[tw: rape, racism, violence]

Note: This got long, so I’ve moved all links for further reading/listening/viewing that couldn’t simply be hyperlinked in the main text to the end of the post.

Note 2: Jefferson’s party are Republicans, Hamilton and Adams’s are Federalists.

*It will surprise no one who’s been following me on Twitter or tumblr to hear that I’ve become obsessed with the hottest ticket currently on Broadway, Hamilton: the Musical. It’s a hip-hop musical about Alexander Hamilton (the ten-dollar Founding Father) and it’s amazing.

As a result I’ve been reading extensively about Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the political scene of their era. And I noticed one name kept cropping up: James Callender. This British journalist seemed surprisingly connected to events: he leaked the first documents relating to Hamilton’s alleged insider trading (leading to the infamous “Reynolds pamphlet” in which Hamilton revealed in excruciating and excruciatingly unnecessary detail that…well, I’ll let him tell it:

“The charge against me is a connection with one James Reynolds for purposes of improper pecuniary speculation. My real crime is an amorous connection with his wife, for a considerable time with his privity and connivance, if not originally brought on by a combination between the husband and wife with the design to extort money from me”).

Callender next appeared ruining John Adams’s bid for reelection. Callender had published, among other things, a pamphlet entitled The Prospect Before Us, in which he made statements like, “The grand object of [Adams’s] administration has been to exasperate the rage of contending parties, to calumniate and destroy every man who differs from his opinions. Mr. Adams has laboured, and with melancholy success, to break up the bonds of social affection, and, under the ruins of confidence and friendship, to extinguish the only beam of happiness that glimmers through the dark and despicable farce of life.”

Adams had him prosecuted for libel under the (deservedly) unpopular Sedition Act. Jefferson’s supporters turned the trial into a major campaign issue in the 1800 presidential election, and Callender’s conviction, instead of discrediting him, made him a famous martyr to the Republican cause. Moreover, he continued to write articles and pamphlets lambasting Adams from his Virginia jail, where the authorities were sympathetic to his plight.

Then I read this, in A Magnificent Catastrophe by Edward J. Larson:

“Ironically, Jefferson later felt Callender’s sting, when, two years after the election, the acerbic writer broke the story that Jefferson kept his slave, Sally Hemings, as a mistress. ‘Human nature in a hideous form,’ Jefferson wrote to Monroe in 1802 about Callender, whose body was found floating in Virginia’s James River a year later. An inquest ruled that Callender had drowned accidentally while bathing drunk.”

Jefferson totally had that guy killed, I thought to myself. Wouldn’t that make a great political thriller? You could open it with them fishing that guy’s body out of the river, and then cut to “Five years earlier”…

At first it was a joke. But the more I read and research, the more convinced I feel that this was exactly what happened. While all the evidence is circumstantial…well, I’ll let the facts speak for themselves: Continue Reading

I’m still having fun digging into The Epicure’s Almanack and have found another rather interesting rabbit hole to fall down. I think many of us know that in England “a curry” is the undisputed king of takeaway. It’s also (along with kebab) the top food sought out by late night drunks. So when I stumbled across information about the first Indian restaurant in England having been established in 1810, I had instantaneous visions of Regency rakes getting a curry after the theatre, perhaps with actresses in tow.

Now for the history part … Sake Deen Mahomet came to England in 1782, accompanying his friend Captain Godfrey Evan Baker when the captain retired from the British East India Company in which they had both served. He eloped with an Irish girl a few years later (over her family’s objections) and from all evidence the marriage was a great success. One of their sons was the proprietor of the Turkish baths at Brighton and ran a boxing and fencing academy there as well. A grandson went on to be an internationally famous physician! Those looking for a model for a non-Caucasian hero, take note!!! This guy and his descendants would be great models.

In 1794, Mahammad published The Travels of Dean Mahomet (a prime example of a book which Google has scanned but which is now unavailable, I assume because this annotated version from 1997 is in print).

In 1810, Mahomet opened the Hindoostanee Coffee House at no. 34 George Street (near Portman Square). They offered Indian cuisine, fine wines, and hookahs. Unfortunately, the restaurant does not appear to have been a great success, and it closed a couple years later. This is what The Epicure’s Almanack has to say about it:

“At the corner of George Street, there was until very lately an establishment on a novel plan. Mohammed, a native of Asia, opened a house for the purpose of giving dinners in the Hindustanee style, with other refreshments of the genus. All dishes were dressed with curry-powder, rice, Cayenne, and the best of Arabia. A room was set apart for smoking from hookahs with oriental herbs. The rooms were neatly fitted up en suite, and furnished with chairs and sofas made of bamboo canes.”

But fear not, by 1814 Mahomet and his wife were in Brighton, where they opened the first public “shampooing” bath in England (note: “shampooing was a type of massage and was conducted in a Turkish Bath-like steam room). Unlike his restaurant, his bathhouse was an enormous success (so much so that he was appointed as “shampooing surgeon” to George IV and William IV).

So bring it on, Regency authors! I want to see a private party at this establishment or one modeled after it. I want to see Anglo-Indian heroes. Are you with me, readers?