"It looks no bigger than Kingston, English Harbour, or Sheerness," Lewrie said with a grunt as he jumped down to the deck.
"Think of Baltimore on the Chesapeake, sir," Pollock countered with a wry grin, " Philadelphia or Charleston. Neither are particularly impressive to look at, but rich? Oh, my my, ahem!" Pollock gushed, making another of his throat-clearing twitch-whinnies. " Port-au-Prince or that shabby hole, Cape Francois, on the north shore of Saint-Domingue. You've been to both, I'm told. Nothing to write home about, but consider the vast wealth that passes through those ports each year."
" Sodom and Gomorrah?" Lewrie queried with a smirk.
"Neither known for trading wealth," Mr. Pollock primly replied, " 'less you consider that their, ah… reputations drew hordes of rich visitors. As does New Orleans. The most, um… entertaining town within five hundred miles in any direction, ahem."
"Well, hmmm," Lewrie speculated. Though even at less than one mile's distance now, New Orleans still appeared small and sleepy, with no sign of anything wondrous, amusing, or sinful about it.
" 'Tis a mortal pity it's so hard to get at," Pollock said on, half wistful and half wolfish, "for its sacking by a British expedition would go a long way towards erasing the Crown's war debts."
"That rich?" Lewrie gawped, turning to regard the approaching town more closely, seeing it in a much better light, of a sudden.
At least I see what makes him happy, Lewrie thought, comparing Pollock's relaxed stance and evident appreciation of New Orleans to his earlier sullenness on the voyage.
"All the wealth of the West pours down here to New Orleans," Mr. Pollock nigh dreamily praised, eyes alight with Pound Sterling symbols, "from the joining of the Ohio and Missouri Rivers. Spanish Louisiana extends to the Great Lakes, and our Hudson 's Bay Company's territory, then far west across the great unknown to Spanish California."
"There for the taking," Lewrie speculated, idly fantasising if anyone would miss a wee chunk of it, the size of Scotland or Ireland, say… and dare he call it "Lewriana"?
"For the settling, eventually," Pollock mused on most happily, for once. "There's very little there now, but for Indians and game. A few wretched settlements like Saint Louis… crossroad or river hamlets. But someday… as the Americans spread out, as we spread west from Canada, the wealth flowing down to New Orleans is certain to be tremendous."
"Of course, Panton, Leslie Company already trades with the isolated rustics and tribes up yonder?" Lewrie asked smirkily.
"We, ah… and the Hudson 's Bay Company, ahem!… are laying the foundations for a British presence, should the Crown desire such, sir," Pollock assured him with a soft voice.
"Hemming the Americans in," Lewrie decided. "Even if they get to the east bank of the Mississippi, and south from Tennessee to the Gulf, in Spanish Florida. Hmmph!. Take 'em a century t'eat that!"
"More than enough room for them. Let us reclaim a bit of Spanish West Florida, as far east as Mobile, say, and we will have an unassailable buffer against any American expedition against the meat of the matter… New Orleans," Pollock speculated, fiddling at his open shirt collars and throat.
Capt. Coffin ordered the brig's hands aloft to reduce sail now that New Orleans had finally been fetched. Her helm, though, was put up, not down, to steer away from the quays, levee, and other shipping, pointing the brig towards the opposite bank.
"We never go to the town docks first," Pollock told Lewrie in answer to his puzzled look. "We go alongside our hulk, yonder, to unload the lighter goods, the, ah… most desirable luxury items."
"Why not use the piers, sir?" Lewrie wondered aloud.
"Land cargo direct to the warehouses, Captain Lewrie, and the Spanish customs officials must levy their duties," Pollock said with a wry smirk, "and not get tuppence in bribes. A portion of our goods are always part-owned by 'em, on the sly! Bulk cargo is charged duty, which keeps their superiors in Havana and Madrid happy, and what sells on this side of the river is pure profit to the Dons in the Cabildo."
"So, you sell directly from these decks, I take it?" Lewrie asked.
"Oh, no! We transfer the goods aboard our store ship, heh heh… ahem. That hulk I spoke of, yonder," Pollock told him, pointing towards the south shore. "Damn my eyes, those bloody Yankees… they've a new store ship ahead of ours, the conniving…"
In actuality, there were four hulks opposite the city, all half sunk or permanently mired in the mud and silt of the south bank; all cut down to a gant-line, with masts above their top platforms removed, and cargo-handling booms rigged below their main-tops in lieu of course sail yards, just above their waists and main cargo hatches.
The one that Pollock had indicated, the second-most downriver, had once been a three-masted ship of about four or five hundred tons, he judged. She was very old, with a steeply steeved jib boom and bowsprit still jutting upwards from her wide, bluff bows. She had, like an aged whore, though, been tarted up to the point of gaudiness.
Her wide and deep gunwale was painted a bright but chalking and peeling red, her upperworks and bulwarks canary yellow. Remarkably, a permanent shed had been built over her long quarterdeck, making an open and airy peaked-roof awning. A second construction had been erected over her forecastle, from figurehead to the stump of her foremast, with the once-open "heads" and roundhouse toilets fully enclosed, all scaly with shingle siding and roof.
She now sported two entry-ports leading to her starboard upperdeck gangway, each with two pair of stairs and landings of sturdy wood planking and timbers permanently attached; each beginning at the waterline atop a pair of floating platforms to accommodate patrons' sailing or rowing boats, where even now a clutch of boats and some extremely long, lean, and narrow, and very low-sided strange craft were tied up.
Even more oddly, a wide entryway had been cut into her side, as wide as double doors, down level with her lower deck where a 3rd Rate warship's heaviest guns would be housed. Instead of stairs, though, a wide, long ramp led up to that entryway from another timber-and-log landing stage; and all were so arranged that the stairs and the ramp would float up or down with the tide.
Bold white lettering on the red gunwale stated that she was the Panton, Leslie Co. Store, with further information in smaller letters announcing her days and hours of operation and touting the significant range of goods readily available. Along the gunwale, near the tops of the stairs and ramp, were giltwork frames tacked on about white bare spaces, which were daubed and littered with both new and old printed broadsheets regarding newly arrived goods for sale.
The hulk flew a company commissioning pendant, and the red-gold-red crowned merchant flag of Spain, as did their trading brig. Lewrie thought that it would hardly be possible to fly a British flag in this port, not without instant seizure by the Dons… or boarding and burning by the sullen French Creoles, yet, it was another outre wrench to his already-wary sense of vulnerability. So far from British aid!
"Told you she's a store ship, not a stores-ship, ahem." Mr. Pollock hooted. "Below-decks, we've goods counters, storage shelvings, and glass display cases, good as any emporium in London. Aisles wide enough for the most fashionable ladies' skirts, too."