War Read Free Page B

network of correspondents there sent him regular letters about the tumult and rebellion among the citizens and in the various legislatures. Otis Talbot and Novus Easley in Philadelphia, and other friends and acquaintances of Hugh sent him a constant stream of letters. And now there were two Virginia
Gazettes,
competing with each other to see which would broadcast the latest news first.
    And, as nominal head of the Queen Anne Sons of Liberty, Jack Frake received many letters himself from the heads and secretaries of similar organizations throughout the colonies.
    The events recurred with ever-growing force, like the waves that first lapped, then scoured, and finally swept over the sandy banks of the York as a prelude to an approaching storm, working with the moon and tides. The moon in this instance was the idea of liberty; the tides, the tumult.
    It was coming to a climax. Soon the storm would burst.
    * * *
    On that same morning, the 24th of May, a lone figure paced back and forth in the piazza of the Capitol in Williamsburg. Another figure, a statue, seemed to watch the figure below with benign unconcern.
    The life-size statue was of white marble, poised atop an ornate white marble pedestal nearly the height of the statue, enclosed by an ironbalustrade. It stood in the middle of the covered walkway that connected the House of Burgesses with the General Court and Council chambers. Its back was to the doors to the Council, and faced the doors to the House, as though to remind emerging members of the House of the Crown’s authority. The figure could have been mistaken for that of George the Third; it was actually that of a lowly peer, the late Norborne Berkeley, Baron de Botetourt, Governor of Virginia.
    The figure struck a regal pose without being imperious, the left arm akimbo, its hand clutching the cap of Liberty; the right arm extended, its hand holding a roll of parchment, a symbol of Virginia’s original charter. It was the classic stance of a contemporary orator. The head was pudgy, from cheek to nose, but seemed to be grafted to the torso of a thinner man who happened to have a prominent paunch. Its expression was fatherly, untroubled, and serenely stern at the same time. It sported a court wig, and meticulously detailed court robes whose fur-lined hem was bunched near the figure’s heels and calves.
    The pedestal had required perhaps nearly as much labor to sculpt as the statue itself. It was lavishly ornamented with intricate decorative orders and motifs of acanthus leaves, papyrus, garlands and shells. On one side of the pedestal was inscribed a florid dedication to Botetourt, with the date the General Assembly had voted to “transmit his illustrious character to posterity,” in July 1771. Beneath it were the words: “Let wisdom and justice preside in any country, the people will rejoice and must be happy.” On the back of the pedestal were the carved figures of Britannia with her shield and spear, and America with her bow and quiver, each holding an olive branch over an altar marked “Concordia.”
    The statue had been the commission of Richard Hayward, a prominent London sculptor, and was erected in the piazza exactly a year ago. It had cost £950, exclusive of shipping, insurance, and other charges, plus the pay of the mason who had accompanied it from London to supervise its installation.
    The burgesses had commissioned the statue of Botetourt as a measure of their lingering esteem for a gentle, royal master. But, many had thought, it was curious that a lord known to be hostile to the colonies’ assertions of right would be honored as an ideal governor, and not Francis Fauquier, his predecessor, who had occupied the Palace for ten years and had been nominally sympathetic to Virginia’s straits.
    Botetourt had been a practiced, effective courtier, devoted to the Crown. When he spoke, burgesses imagined themselves being swaddled inrich, warm, comforting velvet. Few burgesses and Council members could