For Love of Country by William C. Hammond Read Free Book Online Page B

looked at her. “ Eagle has been seized by Barbary pirates. She’s been taken to Algiers. Everyone aboard is a prisoner.”
    Her hand went to her mouth. “Oh dear Lord no! Caleb!”
    â€œYes. Caleb. And Captain Dickerson and every member of the crew, all of them men in our employ.”
    For long, agonizing moments the three Cutlers stood mute, as though frozen in time and place by this horrific turn of events. It was Katherine who came to herself first.
    â€œPlease, Pappy, sit down. May I bring you some tea?”
    â€œYes, thank you, my dear.”
    As his daughter-in-law left for the kitchen, Thomas Cutler sank onto the soft cushion of an armchair and gazed up at his son with vacant eyes. “What are we to do, Richard? What are we to do?”
    Richard could not recall his father ever appealing for his counsel on a matter of such import without first advancing an opinion of his own.
    â€œI don’t know, Father,” he replied, his mind at a loss for words that might encourage or console. He refolded the letter and placed it carefully under a paperweight on top of the desk. “I don’t know.”

Three
    Hingham, Massachusetts, September 1786–May 1787
    W ILLIAM CUTLER AND HIS daughter did not sail to Boston in September. A month prior to their scheduled departure, Cynthia Cutler, his son John’s wife, collapsed under an onslaught of severe abdominal pain. Physicians summoned to the Cutler mansion in Fareham arrived too late to save the baby, so they concentrated their efforts on saving the life of a woman savaged by pain, anguish, and massive loss of blood. She had survived, barely, William informed his brother Thomas in a letter sent to Hingham, but clearly he and Lizzy could not leave England at this time; nor would they hazard a winter crossing. Expect them sometime in early spring, he wrote, concluding with his most devout prayer that God in His infinite mercy would watch over the Cutler family in its time of suffering.
    â€œAmen,” Elizabeth Cutler said after her husband finished reading the letter aloud in their parlor on Main Street. She pulled a woolen shawl tightly around her shoulders. Richard wondered why. Her health had improved over the summer. Was her pain more emotional than physical? Local physicians had no definitive answers.
    Anne Cutler’s face darkened. “That settles it,” she said. “Frederick and I are postponing our wedding. I want Uncle William and Lizzy to be here for it, and they’ll be here in the spring. We can be married then. Frederick will understand. With so much going wrong for our family, how can I go through with a wedding now?”

    â€œYou mustn’t postpone it, Anne,” her father insisted. “For your sake and for Frederick’s, and . . .” his eyes shifted meaningfully from Anne to her mother and then back to Anne, “everyone else’s. Please reconsider. You and Frederick have waited long enough. Be married and be happy. Your joy is our joy.”
    She studied her father’s face for a moment, then bobbed her head.
    â€œThank you,” he said softly.
    Richard spoke into the ensuing silence. “It’s not all bad news, Anne. We’ve heard from Mr. Hamilton,” referring to Alexander Hamilton, a man wielding considerable influence in the halls of power in Congress. During the Battle of Yorktown, Colonel Hamilton had led an assault on a key British redoubt and had credited Lieutenant Richard Cutler with saving his life just as the tide turned—for good—in favor of the Continentals. They had remained in contact ever since. “It seems that Congress is finally ready to do something. A Mr. Barkley has been dispatched to Morocco and a Mr. Lamb to Algiers. From what Mr. Hamilton tells us, their orders are to establish peace treaties with the Barbary States and negotiate the release of American prisoners held there.”
    It had come as a severe shock to the