Josiah prepared other models.
A reasonable buyout in 1814 with liabilities recognized: approximately $21,000.
A deferred settlement reflecting later recoveries: $38,000 to $47,000.
A continuing equity model adjusted for Charles’s subsequent capital contributions: perhaps eighteen to twenty-two percent of the present firm.
No single answer was indisputable.
That was both frustrating and useful.
It forced negotiation rather than fantasy.
Charles studied the report overnight.
The next morning he asked Samuel to meet alone.
Samuel refused.
“Josiah comes.”
Charles almost objected.
Then nodded.
Progress.
They met in the library where the confrontation began.
Charles placed Josiah’s report on the desk.
“I cannot give you thirty-five percent.”
Samuel looked toward him.
“I did not ask for thirty-five after the accounting.”
Charles seemed surprised.
“What do you want?”
Samuel took time.
“My father’s name corrected publicly.”
Charles nodded slowly.
“What else?”
“My mother secured for life.”
“How much?”
Samuel looked at Josiah.
Josiah answered.
“A lifetime annuity of twelve hundred dollars annually would be substantial but reasonable.”
Charles stared.
“Twelve hundred.”
“Yes.”
Abigail currently survived on less than three hundred a year.
The number would change her life.
Charles looked toward Samuel.
“And you?”
Samuel took time.
That mattered.
He had spent years imagining money.
A townhouse for Abigail.
Education for his sister Lucy.
A clerkship without begging.
His own business.
But standing inside Charles’s library, revenge felt less useful than he expected.
“I want equity.”
Charles’s face tightened.
“In Harrow Shipping.”
“Yes.”
“You have never run a shipping house.”
“I keep commercial books.”
“That is not the same.”
“I know.”
Samuel nodded.
“I do not want control.”
Charles stared.
“Then?”
“Fifteen percent.”
Charles laughed.
“No.”
“Eighteen is supported by Josiah’s lower continuing-interest model.”
“No.”
“Then make an offer.”
Charles paced.
“Eight.”
Samuel laughed.
“Good day.”
He stood.
Charles glared.
“You came here demanding negotiation.”
“Yes.”
“Then negotiate.”
“Eight is not negotiation.”
Charles looked toward Josiah.
“What is?”
Josiah smiled.
“You are both paying me too little for this.”
Charles almost threw something.
They spent three hours.
Final structure:
Twelve percent continuing interest in Harrow Shipping to a Mercer family trust.
Five percent additional profit participation for ten years, then expiring.
$12,000 cash settlement to Abigail’s trust, generating her annuity.
$5,000 for Lucy Mercer’s education and dowry fund.
And something Samuel introduced that surprised both men.
Two percent of annual profits for ten years into a relief fund for injured dockworkers and widows of Harrow Shipping sailors.
Charles stared.
“That was not your father’s claim.”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Samuel looked toward the portrait.
“Because you keep saying you did what you did to save working families.”
Charles’s jaw tightened.
Samuel continued.