A King`s Trade

The young lady, no more than nineteen or twenty, Lewrie guessed, had no patience for staid, languid 'airs.' She bobbed him a very brief curtsy, but also reached out to take both his hands in hers, fingertips gripping fingertips, and her grip trembling but strong.

'Your servant, Miss Trencher,' Lewrie dutifully tried to say, noting that this Theodora was the very same lady who had leaped to her feet, cheered, and clapped him.

'I echo my father, Captain Lewrie,' she nigh-breathlessly gushed, 'for in gratitude for the bold step you took to free so many who cried out for rescue from abominable cruelty, it is I who are yours… your servant, I meant to say! Delighted to be!' she exclaimed, a higher blush rising to her face over her hapless innuendo, in what was obviously a rehearsed speech of welcome.

Careful, old son! Lewrie chid himself, feeling lusty stirrings in his groin; Let go of her, now. Hands t' yourself…

He took a half-step back and lowered his hands to break free of her fervent grip, taking note of her parents' stern cringes over her enthusiasm; her parents taking note of his own 'chaste' reticence and surprise at her departure from the normal graces, he also hoped! One more bow of his head, which let Lewrie take a better peek at her.

God Almighty! he thought. For young Mistress Theodora Trencher was the very personification of elfin beauty! She stood not a whisker above five feet, two inches, in her soft-soled 'at-home' slippers, very slim and wee. Her hair was a dark brown that was almost raven, curled with irons, and banged over a well-shaped, thoughtful-looking brow; a firm jawline and sweetly tapering chin, but with very full mouth, and lips he was sure would be eminently soft and kissable…! She did not wear the artifice of cosmetics, and had no need of them, for her complexion was the epitome of English 'cream,' and her eyes, huge at that moment in enthusiasm, were the most intriguing, and rare, violet!

'I really did very little, Mistress Trencher, though I am grateful for your good opinion,' he responded, with a dash of gruff, 'sea-dog' modesty, as Twigg had rehearsed him. He managed to tear his eyes away from gawping at her impressive bosom; the newest women's fashions evidently allowed even the Respectable to sport low necklines, and her 'poonts' or 'cat-heads' could not be faulted! Turning to her parents, he added, 'Part of it, I must confess, was need, d'ye see. The Fever Isles are hard on European sailors, and we'd had a bad bout of Yellow Jack aboard…'

Even with his back to him, Lewrie could feel Twigg cringe and slit his mouth, for him to blurt out that his actions were anything less than humanitarian and selfless!

'Indeed, sir? I was informed…' Rev. Wilberforce said with a wary sniff. 'Had we not, though, sir,' Lewrie quickly extemporised to save himself, 'there'd have been no vacancies for the escaped slaves. The Admiralty frowns on captains who recruit, or accept, volunteers above the establishment deemed proper for a frigate of Proteus's Rate, even to the number of cabin-servants and ship's boys allowed, unless they are paid from a captain's purse. They're jealous of every pence spent on rations, kits, clothing, shoes, and what not.

' 'Tis said, sir,' Lewrie concluded, striving to recall what a pious expression looked like, 'that the Lord moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. The slaves' prayers, and mine, coincided nigh miraculously.' 'Amen!' Theodora seconded.

'Just as Admiralty has broken captains who cheat the Exchequer by overstating the number of their crews, despite losses to desertion and death,' Mr. Twigg informed all present with a knowing and casually world-wise air (even if he was glaring daggers at Lewrie), 'who pocket the lost hands' pay, and connive with the Purser, who will sell off the un-issued rations and slop goods, Reverend, ladies and gentlemen, just as often as they would one who over-recruits.'

'Well… shall we be seated and have tea?' Mr. Trencher suggested, waving his guests to the settees and chairs about the parlour. Twigg practically snagged Lewrie by the elbow and led him to a settee too short for more than two, looking as if he'd love to hiss cautions, but couldn't. As they sorted themselves out, waiting for the ladies to sit first, Lewrie took happy note that he'd have a grand angle on the fetching young Miss Theodora, who dipped her head most gracefully, exposing what a fine and swan-like neck she had above her lace shawl.

'Or, might Captain Lewrie and Mister Twigg prefer refreshments more stimulating than tea?' Mrs. Hannah More enquired with a wary cock of her head.

Playin' fast an' loose with the Trenchers' hospitality, ain't we? Sly witch! Lewrie spitefully thought, though answering her with another of his 'special modest' grins, a shrug and shake of his head.

'As we say in the Navy, ma'am, the sun is still high over the yardarm, for me,' he replied. 'Tea would be delightful.'

The next hour passed much as Twigg had warned him; they asked careful questions as to his motives, how his 'theft' had occurred, and what sort of fellow was his fellow-conspirator, ex-Col. Christopher Cashman. Was he a spiritual man, and just when had his revulsion of slavery arisen? In his new enterprises in the United States, was he a slave-owner there, or…? And, more to the point, when and where had the (so far) noble Capt. Lewrie developed his own detestation?

So he told them of his first experiences in the Caribbean, back during the American Revolution; of the fugitive Yankee slaves who had run to British-held towns and garrisons, seeking the freedom promised should they aid the Tory cause.

'I was at Yorktown during the siege,' Lewrie related, addressing Mrs. Hannah More, his most-insistent and most-dubious inquisitor, 'in charge of a weak two-gun battery of landed guns… only a Midshipman, then. For labourers and help loading the guns, we had several runaway slaves. We were all on short-commons, we ate the same rations, slept in the redan together, kept watch and drilled together, with the same chance of being killed in battle, did the French and the Rebels attack.

'Well… they stood a worse chance, 'cause they faced lashings, a return to their chains, being lynched or shot, if we lost… which we did, and, I fear, some of them did suffer such fates, for very few of them escaped before the Lord Cornwallis's surrender, and it shamed me, ma'am… the way they looked at me, the veriest boy Midshipman, as their saviour, and I could do nothing, in the end,' he told them.

Damned if they didn't, and damned if I didn't, Lewrie took pause to recall; And every bloody word of it the Gospel Truth!

'And you were made prisoner. Captain Lewrie?' Mr. Trencher asked.

'No, sir. Two boatloads of light infantry, North Carolina Loyalist troops, I and my few hands, were blown downriver while trying to ferry the army across York River. Got stranded on the mud shoals down Guinea Neck, the morning of the surrender. We sheltered at a tobacco plantation, a slave plantation, 'til we could re-work our barges so we could sneak out to sea and escape. The orders were to abandon all but British, or White, troops, d'ye see… the horrid conditions that the plantation slaves had to stand, their near nakedness… pardon…'

'Fought their way out, 'gainst a company of Virginia Militia and a company of French troops from Lauzun's Legion,' Mr. Twigg added with a sage nod of his head, to boot. Lewrie snapped his gaze to Twigg; he didn't know that anyone but the participants knew the details of that long-ago horror. 'Nigh a week on the Atlantic, before being picked up by one of our warships. Might have sailed all the way to New York if he had had to. A most resourceful and determined man is our Captain Lewrie… even as a mere boy of a Midshipman,' Twigg ended, bestowing on Lewrie a most-admiring grin, one which Lewrie was sure was costing his soul a pinch or two. But, it was a welcome diversion, one that went down well with all present.

'Then… in '86,1 was in the Bahamas,' Lewrie continued, 'in command of a ketch-rigged gun-vessel, Alacrity. A Lieutenant, finally. There was a James Finney, there… known as 'Calico Jack,' like that pirate, Jack Rackham. A war hero, a successful privateer, and a merchant of great fortune… made by continuing privateering against every trading ship, under any flag, even British. He was very big in slaves. Practically owned the Vendue House at Nassau, and always had what they call 'Black Ivory'… 'cause he was pirating slave ships on their way to the Americas, murdering the crews, and selling the Africans off, as well as the re-painted, re-named, re-papered ships. With official connivance, sad t'say. We raided his secret cache of goods, his lair, on Walker 's Cay, finally, and found