Lydia Bailey

Kenneth Roberts

Description

A fascinating, thoroughly researched historical novel of Haiti and Africa, and the early United States, outlining Haitians battle for freedom seen through the eyes of one man. It features Albion Hamlin, who comes to Boston in 1800 to defend a man accused of violating the Alien and Sedition Act. In a whirlwind of action, Hamlin is jailed, then escapes to Haiti in search of his client's daughter, Lydia Bailey, with whom he has fallen in love simply by gazing at her portrait.

Sujets

• Romance historique
• Fiction
• Romance
• Historical

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 01 février 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456636456
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Lydia Bailey

by Kenneth Roberts
Subjects: Fiction -- Military; Romance; Action & Adventure; Historical; Sagas; Haiti

First published in 1947
This edition published by Reading Essentials
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
[e-mail]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Lydia Bailey






KENNETH ROBERTS

To Ben Ames Williams

in gratitude for patient assistance

in a struggle

that long seemed hopeless
F or their generous and unfailing help, theauthor is profoundly grateful to Major A. HamiltonGibbs, Middleboro, Mass.; Mrs. Elizabeth C. Moore,New York City; Major John Houston Craige, Philadelphia;Clara Claasen, Doubleday & Co.; Marjorie Mosser,Kennebunkport, Maine; P. M. Hamer, National Archives,Washington; Robert C. Gooch, Elsie Rackstraw,Colonel Lawrence Martin and Harold W. Glidden,Library of Congress; Lt. Com. M. V. Brewington, Officeof Naval Records & Library, Washington; Milton Lordand John J. Connolly, Boston Public Library; ClarenceS. Brigham and Clifford K. Shipton, American AntiquarianSociety; E. N. Brandt, Saturday Evening Post;Coert Du Bois, Ruth B. Shipley and E. Wilder Spaulding,Department of State; Sylvester Vigilante, New YorkPublic Library; R. W. G. Vail and Dorothy Barck, NewYork Historical Society; Charles K. Bolton, Shirley,Mass.; Edwin J. Hipkiss, Boston Art Museum; JohnOliver LaGorce, National Geographic Society; RupertHughes, Los Angeles; Dean Harry J. Carman, ColumbiaUniversity; Grace Trappan and Mrs. George Merriam,Portland Public Library; Charles Wellington Furlong,Cohasset, Mass.; Everett E. Edwards, Departmentof Agriculture; Charles S. O’Connor, Clerk, SupremeJudicial Court, Boston; Mrs. Alexander Burr, Kennebunk,Maine; Newman F. McGirr, Columbia HistoricalSociety, Washington; Elinor Gregory Metcalf, BostonAthenaeum; Florence M. Osborne, Essex Institute,Salem; Atty-Gen. Frank I. Cowan, Portland, Maine;Professor William Thomson, Harvard University;George Graves, Massachusetts Horticultural Society;B. Y. Morrison and S. F. Sherwood, Bureau of PlantIndustry, Beltsville, Md.; James S. Allen, Clerk, U.S.District Court, Boston; Bruce Chapman, New YorkCity; Walter G. Davis, Maine Historical Society; W. J.Eckert, Navy Department, Washington; Robert Hale,House of Representatives; Philip G. Hodge, U.S. InformationService; Senator Wallace H. White.
FOREWORD
I ’m not over-enthusiastic aboutbooks that teach or preach, but I may as well admit in the beginningthat my primary reason for writing this book was to teach as many aspossible of those who come after me how much hell and ruin are inevitablybrought on innocent people and innocent countries by menwho make a virtue of consistency.
All the great villains and small villains whom I met so frequently inthe events I’m about to set down were consistent men—unimaginativemen who consistently believed in war as a means of settling disputesbetween nations; equally misguided men who consistently believed thatwar must be avoided at all hazards, no matter what the provocation;narrow men who consistently upheld the beliefs and acts of one politicalparty and saw no good in any other; shortsighted men whoconsistently refused to see that the welfare of their own nation wasdependent upon the welfare of every other nation; ignorant men whoconsistently thought that the policies of their own government shouldbe supported and followed, whether those policies were right orwrong; dangerous men who consistently thought that all people withblack skins are inferior to those with white skins; intolerant men whoconsistently believed that all people with white skins should be forcedto accept all people with black skins as equals. And I know that anynation that cannot or will not avoid the dreadful pitfalls of consistencywill be one with the dead empires whose crumbling monumentsstudded our battlegrounds in Haiti and in Africa.
My first great lesson in the perils of consistency came from myuncle, who was Colonel William Tyng of Falmouth in the Province ofMaine—the town whose name was later changed to Portland.
He was a lawyer and shipowner, patron and erector of St. Paul’sChurch, First Master of the Falmouth Lodge of Free Masons, Sheriffof Cumberland County, and colonel by virtue of a commission fromGovernor Gage. Prior to the Revolution, he had taken repeated oathsof allegiance to the King and Government of Great Britain, and, sincehe had a low opinion of men who refused to fulfill their obligations ortheir oaths of allegiance, he remained loyal to the King when the Revolutionbroke out in 1775. As a result he was branded as a Tory, hishome was plundered of its plate and valuables, and he and his family—withthe exception of his mother-in-law—took refuge with the Englishin New York.
His family consisted of his wife, his wife’s sister (who was mymother), and my father, Albion Hamlin, for whom I was named. Myfather was Colonel Tyng’s cousin, and had gone to sea as a cabin boyin one of the colonel’s ships, had captained that same ship at the ageof nineteen, and had then been put in charge of all my uncle’s shippinginterests, not only the building of the ships, but planning their voyagesand cargoes. After he moved to New York he became an officer in DeLancey’sThird Battalion, a Loyalist regiment, and I always think ofhim as dressed in that uniform of green faced with orange, smart-lookingin spite of being patched, darned, and faded from innumerablemarches and battles.
All my uncle’s property was confiscated by the Portland rebels, ofcourse; but since he had befriended many Portland men during hislife in New York—among other things effecting the release of EdwardPreble from the Jersey prison ship—he held the affection and regardof those in high places. Consequently his lands were sold for a nominalsum to his mother-in-law, Madam Ross, who continued to live undisturbedon the family farm in Gorham. They even allowed MadamRoss to buy my uncle’s three slaves as well; for in spite of all theirconsistent preaching about Liberty, Freedom, and Equality, the rebelsthought slavery was a good thing under certain circumstances for certainsorts of people.
At the end of the Revolution, when Loyalists by the thousand leftNew York and New England to take refuge in New Brunswick, NovaScotia, and Canada, my uncle went with them; and my father, mymother, and I went too, in the transport Martha , which carried theofficers, men, and families of DeLancey’s Third Battalion and MarylandLoyalists. On the voyage the Martha struck an uncharted rockoff the southern tip of Nova Scotia; and, since there were only enoughboats for the women and children, the two regiments were drawn upin company formation on the deck of the sinking vessel while thewomen and children were handed into the boats. All but three of themen were drowned. I think of those regiments whenever those whoconsistently call themselves Liberal speak contemptuously—as theyconsistently do—of Tories.
I was ten years old at the time, but I can see my father now, on thedeck of the Martha in his old green-and-orange uniform, walking upand down along the front of his company. We were lying off in a longboat,and the Martha was rammed high up on the sunken rock withher stern sinking deeper and deeper into the water. We could see himtalking to his men, holding them steady, I suppose; and when theship slipped off the rock like a vessel sliding down the ways, a sort ofshining image of him and his men stood there on the empty sea.That’s how I always see him when things look dark—a figure inshining green, walking steadily in the face of danger and sharing hiscourage with his friends.
So my father died; and a few weeks later, as a result of shock andexposure, my mother died too, and I was left in my uncle’s care.
In return for his sacrifices for the Crown, my uncle was given agrant of land in Queen’s County, New Brunswick, and made ChiefJustice of the province. He also acted as mediator between the Loyalistsand the Home Government in arranging the settlement of wildlands; and people all up and down the river regarded the big squarehouse he built at White’s Cove as a sort of royal palace.
I had the run of my uncle’s small but excellent library, ranging fromthe works of the historian Josephus to the Travels of William Bartram,and instruction in French from an impoverished Frenchwomanwho had been driven from Nova Scotia when the French residents ofthat unhappy country had been scattered to all parts of the world byBoston troops. Thanks to her I was able, by the time I was fourteen,to earn my keep by working in my uncle’s office, writing his letters,keeping his letter-book up to date, entering in his day-book the troublesand the complaints of the Loyalists who were perpetually at himfor advice and help, and recording the exaggerated claims of the FrenchCanadians, whose chief object in life seemed to be to get the better ofLoyalists by fair means or foul—preferably foul.
On winter nights, to help the entire family with the French tongueso necessary to a resident of Canada, my uncle had me read aloud fromthe only decent French book to be had in New Brunswick—a Frenchbiography of Christopher Columbus; and before I’d finished the storyof that amazing navigator, I could roll up a French verb in the backof my throat and blow it out through my nose as boldly as thoughI’d eaten frogs from infancy.
Now the Loyalists who forsook the United States for New Brunswickat the end of the Revolution were fine people, who had electedto be loyal at a time when loyalty was visited by persecution, certainruin, and probable death; and in partial recognition of their loyaltythe British Government promised to help establish them in th