Dundas had become Henry, Viscount Melville, and had been named First Lord of the Admiralty in 1804, replacing stalwart and honest-to-his-bones Admiral John, Earl Saint Vincent, “Old Jarvy”, who had waged a gallant but failed attempt to clean out the greed, venality, corruption, and speculating of Navy suppliers, contractors, the dockyards themselves, and even the Navy Board. Viscount Melville, though, who had been Treasurer of the Navy twice in his political career, knew where the side-profits were, and had come to be sneered at as “Lord Business As Usual” almost from the moment he took office.
Now, even though Viscount Melville’s peculations and profits on the sly, and his turning of the blind eye to his fellow plunderers, had finally drawn official notice, resulting in his impeachment and replacement by Admiral Charles, Lord Barham, in this past May, there were too many who continued to hold high offices to sever Melville’s influence. Indeed, there were many who wished that the promised trial in the House of Lords might result in an acquittal, and his glorious return!
“Place, patronage, and ‘petti-coat’ interest,” Lewrie commented with a weary, jaded shake of his head. “All damned fine, so long as you’re the recipient, of course. Even with Melville impeached, not a thing’s changed. Investigators will be reportin’ corruption and writin’ reform policies ’til the turn of the next century!”
“Your pardons, sir,” Midshipman Entwhistle said with an adult’s firm grasp of reality, “but Old Jarvy’s mistake was thinking that refined and educated gentlemen who hold high office are as honest as he is. As if corruption is a high tide that only goes up so far.”
“Well said, Mister Entwhistle, damned well said,” Lewrie agreed. Turning aft, he called to Midshipman Munsell. “D’ye still have your copy of Steele’s, young sir?”
“Aye, sir, though it is at least two months out of date,” the lad piped up. “Shall I look someone up for you, sir?”
“Aye.”
A moment later, Munsell was reading an entry aloud. “‘Captain Henry Grierson … made Post in June of 1795, Captain of the Oxford, seventy-four, May of 1803’.”
“A neat trade,” Lewrie groused. “Give up a seventy-four-gunned ship of the line for a lesser ship, but a broad pendant!”
He’s, what, no older than his mid or late thirties? Lewrie wondered: That’s awfully young t’get a two-decker, ’less he’s had a lot o’ help up the ladder. Without makin’ a name for himself that any of us ever heard of? Hmmm. There’s another reason for me t’dislike him!
“Ehm, Athenian is making a hoist, sir,” Midshipman Munsell said as he put the old copy of Steele’s back in the flag locker and took notice out-board. “It is … ‘General’ to all ships, and ‘Make More Sail’,” he deduced after a squint with a telescope and a quick referral to the signals book.
“It appears it’ll be a race, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said.
“One we may lose, sir, given the foul condition of our ‘quick-work’,” Lt. Westcott told him. “Do you wish the stuns’ls rigged?”
Sailing off the wind as Reliant was, studding booms could be extended from the course and tops’l yardarms to bare more sail to the following wind, which might gain them a knot or more over the warships of Grierson’s squadron, but …
“It’s not that far to Hog Island and the main channel, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie decided, shaking his head No. “We’d barely get ’em rigged and spread before we’d have t’take ’em in for entering port. I’d admire did you remove the larboard hawse buckler and bend a cable to the best bower, instead. Mister Caldwell? How close may we shave inshore of Hog Island?” he asked puckishly. “Closer to the entrance channel than those bastards?”
“Oh, I see what you wish, sir,” Caldwell replied, spreading a grin on his usually stern face. “Do we alter course a point to larboard now, we should have more than sufficient depth.”
Lewrie glanced at the chart which Caldwell showed him, then got his telescope from the binnacle cabinet rack and peered forward. He could see Firefly, Lt. Lovett’s little 8-gunned sloop, abeam of the wind as she stood in to the entrance channel. Over the trees of Hog Island, he could make out the peaks of Thorn’s and Lizard’s masts, for they were already in port and rounding up into the wind to ghost to a stop, drop anchors, and pay off sufficient scope as their crews handed the last scraps of sail.
He did not need the glass to look over towards Grierson’s leading frigates; they were a cable apart in line-ahead, all driving hard with white mustachios under their forefeet and cutwaters, and creamy wakes curling down their sides. But, the leading frigate was abaft of abeam to Reliant, and the second and third were off her starboard quarer. Most importantly, they were now at least two cables or better to seaward of his frigate!
Lewrie went to the starboard bulwarks and leaned far out for a look overside. He had to shake his head over the thickness and length of the weed strands that fouled Reliant’s bottom and waterline. Some broke off as he watched and swirled astern into the wide bridal train of wake, where sea birds by the hundreds swirled and mewed and dove to snag themselves a bite, or scoop up some of the green slime that flaked off in tasty wee morsels.
“Mister Westcott, when we’re near the entrance channel, I wish the ship scandalised … Spanish reefs and Irish pendants … to take the speed off her. Topmen aloft as we do, to take in courses, royals and t’gallants. Prepare a cable to the kedge anchor, as well. We’ll stand in somewhere near our old anchorage, bear up into the wind, then let her fall off Northerly before droppin’ the kedge, then ghost on ’til the kedge bites. We’ll let go the best bower then, and be abeam to the prevailin’ breezes, and won’t swing to impede Commodore Grierson’s squadron when they enter port.”
“And if his lead frigates out-foot us, sir?” Westcott asked with a smirk on his face.
“Then they’ll put on a pretty show for the good folk o’ Nassau,” Lewrie told him. “The main thing about racin’ the other fellow is to know when to slow down! We’ll have the centre of the channel and will be the vessel with the right of way.”
“Very well, sir,” Lt. Westcott agreed, chuckling in anticipation. “All will be ready when you order us to alter course.”
Reliant stood on under full sail, slowly losing the race to the entrance channel to the lead frigate of Grierson’s long column of warships. She was two cables abeam of Lewrie’s frigate as Hog Island receded and the channel began to spread out alee, revealing the town of Nassau. Almost dead-level and still showed no sign that she would reduce sail! Lewrie could see her captain looking aloft, at the channel as it neared, then astern to the flagship, which had yet to signal any change.
“Enough depth for us to alter course, Mister Caldwell?” Lewrie asked.
“Another minute more would suit, sir,” Caldwell told him, busy with his sextant to measure the height of Fort Fincastle and some other prominent sea-marks to judge the distance. “There is nearly the end of Hog Island to larboard, and the channel ’twixt Arawak Cay and Long Cay … ah! I would round up now, sir!”
“Mister Westcott, alter course to larboard!” Lewrie snapped.
Round Reliant went, her jib-boom and bowsprit sweeping cross the cays and the town in a thunder of canvas as her courses, main and mizen tops’ls, and t’gallants and royals were reduced of a sudden, drawn up in their centres to leave the outer parts bagged and unable to draw the wind in untidy bat wings, leaving the fore tops’l, jibs, spanker, and stays’ls, the fore-and-aft sails, still standing to keep a way on her as she came about, rapidly shedding speed.
The channel led East-Sou’east, close to the prevailing winds before trending Sutherly into the main harbour inside the shelter of the various cays.