into his chair. “Listen to me, you greedy turd. You had better think of a way to escape bankruptcy. There are some very dangerous people who wish to see you fail, and we ca

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“We had better think of something,” I said. “The crowd sounds angry.”

Outside his window, we heard angry calls-We want Duer! He has got our money!-over and over again. One group had started a poetic cry of Put Duer in the sewer, hardly euphonious but certainly concise in its meaning. I peeked out the window and saw an old woman, bent over at the waist, leaning upon a walking stick and looking upward. “I want my five dollars!” she cried.

“Good God, man,” I said to Duer. “You borrowed five dollars from a stooped old woman? Have you no shame?”

“She would have had no complaints when I paid her what I owed.”

“You were never going to pay,” I said. “You never could pay.”

“How could it have worked when the government itself is against me?” he demanded. “Hamilton pretended to be my friend, but it was he who has brought this upon me. Hamilton restricted the credit. Hamilton prosecuted me about old debts. If my fall brings about the ruin of the nation, it will be upon Hamilton’s head.”

“You are like a murderer who blames his victim for provoking him,” I said. “Hamilton restricted credit because there was too much of it, prompting greedy men like you to abuse the aberration. He has prosecuted you for your crimes because to do anything else would be dishonest. If Hamilton is to blame, it is for not crushing you sooner and harder. Perhaps then you would never have had a chance to attempt a scheme foolish beyond reason.”

“But it made such sense,” he said. “And she convinced me it would work.”

“She? Joan Maycott?” I asked, but I believe I already knew this was her treachery.

“Yes. I know what you will say, I ought not to have taken advice from a woman, but she seemed to know what she spoke of. So charming and clever. How could I know she hated me, blamed me for her husband’s death? Whippo pushed me toward this too, and where is he now? He’s abandoned me, that’s where. He stole as much of my silver as he could carry and then slipped out in the night just ahead of the crowds.”

“You’ve been manipulated, Duer,” I said, “and we along with you. Now I want you to collect your ledgers for me.” I turned to Lavien. “You’ll need to determine how much he owes and to whom. Maybe we can put it out that he has the means to repay his debts. If we can but calm the crowds, we can perhaps calm the markets before they panic.”

“I’m no money man,” Lavien answered. “I may understand some of how these mechanisms work, but I can’t speedily interpret such things.”

“I’ll help you,” Duer volunteered, “in exchange for a promise of government assistance and an end to this absurd lawsuit, of course. Yes, we must forget about that.”

“No,” said Lavien. “You won’t bargain your way out of this. We will have to bring in a few clerks from Treasury to review your books, and the best we will be able to do is see to it that you pay first those who need it most. I don’t know if that will accomplish anything, but we must try.”