shuffled wretchedly towards the lighted doors, and when a hand clapped down on his shoulder he turned with a ferocity that pleased the crowd more than anything they had seen hitherto, except for Miss Rankin treading on her petticoat and coming down full length. ‘Aubrey!
Jack Aubrey!’ cried Dundas, his old shipmate Heneage Dundas. ‘I recognized your back at once - should have recognized you anywhere. How do you do? You have a touch of fever, I dare say? Dr Maturin, how do you do? Are you going in here? So am I, ha, ha, ha. How do you get along?’ Dundas had recently been made post into the Franchise, 36; he loved the world in general, and his cheerful, affectionate flow of talk carried them across the pavement, up the steps and into the hall.
The gathering had a strong naval flavour, but Lady Keith was also a political hostess and the friend of a great many interesting people: Jack left Stephen in conversation with a gentleman who had discovered the adamantine boron and moved through the great drawing-?room, through the less crowded gallery and to a little domed room with a buffet in it: Constantia wine, little pies, rout-?cakes, more Constantia. Here Lady Keith found him; she was leading a big man in a sky-?blue coat with silver buttons and she said, ‘Jack, dear, may I introduce Mr Canning? Captain Aubrey, of the Navy.’
Jack liked the hook of this man at once, and during the first meaningless civilities this feeling grew: Canning was a broad-?shouldered fellow, and although he was not quite so tall as Jack, his way of holding his small round head up and tilted back, with his chin in the air, made him look bigger, more commanding. He wore his own hair - what there was left of it: short tight curls round a shining calvity, though he was in his thirties, no more - and he looked like one of the fatter, more jovial Roman emperors; a humorous, good-?natured face, but one that conveyed an impression of great latent strength. ‘An ugly customer to have against you,’ thought Jack, earnestly recommending ‘one of these voluptuous little pies’ and a glass of Constantia.
Mr Canning was a Bristol merchant. The news quite astonished Jack. He had never met a merchant before, out of the way of business. A few bankers and money-?men, yes; and a poor thin bloodless set of creatures they seemed- a lower order; but it was impossible to feel superior to Mr Canning. ‘I am so particularly happy to be introduced to you, Captain Aubrey,’ he said, quickly eating two more little pies, ‘because I have known you by reputation for years and because I was reading about you in the paper only yesterday. I wrote you a letter to express my sense of your action with the Cacafuego back in ‘01, and I very nearly posted it: indeed I should have done so, with the least excuse of a nodding acquaintance or a common friend. But it would have been too great a liberty in a complete stranger, alas; and after all, what does my praise amount to? The mere noise of uninformed admiration.’
Jack made the noises of acknowledgment. ‘Too kind- an excellent crew - the Spaniard was unlucky in his dispositions.’
‘And yet not so wholly uninformed, neither,’ went on Canning. ‘I fitted out some privateers in the last war, and I took a cruise in one as far as Goree and in another to Bermuda, so I have at least some notion of the sea. No conceivable comparison, of course; but some slight notion of what such an action means.’
‘Was you ever in the Service, sir?’ asked Jack.
‘I? Why, no. I am a Jew,’ said Canning, with a look of deep amusement.
‘Oh,’ said Jack. ‘Ah?’ He turned, going through the motions of blowing his nose, saw Lord Melville looking at him from the doorway, bowed and called out ‘Good evening.’
‘And this war I have fitted out seven, with the eighth on the stocks. Now, sir, this brings me to the Bellone, of Bordeaux. She snapped up two of my merchantmen the moment war broke out again, and she took the Nereid, my heaviest privateer - eighteen twelve-?pounders - the cruise before she took you and your Indiaman. She is a splendid sailer, sir, is she not?’
‘Prodigious, sir, prodigious. Close-?hauled, with light airs, she ran away from the Blanche as easy as kiss my hand: and spilling her wind by way of a ruse, she still made six knots for Blanche’s four, though close-?hauled is Blanche’s best point of sailing. Very well handled, too: her captain was a former King’s officer.’
‘Yes. Dumanoir - Dumanoir de Plessy. I have her draught,’ said Canning, leaning over the buffet, fairly ablaze with overflowing life and enthusiasm, ‘and I am building my eighth on her lines exactly.’
‘Are you, by God!’ cried Jack. Frigate-?sized privateers were not uncommon in France, but they were unknown this side of the Channel.
‘But with twenty-?four-?pounder carronades in place of her long guns, and eighteen-?pounder chasers. Do you think she will bear ‘em?’
‘I should have to look at her draught,’ said Jack, considering deeply. ‘I believe she would, and to spare: but I should have to look at her draught.’
‘But that is a detail,’ said Canning, waving his hand. ‘The real crux is the command. Everything depends on her commander, of course; and here I should value your advice and guidance beyond anything. I should do a great deal to come by the services of a bold, enterprising captain- a thorough-?going seaman, of course. A letter-?of-?marque is not a King’s ship, I admit; but I try to run mine in a way no King’s officer would dislike - taut discipline, regularity, cleanliness. But no black lists, no hazing, and very little cat. You are no great believer in the cat, sir, I believe?’
‘Not I,’ said Jack. ‘I find it don’t answer the purpose, with fighting-?men.’
‘Fighting-?men: just so. That is another thing I can offer- prime fighting-?men, prime seamen. They are mostly smugglers’ crews, west-?countrymen, born to the sea and up to anything: I have more volunteers than I can find room for; I can pick and choose; and those I choose will follow the right man anywhere, put up with all reasonable discipline and behave like lambs. A right privateer’s man is no blackguard when he is led by the right captain. I believe I am right there, sir?’
‘I dare say you are, sir,’ said Jack slowly.
‘And to get the right commander I offer a post-?captain’s pay and allowances for a seventy-?four and I guarantee a thousand a year in prize-?money. Not one of my captains has made less, and this new ship will certainly do very much better; she will be more than twice the burden of the others and she will have between two and three hundred men aboard. For when you consider, sir, that a private ship of war spends no time blockading, running messages or carrying troops,. but only destroying the enemy’s commerce, and when you consider that this frigate can cruise for six months at a time, why, the potentialities are enormous . . . enormous.’ Jack nodded: they were, indeed. ‘But where can I find my commander?’ asked Canning.
‘Where did you find your others?’
‘They were local men. Excellent, in their way, but they govern smallish crews, relatives, acquaintances, men they have sailed with. This is another problem entirely; it calls for a bigger man, a man on another scale. Might I
