Текст книги "Hostile Shores"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 27 страниц)
“Well, caged birds maybe, but I draw the line at monkeys,” Lewrie said, laughing, welcoming Pettus as he came with the wine bottle to top them both up. “Shore liberty’d be best, all round, I believe, and I’ll argue for it. The men who stayed aboard will be sullen if they’re not allowed a chance t’see all that our landing party did. Have enough hot water for decent baths, and their clothes laundered in something besides salt water?”
“Lastly, sir, there’s our … stowaway, Private Dodd,” the First Officer said in a softer voice, as if some Army officer was listening. “We will have to make arrangements with his unit.”
Their “shanghaied” waggoner, Private Dodd, had found the issue of rum twice a day, with a gallon of small beer allowed for every man per day as well, just too enticing. He had been trained with the musket, and had “square-bashed” before being shuffled off into a transport company, and had shyly offered his services to Lt. Simcock as a replacement in the Marine complement.
“They’ll stop his pay and tell his kinfolk that he deserted or went missing in battle if we don’t, sir,” Westcott said, with a brow up.
“I know, I know,” Lewrie groused. “That’ll be one more task for me t’deal with. I’ll go ashore tomorrow and speak with his commanding officer. I hope they’ll let him go. If not, perhaps we could trade one of our worst lubbers for him. Anyone in mind, right off?” he asked Westcott.
“What, sir?” Lt. Westcott hooted in mirth. “Take a perfectly good sailor and hand him over to the misery of being a redcoat? Perish the thought, sir!”
“Well, I made them all into redcoats, for a few days,” Lewrie said, laughing along with him.
“Aye, sir, and I won’t be the same man ’til I’ve had a new pair of boots made, or my old ones re-soled,” Westcott said, shaking his head. “Who’d be a soldier, hey, sir?”
“Who’d be a soldier, indeed, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie agreed.
“I think that is all for today, sir,” Westcott told him. “I believe the biggest concerns for the next few days will be the victualling and watering to Mister Cadbury’s content.” He shuffled his papers one last time as if looking for a topic he’d forgotten, then got to his feet. “I will take my leave, sir.”
“See you at supper, the middle of the Second Dog,” Lewrie told him, rising to see him out.
“Anything else, sir?” Pettus asked.
“Lay the table, set out the wines on the sideboard, and have an eye towards my best-dress uniform for the morning, with all of the frippery attached,” Lewrie instructed with a slight sneer. “Commodore Popham don’t like me showin’ up without ’em, as if I’m a pauper. Make sure Chalky doesn’t get at it before I put it on, though. Commodore Popham most-like doesn’t care for cat hair, either.”
“Aye, sir,” Pettus said with a smile.
He sure as Hell didn’t care for my appearance when he met me ashore, Lewrie thought; He didn’t even like my borrowed horse!
As soon as Fort Knocke had been surrendered and taken over by General Baird’s troops, and the eastern end of Cape Town was safely in British hands, the Commodore had come ashore to take part in the negotiations for the Cape Colony’s complete surrender, natty in a dress uniform complete with sash and star of his own knighthood, his boots blackened and polished to a high gleam, with a fore-and-aft bicorne hat adrip with gold lace. A Dutch senior officer’s horse had been provided him at once, a glossy blooded hunter, and he had ridden the bounds of the fort and nearby environs with Baird and his staff as grandly as King George taking the air in Hyde Park.
Then he met Lewrie—he whose boots were still filthy, with begrimed breeches, stained with saddle leather, dust, spent gunpowder smoke, and the juices of roast game meat, whose shirt collars and neck-stock were sweat-stained and loose, whose waist-coat also bore the mark of rough feeding, and whose older-style cocked hat had turned tannish with African dust, and lacked its “dog’s vane” cockade, which had been shot off. At the moment, Lewrie was in need of a shave, to boot.
“Good God, sir!” Popham had grimaced. “You must send to your ship for better uniform at once, Lewrie. What will the Dutch think of us to see our officers so … scruffy?”
To which Lewrie had replied, “They’ll be studyin’ the toes of their shoes, sir, in shame of their defeat, rather than lookin’ at us.”
And when the Dutch governor had formalised the surrender, and the British had marched into the town to take possession of it and the seaward fortress, Popham, in the vanguard of the parade, looking as if he would wave to expected cheers from the conquered, barely had more than a dis-believing glance at Lewrie, who had stubbornly stayed in his shabby condition.
“Clean hands and fingernails, Jessop,” Lewrie said, coming back from that rather sweet reverie.
“Right, sir … if I must,” the lad answered.
“Must and shall, you scamp,” Lewrie shot back, grinning. “For now, I think I’ll take a wee nap in a soft bed, for a change.”
“It does make a nice change, sir,” Pettus agreed. “Same as I’m looking forward to my hammock tonight, after all that hard ground, and all the bugs.”
“Sorry I put you through that,” Lewrie apologised, yawning.
“Oh no, sir!” his cabin steward exclaimed. “Why, I wouldn’t have missed it for anything, and I’m glad you took me along, for it was a grand adventure, and a rare thing to see! The beasts, the scenery, and the battle? Even if we didn’t see any elephants.”
“Well, I’m glad someone liked it,” Lewrie said with a laugh. “And, do we spend much time anchored in Table Bay, you may see your elephants yet. Wake me one hour before the supper. Here, Chalky! I need pesterin’!”
He rolled into his swaying bed-cot, plumped up the damp and mildew-smelling pillows, and was out to the world within a minute, oblivious to his cat’s wee mews for more attention. Chalky tried pawing, to no avail. Finally, he padded up to the pillows and lay down nose-to-nose and employed the intent, concentrated stare that made humans uncomfortable enough to wake. But no, even that did not work this time. Chalky gave up and slinked round to cuddle against his master’s chest, closed his eyes, and waited for later.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Pettus, and the rest of Reliant’s crew, got to see their elephants, and a great many other beasts, on their shore liberties, and got a few hours of perfect ease in Cape Town’s public houses, eateries, and brothels. As important as Cape Town was as a mid-way stop-over point for the rich China and East Indies trade, though, it was not all that large a place, so liberty had to be rationed. At least half of General Baird’s five thousand soldiers garrisoned the fortresses with the rest out scouting and mapping at any given time, so they placed a heavy burden on the taverns, eateries, and whores, so shore liberty had to be given to only one watch of each ship in turn, to the two-decker warships first, which ate up several days before the frigates were allowed to send only half their crews ashore in rotation on any given day.
Officers were another matter, of course, since they did not stand Harbour Watches in port, and they were allowed ashore by their captains as often as they wished, barring demands of the service. It was safe enough to allow shore leave, even in what had been a hostile foreign harbour, for Cape Town and its environs were well-patrolled by the Army, and the terms of surrender offered to the Dutch were of so mild a nature that most locals simply shrugged their shoulders and submitted to new masters with little ill will.
The Dutch army of around five thousand men had lost seven hundred in killed and wounded, and perhaps two or three hundred more who had just ridden off and disappeared before the formal surrender; local militia men who would not leave their families and lands. What uniforms they had worn they had shed, and had melted back into the back country, some to hitch their waggons, gather their cattle, their horses, and their Hottentot slaves, and trek off for the wild frontiers of Cape Colony. The bulk of them, though, were offered return to Holland in British transports, at British expense, after giving their parole not to take arms against Great Britain ’til properly exchanged for British prisoners of equal rank. And, since the British Army and the Dutch Army had not faced each other in the field since the disastrous expedition into the Low Countries in 1798, those returnees would be twiddling their thumbs on parole for a long time to come!
Lewrie and his officers enjoyed their jaunts ashore, as well. There were hunting parties with proper tents and camp equipment, this time, and lots of game meat wolfed down round blazing campfires, with selected seamen accompanying them. They organised sports competitions, watch against watch, and ship against ship, in open fields out past Fort Knocke. Lt. Westcott sketched and painted everything in sight—when he wasn’t chasing quim—and Lt. Spendlove satisfied his curiosity about Africa’s exotic flora and fauna, whilst Lt. Merriman and Marine Lt. Simcock revelled in galloping rented horses ’til they and their mounts were worn quite out and soaked in sweat, returning to the ship still whooping their triumphs at races against the officers of the 34th or the 20th Light Dragoons, or the local equivalent of steeplechasing.
For a time, Lewrie hoped that he would be assigned to escort the Dutch back to Europe; in point of fact he was sure that Reliant would be given the task by the odd way that Commodore Popham looked at him whenever they met face-to-face. Popham was “hail fellow, well met” with almost everyone he dealt with, but Lewrie sensed a faint distaste towards him. The odd, lifted brow, the tongue-in-cheek comments anent his shore adventures, and the way Popham would cock his head and leer in his direction amongst the meetings and supper parties made Lewrie certain that Popham almost resented him for his favourable mentions in General Baird’s despatches to London!
Is he jealous, by God? Lewrie was forced to wonder; Did I shine too bright for his liking? Steal some of his lustre from his victory? Which made Lewrie recall Popham’s early comment about how someone in the Navy would, must, become as famous as the late Admiral Nelson—was Popham aspiring to that title, and worried that others might beat him to the punch? Whatever the reason, Lewrie got the impression that Popham would be happy to see him and Reliant gone.
It didn’t happen, though. The Dutch prisoners of war were put aboard the transports and sent off with hardly any escorts, leaving HMS Reliant swinging to her anchors, a condition which turned boresome after a fortnight or so. By the end of February, Lewrie was itching to get back to sea before his crew got too bored, sullen, and out of practice. All the competitions he could stage aboard, all the rowing races and sailing races he could arrange with the ship’s boats, had lost their appeal. Personally, he had re-read all his novels, and a few new to him borrowed from the wardroom, had written so many letters to Lydia, his sons, his in-laws, his daughter, his father, old friends from the Navy, fellow lodgers at the Madeira Club in London—even Peter Rushton and Clotworthy Chute—that he had nothing more to say!
When he asked Popham’s permission to patrol round Cape Agulhas and points East into the Indian Ocean, Popham had been more than eager to allow him, telling a gathering of his officers, “But, of course you may. After all, sirs, we know by now that we must keep Captain Lewrie amused, and spared anything humdrum, what? Haw haw!”
“Thank you, sir,” Lewrie had said, though thinking, Eat shit and die!
* * *
He took a month away from Cape Town and its delights, working his crew back to well-drilled competence at striking and re-erecting top-masts, at tacking or wearing about on a sudden whim, at taking in sail by reefing or striking or ugly and baggy “Spanish Reefs” to spill wind from courses and tops’ls by clewing them up into bats’ wings with their centres drawn against the yards and the outer corners resembling flabby sacks. And, of course there was arms drill almost every morning, with boarding pikes, cutlasses, and musketry fired at towed kegs well astern of a barge under sail. Even if the Ordnance Board didn’t care for the expense, Reliant went to Quarters at least four days a week to practice live-firing with the great guns, from quarterdeck 9-pounders to bow chasers, carronades, and her battery of 18-pounders, expending kegs of gunpowder and hundreds of flannel cartridge bags.
In his early, confused, and miserable days as a Midshipman in old HMS Ariadne, back in 1780, the one redeeming feature of his term of servitude had been when the ship had gone to Quarters and the lashings had been cast off the guns. The crashes, the leaping recoils, the thunderous rumble of carriage trucks as they were hauled back to be loaded, then run up to the ports once more, and the thick, rotten-egg stink of spent powder that be-fogged the decks had put him in heaven! The blasts which fluttered his innards always put him in mind of shuddery raptures! And to get off three rounds per gun in two minutes and hammer a patch of sea with concentrated broadsides, well!
By the time Lewrie was satisfied with his crew’s gunnery, even Bisquit the dog had taken to running below on his own whenever the Marine drummer and fifer started the Long Roll, with no one to lead him by the collar, and Chalky learned that his wicker travelling cage was a safe and snug place to run to!
* * *
Off the Southern tip of Madagascar, near the mouth of the Mozambique Channel, Lewrie decided to return to Cape Town. After he had breakfasted on oatmeal and coffee, he went to the quarterdeck to give that order. Bisquit was playing fetch with some of the ship’s boys, but broke off and began to slink towards the hatchway, wary of his presence which might presage another morning of dread thunders, but Lewrie took time to whistle him up and give him some petting before mounting the ladderway.
“Good morning, sir,” Lt. Westcott, who had the watch, said.
“Good morning to you, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said back with a grin. “Put the ship about, if you please, and shape course back to Cape Town.”
“Very good, sir!” Westcott replied, perking up and baring his signature brief smile. “Bosun, pipe all hands! Stations to wear!”
Once about and steady on a course of Sou’west by West, Lewrie summoned Westcott to join him at the windward rails.
“Aye, sir?” Westcott asked.
“I’ve been ponderin’ something, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said. “The complete absence of any Dutch warships in the area.”
“Well, one would think the Dutch are too busy protecting their East Indies colonies, sir … Java and such,” Westcott said after a moment of musing. “Or, they’re preying on our India and China trades, alongside their allies, the French. What they now call Holland, the Batavian Republic, is occupied by, and subordinate to, the French. If any Dutch warships are around, one’d most-like find them at the isles of Réunion and Mauritius … under overall French command.”
“It still makes no sense to me that they just abandoned and set fire to that sixty-eight gunner anchored in False Bay,” Lewrie told him.
“The Bato, sir,” Westcott supplied.
“Aye. We were so busy landing troops, we didn’t have a rowing boat t’spare,” Lewrie continued. “They could’ve sailed her out to sea and run to Réunion and we wouldn’t have known a thing about it. And, if the Cape Colony was so important to the Dutch, and the French, why was she the only one there? We’ve seen one of our East India Company trades, a couple of Swedish ships, an American whaler or two, but not hide nor hair of the Dutch or the French. I don’t like it. I have a … fey feeling that once they get word that we’ve taken Cape Town, the French and the Dutch together could put together a decent-sized squadron t’take it all back.”
“Well, a squadron of ships, perhaps, sir, but with five thousand of our soldiers ashore and in control of the forts, they wouldn’t stand much of a chance at counter-invasion,” Westcott dismissed with a shake of his head.
“There is that, granted, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie allowed as he turned to gaze aft as if searching for a hostile sail on the horizon … any hostile sail. “We beat the stuffings out of the Dutch Navy at Camperdown, but they’d have a long time since t’rebuild it, even if Napoleon’s used their yards t’build all those thousands of invasion craft so he could land in England. They could send at least one two-decker sixty-eight to defend Cape Town, so … why not more, t’protect their East Indies colonies? Or, d’ye think I’m jumpin’ at shadows?” he asked, turning back to his First Officer to pull a face in self-deprecation.
“More … planning against the worst, sir,” Westcott replied with a hint of a grin. In his three years’ service under Lewrie, he had yet to see him take himself seriously, or become pompous. “Fore-warned is fore-armed, what? But, it may be, sir, that it’s half what you might wish, more than what the Dutch have, or might do. God, we have been so busy and active for so long that this idling in harbour, and so-far fruitless cruising, is … nettlesome. Making us sit up late at night, waiting for the shoe to drop, and listening for the odd creaking.”
“We?” Lewrie scoffed. “Me, ye mean. Frankly, it’d be better did all our ships spend more time at sea, ’stead of holdin’ victory suppers, and pattin’ ourselves on the back. Roam farther afield than Cape Agulhas and Lamberts Bay to the North o’ Cape Town. Bring every crew beyond ‘river discipline’ competence again.”
“You’re thinking more like a Commdore, again, sir, not just another subordinate Captain,” Westcott dared to comment, “serving at another man’s whims.”
“Well, I will allow that my brief time in that position was … habit-forming,” Lewrie said with a self-mocking shrug. “All that vast power and authority was intoxicatin’!”
Westcott laughed along with him.
“How to suggest such to Commodore Popham, though, sir,” Westcott said in a lower voice, “and express your suspicions of a Dutch and French combined riposte, hmm?”
“That is the rub, aye,” Lewrie replied, scowling, “without him thinkin’ me an old lady, or unwilling t’hear anything from anyone that goes against his set thinkin’. Or, takin’ any suggestion from the likes of me, at all! I think he’s a ‘down’ on me, ever since we went off on our own with the Army. Oh, well.”
“Commodore Popham is a very active sort, though, sir, just full of schemes and ideas,” Westcott noted. “With the Navy’s part in the conquest done, and the Cape Colony in General Baird’s total control, might he be looking for other fish to fry, by now? Who knows, sir. The tiniest flea planted in his ear, and we could all be out to sea and having a go at raiding Fort-de-France!”
“Hmm, now that sounds … interesting,” Lewrie mused. “Just bung-full o’ prospects for fresh laurels. Once back at Table Bay, we will see.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Even before the Reliant frigate could complete her gun salute to the Commodore, put down her bower anchors, or take in all sail, a signal appeared on HMS Diadem’s halliards: Reliant’s number and “Captain Repair On Board”.
“Well, damme,” Lewrie muttered. “Impatient about something … ain’t he?”
“Away, the Captain’s boat crew!” Lt. Westcott took time to yell, amid all the other necessary commands which would bring their ship to safe and secure anchorage. Table Bay was not the snuggest harbour in the world, and when the winds came Westerly, they blew directly onto shore and raised choppy surges that put all anchored ships on a lee shore. “Afterguard! Haul the first cutter up from towing and lay it abeam the starboard entry-port!”
“Look presentable, do I, Mister Spendlove?” Lewrie asked their Second Officer in jest, tugging at his shirt cuffs and his neck-stock. He was in slop-trousers, scuffed boots, and his oldest and shabbiest uniform coat and hat.
“Oh, fit for the King, sir,” Spendlove replied with un-characteristic puckish humour.
“We will see to making the ship all tiddly, sir,” Westcott promised. “No worries. And, no need to keep the Commodore waiting.”
“Very well, sirs,” Lewrie said, bound for the entry-port for his rushed departure.
“Once aboard the flagship, sir,” Lt. Spendlove called after him, “might you ask where yonder French frigate came from?”
“Indeed, I shall,” Lewrie told him, for he was as curious as the rest as to the why and the how that a large French frigate sat at anchor with a large Union Jack flying over the enemy Tricolour from her stern staff.
What lucky bastard made her prize, and when? Lewrie pondered as he took the hastily-gathered side-party’s salute, doffed his hat, and scrambled down to the waiting cutter; We spent a month prowlin’ and saw nothing, and one of the others had a good, brisk fight? Damn!
* * *
“Ah, Captain Lewrie!” Commodore Popham cried in apparent good humour as he entered the flag officer’s great-cabins. “Have a pleasant cruise, did you … all fair winds and claret?”
“Good weather for the most part, sir,” Lewrie replied, warily. He was waiting for the criticism to come. “Nought t’show for it, unfortunately. Quite unlike the fortunate fellow who nabbed that Frog frigate.”
“Come, have a glass of wine with us, and the tale will be told, sir!” Popham hooted with delight, waving Lewrie to take a seat with the others at his long, gleaming dining table.
Captain Josiah Rowley of Raisonnable was there, Commander Joseph Edmonds of Diomede, her Acting-Captain; beside him was Captain Robert Honyman of the Leda frigate and Captain Ross Donnelly of the 32-gun Narcissus frigate. At the foot of the table, “below the salt”, sat Lieutenant James Talbot of the 14-gun Encounter.
“It is everyone’s prize, and it is no one’s prize,” Popham said with a playful air of mystery, as if telling ghost stories to a pack of children, “for she came into Table Bay, the fourth of March, just a few days after you sailed, Lewrie, with no idea that we had taken the place.”
“There were enough Dutch flags flying on the shipping in the harbour to mis-lead her,” Captain Rowley said with a snicker.
“Aye, and I quickly ordered all our warships to hoist false colours ’til she had let go her best bower and taken in most of her sails,” Popham said, beaming with glee, “then hoisted our true colours and ordered her to strike. She’s the Volontaire, of fourty guns, and was part of their Admiral Willaumez’s squadron, bound for Mauritius and Fort-de-France. The sweetest part is that she and other ships of her squadron had captured two of our troop transports somewhere in the Bay of Biscay, and had over two hundred soldiers from the Queens’ Regiment and the Fifty-fourth Foot aboard, whom we liberated, ha ha!”
“Who may prove useful to General Baird’s garrison force, once re-armed and re-equipped,” Captain Donnelly suggested. “What does the Army call such a rag-tag and motley gathering, sir?”
“A Battalion of Detachments,” Popham quickly supplied, He had a reputation of getting on with the Army better than most Royal Navy officers. “They might make four companies … hardly a full battalion, really, but, as you say, Donnelly, they may be useful to Sir David … or at other endeavours.” And there was the enigmatic smile, again.
He’s goin’ cryptic, again, Lewrie thought with a silent groan; At least his wine’s good, even if it is local.
“You said you saw nothing of enemy activity on your cruise, Lewrie?” Popham asked him. “How far did you go?”
“As far as the longitude of Madagascar’s Southern tip, sir, makin’ long boards to either tack, then zig-zagged North to sight of Madagascar and the Mozambique Channel,” Lewrie summarised. “We saw a ‘John Company’ trade, some Yankee Doodle whalers, and some neutral merchantmen, but no French or Dutch warships. I was wondering why the Dutch didn’t have more than one warship here at the Cape when we arrived, sir, and, given how important the Cape Colony is to both the French and the Dutch—”
“So, except for one or two French frigates and several large French privateers working out of Réunion and Mauritius, our new possession is in no danger from that quarter. Good!” the Commodore said energetically, all but clapping his hands together in delight. “Now, before we sailed here, the last time I was up to London and had the honour of dining with the Prime Minister, we did discuss this operation, and other … possibilities for future action once the Cape was successfully carried.”
No one rolled their eyes exactly, but all had heard, perhaps once too often, of Captain Sir Home Riggs Popham being all but cater-cousins and a close confidant to William Pitt, the Younger. He did trot out his excellent connexions, the way some wealthy wives would tell one just how expensive was everything in their parlours, at the drop of a hat!
“Whilst I was in London, I was introduced to a Spanish gentleman, one Colonel Miranda,” Popham continued, “most un-officially, of course … all back-channel and sub rosa, do you see, so no firm promises could be made to the man by anyone in the Prime Minister’s administration, nor by anyone in His Majesty’s Government. This Colonel Miranda declared himself to be a representative of a nationalist movement in Spanish South America, from Buenos Aires in the Argentine, in point of fact. He came seeking aid to bolster his cause, which would be a local, popular rising to throw off Spanish rule and gain the Argentine total autonomy and independence!”
“God, another bloody revolution,” Captain Rowley said with a grim little laugh. “But, will it be like the Americans’, or more like the one in France?”
“Aye, out come the guillotines, and chop chop!” Captain Honyman sneered. “The Americans, now … at least they were of British stock, and British common sense. Once they won, they didn’t go to massacres and reprisals like the French. They spent their bile writing their Constitution. Rule of law, what? But, what may one expect of fiery-hot Spaniards, I ask you? Hey-ho, and huzzah the Inquisition for anyone on the losing side!”
“The possibilities, though, gentlemen!” Popham interrupted in some heat. “Great Britain, by her very position, commands the approaches to the Baltic trade, and the Channel. Our presence at Gibraltar controls access to the Mediterranean, as will our holding the isle of Malta. Now, we have taken the Cape of Good Hope, and may deny any other world power the India and China trade.
“Just think what the taking of Buenos Aires and Montevideo and the Plate Estuary would mean, sirs! There would in time of war be no trade round Cape Horn but for neutrals and our, and allied, shipping! Port Stanley and the Falkland Islands could never support a squadron of ships sufficient to dominate the Cape Horn passages, but the Plate could,” Popham insisted, half-cajoling, half-battering down any argument to the contrary; smiling wide but talking loud and quickly as he bestowed beaming good will.
“Aye, but how would we go about that, sir?” Diomede’s captain asked, frowning. “Other than that Colonel Miranda you met, what are the odds that he represented a real rebel movement, and not just some pack of malcontents meeting in some coffee house? Is there really a sizable portion of the population all that eager to throw off Spanish rule, and welcome us?”
“We are godless Protestant heretics, don’t ye know,” Lewrie had to say, with a snicker. “Good Papists, rebel or no, would rather cut our throats. Hated us for ages!”
“When in London, Colonel Miranda gave firm and believable assurances that his nationalist movement is widespread, and popular with all classes in the Argentine,” Commodore Popham countered. “He came to Protestant England to ask for our aid, and was authorised to grant us basing rights, in exchange for local rule, and civil autonomy, sirs.” Popham paused and brought out a stack of newspapers from a drawer in his sideboard. “I obtained these quite recently from a Captain Waine, of the American merchantman Elizabeth, just come to anchor in Table Bay. They are in Spanish, of course, but my clerks and some of Captain Downman’s officers read and speak Spanish, and they are in full consensus that these papers speak of civil unrest, complaints about Spain taking hands with godless, heretical Jacobin France, the rules by which the Argentine trade is crippled by far-off decrees limiting shipping to Spanish ships only, with no inter-colonial trade allowed, and et cetera and et cetera. No local merchantmen may trade with America, with Portuguese Brazil, for one instance.
“And, there is rich potential in the Argentine, sirs,” Popham enthusiastically drilled on. “Cattle, hides, tallows, and lards, and mineral wealth, along with vast seas of grain crops, and the bark of the cinchona tree, which is a specific against Malaria. And, Buenos Aires is one terminus of the Spanish Philippines trade, with all the spices, gold, and silver that that means, annually. Our Drake, in his time, would have given his right arm for the chance to take one of the ‘golden galleons’. Who knows what untold wealth now lies in the warehouses and counting houses of Buenos Aires, gentlemen? Do we appear in the Río de la Plata to augment and light the match to the nationalist uprising, we will outnumber, and over-awe, those Spaniards who still cling to the old regime in Madrid, and they are a distinct minority, all our intelligence, and Captain Waine’s personal observations, assure me!”
He’s mad as a hatter! Lewrie gawped to himself; As daft as a March hare!
“Won’t this require an army at least as large as the one that we brought to the Cape, though, sir?” Captain Rowley hesitantly asked, sounding tempted, but wary. “And, do we sail for Buenos Aires, and leave Cape Town un-defended, might we run the risk of losing it to an expeditionary force from the French bases in the Indian Ocean, once they learn of its loss?”
“The French have barely enough troops to garrison Réunion and Mauritius,” Popham was quick to dismiss, “so General Baird will be as safe as houses so long as he holds both fortresses, and can field one brigade of his present strength. A naval presence to defend the Cape is of secondary importance, leaving us free to undertake the invasion of the Argentine.
