"Well, perhaps," Peel countered. "Before General Maitland negotiated the evacuation of our land forces, he and L'Ouverture came to what he assumed was a form of agreement regarding trade."
"His defeat, ye mean," Lewrie shot back, forever prejudiced to anything Maitland did. "I take it L'Ouverture reneged, and the great general was skinned by the little Black man?"
"One could put it that way, yes," Peel said, almost wincing at Lewrie's bluntness. "Maitland wined and dined him, held a parade for him, and fawned something shameful. Which nearly killed old Maitland's soul, since he absolutely despised him but… even so, Maitland is nothing if not a cunning diplomatist, so he dissembled to him deuced well."
"Piss-poor general, and a piss-poor negotiator," Lewrie snapped, though much intrigued by the hope of hearing more "dirt" on the man.
"Promised him the moon, did L'Ouverture agree," Peel summarised. "Our frigates to keep the Frogs at bay. British goods, arms, and munitions brought in by Yankee ships, just so long as the French didn't get the place back, if L'Ouverture would declare himself king or something and make Saint Domingue independent."
"But he didn't," Lewrie pointed out.
"Wasn't even tempted, I'm told," Peel told him, amazed by such sentiments, and what he'd have done, given the chance. "Too much in love with France and the Revolution, the mother country and the mother tongue. Though, you hear the local patter of the slaveys and even the Creoles, and it makes you wonder."
"More like, L'Ouverture knew Maitland was dealing with Rigaud, too, and saw right through him," Lewrie said with a prim sniff. "When you get down to it, do we really want the place? Better we blockade the coast 'til Kingdom Come… no imports, and they fall apart. No exports, and they go bust. More importantly, our planters make money with both fists, since French and Spanish colonies can't supply tuppence to the world market for sugar, molasses, and rum, and all that."
"But we must-" Peel exclaimed, as if presented with heresy.
"Have it?" Lewrie scoffed. "No, we don't. And if no one else has it, or can make ha'penny off it, it's British goods borne by British bottoms that rule tobacco, cotton, indigo, and cocoa… and Europe would shrivel up and die without 'em."
"But, surely…!" Peel sputtered, dabbing his lips.
"I know, it takes all the fun out of your plots and schemes if the Navy just closes the tap, and lets Saint Domingue rot and wither," Lewrie gleefully declaimed. "Makes your, and Pelham's, presence redundant, don't it? Why, I might actually get my cabin space back! And France, and Spain, lose all their overseas trade and wealth, and we whip 'em silly sooner or later… if their own people don't rise up to demand bread and peace, first."
"Well, I doubt we'll give up quite that easily, Captain Lewrie," Mr. Peel told him, once he'd gotten his breath back, so to speak. "We have always coveted Saint Domingue, and that very sort of exclusive possession of the Caribbean you just mentioned. If not exclusive, we would have shared it with Spain, and would have worked in concert to expel the French, the Danes, and the Dutch… expel the Americans, too."
"Do tell," Lewrie said, beckoning to Aspinall for more wine.
"As early as '92, there was a Lieutenant-Colonel John Chalmers foresaw the coming war with France. He wrote the Foreign Office and the Prime Minister, offering a plan to conquer all the Sugar Isles… all sorts of maps and such, marked with arrows and little sketches of forts and ships… the same sort of paper fantasies that wish-to-be generals dream up in peacetime-"
"Promising grand success… if they're put in charge, hmm?" Lewrie sourly suggested. "Military, naval, or… agents?"
"Well, uhm, yes," Peel was forced to admit. "Ambition grows in every breast. Anyway, Colonel Chalmers suggested that we share the island of Hispaniola, the entire Caribbean, with Spain, and urged that we form a proper alliance, with them as the weaker partner."
"Which we did, for a while," Lewrie stuck in, knife and fork in use. '" 'Til Spain turned on us, and took hand with the Frogs, and God knows why."
"French and American ships, and trade, would have been driven out of these seas, completely," Peel continued, as casually as if he were discussing the prospects of a horse at New Market. "Spain is old, tired, and bankrupt… what better sort of ally could one ask for? Colonel Chalmers even went so far as to propose that, with Saint Domingue in our hands, and the United States' trade eliminated, all those emigrants from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and even England would settle down here instead of sailing for America… depriving the Yankee Doodles of an expanding population of enterprising newcomers, and all the industries and skills they'd possess, or demand once settled. Talented Britons, who'd-"
Lewrie cocked his head to one side and grinned, setting down his wineglass so he wouldn't spill when he began to wheeze with laughter. "Mine arse…!" he snorted, "on a band-box! Tell me you're not serious! That's the damnedest…! Christ shit on a biscuit!"
"Well, that's what you get when amateurs connive," Peel replied when Lewrie at last subsided, as if to prove that his hands had never touched such a scheme. "Property, property… nothing but property, do ye know," he went on, with a worldly-wise snicker. " 'Ferrea non venerem sed praedam saecula laudent.' 'It is not love but booty that this iron age applauds,' " Peel cited. "Tibullus."
"Bugger him, too," Lewrie retorted. "With bells on. Beg your pardon, Mister Peel, but, unfortunately, that's what you get when even the ones who should know better connive."
"Yes, unfortunately," Peel admitted. "You know that Maitland's gone to America? A Mister Harcourt from the Foreign Office is still in Saint Domingue, negotiating on the sly with L'Ouverture. Hope springs eternal," the elegant spy said with a faint shrug. "Maitland's brief is to negotiate covert trade arrangements, with Yankee ships to bear the goods. Unfortunately, he may be a trifle late off the mark. Their new President, John Adams, does not follow his predecessor's advice concerning foreign entanglements, as President Washington cautioned in his farewell address. Adams has already sent trade representatives to Saint Domingue, who seem to own the high cards for some reason."
"Even though twice as many Blacks are enslaved in America as there are on Hispaniola?" Lewrie said, gawping in surprise. "They have a bloody hope! So, do I end up chasing Yankee merchantmen?"
"It may come to that, yes," Peel intimated. "We should, uhm, pretend to continue in amity and cooperation with American men o' war versus the Frogs… for the moment."
"So all my advisories are over the side, I s'pose," Lewrie had to assume. "All that blather about equal protection for their traders and such. Sharing information with the American Navy… Damme, this could turn nasty if the Yankee Doodles aspire to dominate the colony's trade, without spilling a drop of blood, after we did all the-"
"Well, we won't share all our information, of a certainty," Mr. Peel warned. "For instance, our agents in Paris smuggled us the French private signals for the next three months, and those we shall not tell the Jonathons about."
"Really!" Lewrie exclaimed, a slow, devilish grin spreading on his face as he contemplated the opportunities for mayhem those signals codes might open to him.
"For now, we must be grateful the United States Navy is so tiny and weak, and most of her captains inexperienced," Mr. Peel snickered. "They barely make a show of force against the few French warships here, and those are few and far between, as we both know. Poor-cast cannon, perhaps green-timbered new-built ships…" he scoffed.
"You'd be surprised," Lewrie was happy to counter, recalling a visit aboard their 44-gun two-deck frigate Hancock. "We sell 'em modern artillery, coppering, everything they wish. A year from now, they will be a daunting challenge. We get into a new war with 'em and out come their privateers. Bad as the Frog privateers are, they're flea-bites by comparison. Do they get their hands on the exclusive Saint Domingue trade, it might be our merchantmen swept from these seas. If you scratch the Jonathons, you'd find they'd rather have another good bash at us than the French."
"Hmm… may not signify," Peel replied, grunting his skep
ticism at that declaration. "I doubt L'Ouverture will trust any slave-holding nation not to do him harm, in the long run. Adams's representations to him may goad the French into a real war, or force them to send an army and a fleet out here to quash any attempt to declare Saint Domingue's independence… or alliance with the Yankee Doodles. Which would put a better face upon our, uhm, sudden evacuation as well."
"I doubt that's possible," Lewrie scoffed.
"Actually, when Mister Pelham and I were about to depart, there was a lengthy article just ready for publication in all the newspapers," Mr. Peel told him with a mystifying grin. "It had been prepared by a government committee. Well, not an official committee, hmm? I saw a copy of it, and fetched it along. Would you care to read it, sir?"
"Total shite, is it?" Lewrie asked.
"You must understand that it was devised to be read in Paris by the Directory," Peel related, "to create a rift, or widen the existing rift, 'twixt France and L'Ouverture, firstly. The secondary aim would be to mollify our own populace. Matter of fact, I have it here," Peel said, reaching into the breast pocket of his coat to produce a sheaf of hand-copied script.
Lewrie took it warily, sure that it would be rank drivel; and the ink would be runny, in this damp. Toulon, at least, was quickly fascinated with anything that crinkled, and pawed at the papers, and his master's hand, mouth open for an experimental nibble.
' 'No event has happened in the history of the present war of more interest to the cause of humanity or the permanent interests of Great Britain than the treaty which General Maitland has made with the Black general Toussaint upon the evacuation of San Domingo'… that's what they're calling it, now? Thought it was Saint Domingue."
"Less French, more Caribbean and… exotic," Peel explained. '… the independence of that most valuable island is in fact recognised and will be secured against all the efforts which the French can now make to recover it. Not merely without the expense to England of fortifications or of armies but with the benefit of securing to us its exclusive commerce'… oh, rot!" Lewrie spat.
L'Ouverture was lauded, though a "mere Negro and brigand," but one born "to vindicate the claims of his species and to show that the character of men is independent of exterior colour"… "the late events will soon engage the public attention, and please all parties…"
"Oh, please!" Lewrie gravelled, more agitated. " 'It is a great point to rescue this formidable island from the grasp of the Directory… it is a great point gained to the cause of humanity that a Negro domination is in fact constituted'," he read, disbelief and bile in his voice, in equal measure. " '… that the Black Race whom the Christian world to their infamy have been accustomed to degrade… Every Liberal Briton will feel proud that this country brought about the happy revolution! 'What unutterable gall! Tripe! God-rotted… shit!"
"Ain't it," Peel rejoined, as if amused by Lewrie's naivety.
Toulon pounced upon the papers, now held in a limp right hand, with a glad little cry of victory, and many brisk "digging" motions.
"No, no, little man," Lewrie chid him, snatching them away with his left hand, and shoving them down-table to Peel. "Not these. Make you sick to your stomach. Bad as a hair-ball. Damn my eyes, Peel, who'd believe that?"
"Don't much signify," Peel admitted. "Once in the papers, it's official, and who's to say diff rent? The next generational take this account for gospel. Think of the widows and orphans," Peel said with a dismissive sniff. "Suddenly, the kin of those hundred thousand dead, crippled, or debilitated have a crumb to cling to… that their lads went for the good of… humanity. 'Twas in a good cause/" Peel said, scornfully pontificating, as all the ministers, parish vicars, Members of Parliament (Lewrie strongly suspected) would soon tearfully declaim.
Lewrie picked up his refilled wineglass and leaned back from the table. Oh, he could have pretended to be so sickened by the whole affair that he'd been put off his victuals, but that wasn't the case; he Was still hungry. Disgust had no effect on his digestion.
"I s'pose," he finally said, after three moody sips that nearly drained his wineglass, "the same sort of devious cant was spread in the last War… back when I was just commissioned, or a Mid. Cant that I most-like believed."
"A glass with you, Captain Lewrie," Peel proposed, summoning Aspinall to top them up. "To… an honourable world."
"Honourable world," Lewrie intoned, touching glasses with him… but pausing before drinking. "To the salvation of our personal honour, instead, Mister Peel. Despite the bloody world."
And the sardonic Mr. Peel surprised him by sighing, "Amen." "Uhm… those private identity signals, Mister Peel," he asked after draining his glass and waving for a refill. "Ye wouldn't happen t'have those in another pocket… would you?"
"In point of fact, I do, Captain Lewrie, but…"
"Another toast, then, Mister Peel," Lewrie proposed. "To, ah… mischief. Mischief, and confusion to the French!"
CHAPTER NINE
Something dragged him up from the depths of an almost dreamless sleep-a commotion on deck? No, it was the faint groan of working timbers, and the motion of his sybaritic hanging bed-cot that was made almost wide enough for two, a most suspect luxury in the spartan world of the Navy. Proteus was still on larboard tack, her decks heeled to starboard as she rolled and ranted, and the bed-cot, hung fore-and-aft, swayed left-to-right, but with a snubbing little jerk, and a yawing, a twist every now and then. One opened eye revealed utter blackness in the closed windows of the overhead coach-top. Toulon, not liking what the cot was doing one little bit, fussed and fretted on the wood edge, ready to jump down. Lewrie flung back the single mildewed sheet that covered him and put a leg over, a foot on the deck, ready to roll to his left and leave it. There was a thud of a musket butt outside his forrud cabin door.
"Awf'cer o' th' watch… Mister Adair, SAH!"
"Come," Lewrie called back, groping in the darkness for a pair of canvas trousers he'd left draped over a convenient chair back.
"My pardons, Captain," Lt. Adair said, entering the cabins with a "Weak horn-pane lanthorn in one hand, and his hat in the other, "but the wind is come more Easterly, and the seas are getting up, somewhat."
"Felt her working," Lewrie grunted as he finished buttoning up the front flap of the trousers, and fumbled his toes into his shoes. "What's the time, and where stands the wind, Mister Adair?"
"Just gone Two Bells of the Middle Watch, sir," Adair replied, "and the wind has backed a full point. We've hauled off with it, just this minute, sir."
"But she needs easing, aye," Lewrie decided aloud, shrugging into a thigh-length tarred sailcloth coat-now that he had Adair's light by which to find it. "Lead on, Mister Adair."
Once on deck near the quartermasters, who were straining on the helm, he could smell rough weather up to windward, a fresh-water miasma that put him in mind of a water well's dank throat. A sliver of moon gave faint light, but there were a few wisps of semi-opaque scud near it, and just enough moonlight and starlight to reveal a solid blankness up in the Nor'east.
"Well, damme," Lewrie muttered as the wind gusted fitful for an ominous moment or two, and the "banshees" keened in the miles of stays, sheets, halliards, and braces, before falling off as if dying suddenly, allowing Proteus to roll more upright and groan like an old woman turning over in her arthritic sleep. "Ease her, hell, Mister Adair, we'll rig for heavy weather. Pipe 'all hands.' We'll strike topmasts, and take first reefs in both courses and tops'ls… hand the stays'ls and outer jibs, as well. First off, hands to the braces once on deck, and we'll ease her another point off the wind to a close reach."
"Aye aye, sir! Mister Towpenny? Pipe 'all hands'!"
"Something the matter?" Mr. Peel enquired, popping up like some Jack-In-The-Box by Lewrie's side, wrapped in a blanket over shirt and breeches.
"Weather's making up, Mister Peel," Lewrie snapped, wishing the man wouldn't do that, coming up on his blind side and scaring him like a graveyard ghost. "Have to prepare for it, and bear off Sou'east."
"I see. How much delay will there be, then, to our arrival at Antigua?" Peel asked, following Lewrie to the compass binnacle, where Lewrie took a long squint at the traverse board.
"Three days?" Lewrie speculated, "A whole bloody week? No one could tell you that, Mister Peel. Depends on how rough it's going to get, from where the wind blows, how hard… if our luck's out, we'll end up halfway to Barbados… or stagger down nigh to the Vice-Royalty of New Granada. Wish t'visit the Dons and buy some cigarillos, do ye, Mister Peel?"
"Not particularly, Captain Lewrie, no," Peel said, a shakiness to his voice despite his stab at jocularity, which sound made Lewrie turn to peer at him with a faint grin. Was this "blow" Peel's first experience of heavy weather? He hadn't spent that much time on ships in the Mediterranean during their last pairing, and might have had good winds and easy seas on his way there, even in the fickle Bay of Biscay. It had been heard of, though 'twas damned rare.
"Ah, Mister Winwood," Lewrie said, turning his attention to the Sailing Master as he lumbered up from the gun-room and the main deck to the quarterdeck, with one of his charts under one arm, as Proteus awoke with a thunder of horny bare feet on oak, amid the shrills of bosun's calls. "I intend to remain on larboard tack, 'long as she'll bear it. New course, oh… Sou'-Sou'east, to begin with. Any dangers we should know of on that course? 'Til we run aground on Saint Vincent that is?"
"Let me consult this particular chart, Captain, sir," Mr. Winwood ponderously, soberly said, carefully unrolling it and pegging it to the traverse board, and waving a ship's boy forward with a better lanthorn so they could see it. "Ah… your initial estimate of landfall near Saint Vincent, should this slant of wind persist, sir, may be correct. And though the weather may plague us, I know of no shoals or reefs to the lee of the Windwards, sir."
Winwood was hopeless, Lewrie thought, following the man's ruler and course-tracing finger on the chart. He seemingly had no sense of humour, on-duty or off.
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