A New War

by John G. Cragg

  “One of the most level-headed of the supporters of the vessel was Joshua Stewart of Baker’s Yard at Butler’s Hard. He thought it would be worthwhile to experiment, but he also pointed out some things he thought could be improved. His feeling was that in trying the new approach to design, it makes sense to take the new concepts as fully as feasible to the new design. As he put it, ‘in for a penny, in for a pound.’ He suggested some modifications to the plans – primarily, lengthening the vessel still farther, and putting more emphasis on those bow and stern chasers – Artemis’s fate suggests that they may be a crucial aspect of the design. In this he was aided by the Ordnance Office which showed interest in using longer and heavier guns for this armament than had even been tried before.

  “This is where you come in. Baker’s Yard has been building the new ship and she is ready for commissioning. She will be called Patroclus and be listed as a 36 gun frigate. The Admiralty is giving you her command, and your orders after getting her seaworthy is to search out and destroy the French frigate that has been causing all these problems. If you can capture her, so much the better, but we do not want you to end up with the fate of other frigates who have met you. But…”

  Newsome cleared his throat. “My Lord, the time…”

  The First Lord glanced at the clock. “You’ll get your detailed oral instructions and written commission and orders from Newsome here. I have to see Addington and am already rather late for my appointment. Good luck with her, Captain Giles.”

  The First Lord disappeared in a flurry through the door, leaving Giles to wonder what he had been about to say.

  Newsome took over the instructions smoothly: “Patroclus is ready to be handed over by the Yard. You are to take command of her. Details and your commission are in this packet. Our experience with Baker’s Yard has been very good, so you can expect that she will be ready to go to sea as soon as she is provisioned. I have arranged for supplies to be lightered over from Portsmouth and they are due to arrive in a couple of days. Crew may, of course, be a problem. As you know, Phoebe wasn’t condemned, but also hasn’t been scheduled for repair. As a result, your old crew is available, except for a draft of 25 that Admiral Cork succeeded in wangling out of the Port Admiral. Your crew will be transported to Baker’s Yard and they should be there by tomorrow. Phoebe now will be condemned and broken up. Patroclus, of course, has a larger nominal crew than Phoebe had, and your company was already short by 70 seamen. So you have a total deficiency of 125 men. I can’t help with that: you’ll just have to rely on your press gangs. You should have a large enough crew to sail, and the Admiralty can brook no delay for lack of crew.

  “The warrant officers from Phoebe have all been re-assigned to Patroclus. This includes, of course, your master, Brooks. I hope he is not one of those hide-bound masters who are leery of change -- if so, you may want to think about getting a more malleable master, but I warn you that time is short.”

  “No, Mr. Brooks has always been open to new ideas and does not think that our present ships have reached perfection. When we were on the Halifax station, he muttered several times that the Admiralty would do well to learn from the design of Nova Scotia schooners, so he should welcome the chance to see how this new design sails.”

  “Good. Your officers may be more of a problem. Bush, of course, has been promoted. How is he, by the way?”

  “Recovering very nicely. He should be ready for service very soon.”

  “I’m very glad to hear it. Evans, your second, got a position in a 74 as soon as he had brought that prize home – I cannot imagine why he thought that would advance his career rather than staying with you…” The Second Secretary paused, obviously hoping for some information, but Giles pretended to be oblivious. “Davis is now the senior – indeed the only – officer in Phoebe, but he is pretty junior. Miller, your mid, has passed for lieutenant and is available. I have his commission here if you don’t object.”

  Giles nodded his agreement. He was about to make a suggestion for First Lieutenant, but Newsome continued firmly.

  “We have had to assign you a first lieutenant. Lieutenant Foster who most recently was first lieutenant to Pritchard in Thunderer.”

  Seeing the look of dismay on Giles face, he hurried on. “Lieutenant Foster has some powerful interest behind him, and the Board felt obliged to appoint him. He’s experienced; you should get on together very well. His commission has already been sent to him at Portsmouth and he should be on board in a day or two.

  “Now, there is some urgency. You’ll want to arrange your affairs as fast as possible. Today? Hopefully you can post down to Portsmouth and proceed to Baker’s Yard tomorrow. Your orders should explain everything. You are to have a make-up cruise down the Channel with a Mr. Hughes of the Ordnance Board, and drop him at Falmouth before proceeding to find this French nuisance. Good luck.”

  Giles found himself ushered without further pause from the Second Secretary’s presence, the reason becoming clear when Giles passed a senior admiral clearly being escorted to the same room. The Second Secretary was undoubtedly aware that it was more important for him to accommodate promptly an officer who could directly affect his own well-being rather than a somewhat junior captain. This would be the case even though Giles was a captain with good connections and in whom the First Lord had shown very considerable interest, a situation especially remarkable for one who was not the First Lord’s own client. Not that Giles didn’t suspect that Newcomb had delayed imparting the unwelcome news about his first lieutenant until he could assure himself of no time for a protest.

  Pritchard and the Thunderer had been notorious in the fleet for sloppy seamanship. It was reported that Pritchard had ordered more floggings than any other captain, even though Thunderer was not one of the larger ships. It was also rumored that Pritchard was shy. Indeed, the rumor was that Thunderer had been taken out of service for a complete rebuild in the dockyard only to prevent a mutiny and not because she needed it. However, Giles reflected, there was nothing he could do about the appointment, and he had a lot to accomplish if he was to post down to Petroclus on the next day – how he wondered would the crew mangle that name? –while leaving his own affairs in some semblance of order. He had to see his prize agent urgently, but equally important, he had to see his brother, David, who had arrived at the Earl’s London House yesterday evening, before he went out again.

  “Is there somewhere I can write a couple of notes,” Giles demanded of the servant showing him out.

  “Yes sir, this way.” It was a sign of his standing in the Admiralty that he was promptly shown to a large room with a table and stationary at hand. It was the task of a moment to write a note making an appointment with his prize agent for that afternoon and passing a coin to the servant to arrange the note’s prompt delivery. It spoke even more highly of his standing – and possibly his father’s – that his father’s coach was waiting for him when he emerged from the entrance. It did save him having to find a cab.

  Giles arrived at Compton Square to find that the butler had a very long face as he opened the door.

  “Whatever is the matter, Steves?”

  “Nothing, my Lord.”

  “Nonsense, Steves. I’ve known you all my life and have never seen you look so glum. Something’s not right.”

  “Well, my Lord. Mr. Guildford, the Earl’s man of business, was just here. The house is to be sold and we are all to be let go.”

  “What? Sold? When will the transition take place?”

  “Immediately, my Lord.”

  “Well, what provisions is he making for you and the others?”

  “None, my Lord.”

  “None? But surely he at least is paying you a month’s wages and making other payments as well.”

  “No, my Lord. Mr. Guildford said that we could have two-weeks’ wages, but then his Lordship would not give us good characters, or we could have nothing and he would provide good characters.”

  “I see. Well, this won’t do. Is Lord David
still in the house?”

  “Yes, my Lord. He is in the library.”

  “I must see him immediately. My conversation with him will take a while, but then I’d like you to see you and Mrs. Wilson in the drawing room in about an hour. We might as well include Mrs. Darling as well.”

  “Very good, My Lord.”

  Giles crossed the entry to the library, knocked, and went in. His brother looked up from the book he was reading. Giles realized that he hardly knew David. Growing up, the age difference between them had been such that David was more of a nuisance than a companion. After Giles had gone to sea, their paths rarely crossed; on the few occasions when Giles had been to Ashbury Abbey, David had been at school or at Cambridge.

  After exchanging greetings, Giles decided to approach matters a bit obliquely, “David, now that you have graduated from Cambridge, how did you like your experience there?”

  “I started out being resentful, partly because my school hadn’t been the most prestigious and Selwyn isn’t a very fashionable college. I didn’t like the presumption that the Church was to be my profession. But that changed because of a really good college tutor who led me into philosophy and then theology. And I got into a more serious group than I first wanted and so became interested in what I was doing. As a result, I became quite keen on being a parish priest, while at first I resented the idea.”

  “So quite different from Ashton, who was rusticated in his first term at Trinity and called it quits for further learning. So what is next?”

  “Mother wants me to become secretary to the Bishop of Winchester, as a first step to becoming a bishop myself, but I would prefer to be a parish priest, preferably – much preferably – in a country parish. But the livings that Father controls are all given out and he doesn’t seem ready to use his influence to help me.”

  “Well, I may be able to help there. Dipton needs a vicar, and it seems that when I bought the Hall, I got the rights to the major tithes of the parish and to appointing the vicar. You might be interested. Think about it.”

  “I do not need to think about it. A good country parish living is just what I was hoping for.”

  “Good, then it’s yours. I am not sure exactly how the appointment is made – you may know more about it than I do, and my man of business, Edwards, may have some knowledge. I have to go to my new ship as quickly as possible, but he will probably be going down to Dipton very soon. And my friend Bush is there right now, though I don’t know how long he will be staying. You may want to go down to Dipton in order to see for yourself what it is like before committing yourself fully.

  “Now on another matter entirely, you may be able to render me a great service. It concerns our sister Marianne.”

  “You know,” said David, “I have never met Marianne, and I know almost nothing about her. Indeed, she has always a great mystery. Even that we have a sister. And no one would tell me about why we never saw her. Even Mother wouldn’t enlighten me, and when I once asked Father, he became very angry.”

  “That was the same for me. I did know Marianne, I suppose, when I was a very small child, but I don’t remember her at all and I never understood why she disappeared and no one talked of her. I only found out the story very recently – and largely because Mother felt we had to do something and Father absolutely refused.

  “As you know Mother is Father’s second wife. With his first wife, he had three children, our half-brothers Ashton and Thomas, and a sister Marianne. She was the middle child – and now must be about forty-five years old. Their mother, Father’s first wife died. Marianne must have been about ten then and Thomas eight years old. A few years later, Father married Mother so she became the step-mother to Ashton, Marianne and Thomas. However, Father allowed Mother have little do to with their upbringing – indeed, they must have been pretty well full grown -- and he himself was not much concerned. Ashton and Thomas were sent off to Eton as soon as possible, and Marianne was brought up by a series of governesses. Mother confessed to me that she never liked Marianne and did not pay much attention to her. When she was 18, Marianne became involved with a territorial officer, Lieutenant Crocker. He basically seduced her and got her to elope with him, probably expecting that Father, faced with a fait accompli, would then provide a handsome dowry.

  “This Father refused completely to do. The most he would do, and on the firm understanding that he would do nothing more for them, was to buy Lieutenant Crocker a majority in a not very fashionable Yorkshire regiment. Possibly he would have done more if Crocker had agreed to go to Canada, but he wouldn’t. That was the last our family had anything to do with them for a long time.

  “Major Crocker came into a small inheritance that, together with his army pay, allowed them to live in reasonable comfort. But that come to an end when Major Crocker died – from some sort of sickness. It turned out that they had gone through his inheritance and were deeply in debt. Marianne wrote to Father asking for money and including the information that he had two grandchildren: Catherine, aged 19, and Lydia, aged 16.

  “Father absolutely refused to give Marianne a penny, but Mother felt that she should be helped, especially since there were granddaughters. Mother sent Marianne enough to last her a quarter (or so Mother thought) expecting that over that period she could talk Father into seeing that support was his duty – though we both know that when it comes to supporting his children, Father’s idea of his duty is very limited.

  “Unfortunately, within a month Marianne wrote again asking for money. And Father saw the letter which was the first time that he had heard of Mother’s sending her money. Amid a great many recriminations – you know how they can row – Father absolutely prohibited Mother from sending more money – and, of course, there was nothing Mother could do about it. I had just returned to Ashton Abbey when this blew up, and Mother asked me to do something about Marianne.

  “So I went up to Ripon and found that the situation was worse than I expected. Marianne had used Mother’s money to pay some of the most urgent debts, but not all, and she had not paid the rent for their lodgings. She had spent the rest and had borrowed still more. I paid the rent up to the end of this quarter, paid off all the debts I could find, paid some of the tradesmen in advance, indicating that there would be no more money when that had been exhausted, and generally warned all and sundry that they would not be repaid if they lent Marianne more money.”

  “I imagine that Marianne was not too pleased with that,” David remarked.

  “She was not. Nor with anything else I proposed, but she had little choice. I had just bought Dipton Hall, and realized that the best solution, at least for the interests of our nieces, was to move the family to Dipton. I thought at first that they could occupy the Dower Cottage, but now I think that it might be better if they were in the Hall itself, where I shall be better able to control expenditure.

  “Now to the favor I want to ask of you. I was intending to go back to Ripon to bring Marianne and her two daughters to Dipton -- in about a month or at most by the end of the quarter. I now have a new ship and so I will not be able to perform this task. I could ask Edwards, my prize agent who also looks after my affairs, but it would be better if a family member could do the job.”

  “I’ll be very glad to help out in this way, if that is what you mean. I don’t imagine you had either Ashton or Thomas in mind for the job.”

  “Quite right! Edwards will of course advance you enough to see the journey through – and he’ll also provide some funds to cover any debts Marianne may have succeeded in arranging despite my efforts. Are you dining here tonight?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it. If you are going to be here, I most certainly will so that we can get to know each other a bit better.”

  “I’d like that. Yes, I’ll dine here. Now I have to see Steves and the rest of the servants before I go out. You might as well come too. Don’t hesitate to interrupt if you think I am being preemptory.”

  In the drawing room, they found Steves together with
Mrs. Wilson, the housekeeper and Mrs. Darling the cook. All three were standing and looking most uncomfortable. Giles wasted no time.

  “I was appalled at Steves’ news about my father closing this house and letting you all go. But from my own point of view, it may well be good news.

  “As you may have heard, I have bought Dipton Hall. It is, of course, not as big or grand as Ashton Abbey – possibly more of the size of this house, though again not as grand. The previous staff were all let go. I would be very pleased if you could take on the positions you have been holding here for me at Dipton Hall. I will probably be away at sea quite a bit, but Lady Marianne and her two daughters will be living at the Hall. I would also be pleased to take on any of the other servants here who would like to come and in whom you have confidence. Lord David will be occupying the vicarage and will also need servants. And Captain Bush, together with his mother and sisters, may well be in the Dower Cottage at Dipton and they will also need servants.

  “I can’t expect you to answer now. But I wanted to tell you about the possibility, and ask you to tell the other servants about the situation.”