“Yes, sir, I knows we has our share, but that’s accordin’ to law, and because the commanders of the light craft can’t help it. Let ‘em once get the law on their side, and not a ha’pence would bless our pockets! No, sir, what we gets, we gets by the law; and as there is no law to fetch up young gentlemen or their boys, that pays as they goes, we never gets any thing they or their boys puts hands on.”

“I dare say you are right, David, as you always are. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to have an Act of Parliament to give an admiral his twentieth in the reefers’ foragings. The old fellows would sometimes get back some of their own poultry and fruit in that way, hey! Atwood?”

The secretary smiled his assent, and then Sir Gervaise apologized to his host, repeated the order to the steward, and the party proceeded.

“This fellow of mine, Sir Wycherly, is no respecter of persons, beyond the etiquette of a man-of-war,” the admiral continued, by way of further excuse. “I believe His Majesty himself would be favoured with an essay on some part of the economy of the cabin, were Galleygo to get an opportunity of speaking his mind to him. Nor is the fool without his expectations of some day enjoying this privilege; for the last lime I went to court, I found honest David rigged, from stem to stern, in a full suit of claret and steel, under the idea that he was ‘to sail in company with me,’ as he called it, ‘with or without signal!’”

“There was nothing surprising in that, Sir Gervaise,” observed the secretary. “Galleygo has sailed in company with you so long, and to so many strange lands; has been through so many dangers at your side, and has got so completely to consider himself as part of the family, that it was the most natural thing in the world he should expect to go to court with you.”

“True enough. The fellow would face the devil, at my side, and I don’t see why he should hesitate to face the king. I sometimes call him Lady Oakes, Sir Wycherly, for he appears to think he has a right of dower, or to some other lawyer-like claim on my estate; and as for the fleet, he always speaks of that, as if we commanded it in common. I wonder how Bluewater tolerates the blackguard; for he never scruples to allude to him as under our orders! If any thing should befal me, Dick and David would have a civil war for the succession, hey! Atwood?”

“I think military subordination would bring Galleygo to his senses, Sir Gervaise, should such an unfortunate accident occur – which Heaven avert for many years to come! There is Admiral Bluewater coming up the street, at this very moment, sir.”

At this sudden announcement, the whole party turned to look in the direction intimated by the secretary. It was by this time at one end of the short street, and all saw a man just entering the other, who, in his walk, air, attire, and manner, formed a striking contrast to the active, merry, bustling, youthful young sailors who thronged the hamlet. In person, Admiral Bluewater was exceedingly tall and exceedingly thin. Like most seamen who have that physical formation, he stooped; a circumstance that gave his years a greater apparent command over his frame, than they possessed in reality. While this bend in his figure deprived it, in a great measure, of the sturdy martial air that his superior presented to the observer, it lent to his carriage a quiet and dignity that it might otherwise have wanted. Certainly, were this officer attired like an ordinary civilian, no one would have taken him for one of England’s bravest and most efficient sea-captains; he would have passed rather as some thoughtful, well-educated, and refined gentleman, of retired habits, diffident of himself, and a stranger to ambition. He wore an undress rear-admiral’s uniform, as a matter of course; but he wore it carelessly, as if from a sense of duty only; or conscious that no arrangement could give him a military air. Still all about his person was faultlessly neat, and perfectly respectable. In a word, no one but a man accustomed to the sea, were it not for his uniform, would suspect the rear-admiral of being a sailor; and even the seaman himself might be often puzzled to detect any other signs of the profession about him, than were to be found in a face, which, fair, gentlemanly, handsome, and even courtly as it was, in expression and outline, wore the tint that exposure invariably stamps on the mariner’s countenance. Here, however, his unseaman-like character ceased. Admiral Oakes had often declared that “Dick Bluewater knew more about a ship than any man in England;” and as for a fleet, his mode of man[oe]uvring one had got to be standard in the service.

As soon as Sir Gervaise recognised his friend, he expressed a wish to wait for him, which was courteously converted by Sir Wycherly into a proposition to return and meet him. So abstracted was Admiral Bluewater, however, that he did not see the party that was approaching him, until he was fairly accosted by Sir Gervaise, who led the advance by a few yards.

“Good-day to you, Bluewater,” commenced the latter, in his familiar, off-hand way; “I’m glad you have torn yourself away from your ship; though I must say the manner in which you came-to, in that fog, was more like instinct, than any thing human! I determined to tell you as much, the moment we met; for I don’t think there is a ship, half her length out of mathematical order, notwithstanding the tide runs, here, like a racehorse.”

“That is owing to your captains, Sir Gervaise,” returned the other, observing the respect of manner, that the inferior never loses with his superior, on service, and in a navy; let their relative rank and intimacy be what they may on all other occasions; “good captains make handy ships. Our gentlemen have now been together so long, that they understand each other’s movements; and every vessel in the fleet has her character as well as her commander!”

“Very true, Admiral Bluewater, and yet there is not another officer in His Majesty’s service, that could have brought a fleet to anchor, in so much order, and in such a fog; and I ask your leave, sir, most particularly to thank you for the lesson you have given, not only to the captains, but to the commander-in-chief. I presume I may admire that which I cannot exactly imitate.”

The rear-admiral merely smiled and touched his hat in acknowledgment of the compliment, but he made no direct answer in words. By this time Sir Wycherly and the others had approached, and the customary introductions took place. Sir Wycherly now pressed his new acquaintance to join his guests, with so much heartiness, that there was no such thing as refusing.

“Since you and Sir Gervaise both insist on it so earnestly, Sir Wycherly,” returned the rear-admiral, “I must consent; but as it is contrary to our practice, when on foreign service – and I call this roadstead a foreign station, as to any thing we know about it – as it is contrary to our practice for both flag-officers to sleep out of the fleet, I shall claim the privilege to be allowed to go off to my ship before midnight. I think the weather looks settled, Sir Gervaise, and we may trust that many hours, without apprehension.”

“Pooh – pooh – Bluewater, you are always fancying the ships in a gale, and clawing off a lee-shore. Put your heart at rest, and let us go and take a comfortable dinner with Sir Wycherly, who has a London paper, I dare to say, that may let us into some of the secrets of state. Are there any tidings from our people in Flanders?”

“Things remain pretty much as they have been,” returned Sir Wycherly, “since that last terrible affair, in which the Duke got the better of the French at – I never can remember an outlandish name; but it sounds something like a Christian baptism. If my poor brother, St. James, were living, now, he could tell us all about it.”

“Christian baptism! That’s an odd allusion for a field of battle. The armies can’t have got to Jerusalem; hey! Atwood?”

“I rather think, Sir Gervaise,” the secretary coolly remarked, “that Sir Wycherly Wychecombe refers to the battle that took place last spring – it was fought at Font-something; and a font certainly has something to do with Christian baptism.”

“That’s it – that’s it,” cried Sir Wycherly, with some eagerness; “Fontenoï was the name of the place, where the Duke would have carried all before him, and brought Marshal Saxe, and all his frog-eaters prisoners to England, had our Dutch and German allies behaved better than they did. So it is with poor old England, gentlemen; whatever she gains, her allies always lose for her – the Germans, or the colonists, are constantly getting us into trouble!”

Both Sir Gervaise and his friend were practical men, and well knew that they never fought the Dutch or the French, without meeting with something that was pretty nearly their match. They had no faith in general national superiority. The courts-martial that so often succeeded general actions, had taught them that there were all degrees of spirit, as well as all degrees of a want of spirit; and they knew too much, to be the dupes of flourishes of the pen, or of vapid declamation at dinner-speeches, and in the House of Commons. Men, well led and commanded, they had ascertained by experience, were worth twice as much as the same men when ill led and ill commanded; and they were not to be told that the moral tone of an army or a fleet, from which all its success was derived, depended more on the conventional feeling that had been got up through moral agencies, than on birth-place, origin, or colour. Each glanced his eye significantly at the other, and a sarcastic smile passed over the face of Sir Gervaise, though his friend maintained his customary appearance of gravity.

“I believe le Grand Monarque and Marshal Saxe give a different account of that matter, Sir Wycherly,” drily observed the former; “and it may be well to remember that there are two sides to every story. Whatever may be said of Dettingen, I fancy history will set down Fontenoï as any thing but a feather in His Royal Highness’ cap.”

“You surely do not consider it possible for the French arms to overthrow a British army, Sir Gervaise Oakes!” exclaimed the simple-minded provincial – for such was Sir Wycherly Wychecombe, though he had sat in parliament, had four thousand a year, and was one of the oldest families in England – “It sounds like treason to admit the possibility of such a thing.”

“God bless us, my dear sir, I am as far from supposing any such thing, as the Duke of Cumberland himself; who, by the way, has as much English blood in his veins, as the Baltic may have of the water of the Mediterranean – hey! Atwood? By the way, Sir Wycherly, I must ask a little tenderness of you in behalf of my friend the secretary, here, who has a national weakness in favour of the Pretender, and all of the clan Stuart.”

“I hope not – I sincerely hope not, Sir Gervaise!” exclaimed Sir Wycherly, with a warmth that was not entirely free from alarm; his own loyalty to the new house being altogether without reproach. “Mr. Atwood has the air of a gentleman of too good principles not to see on which side real religious and political liberty lie. I am sure you are pleased to be jocular, Sir Gervaise; the very circumstance that he is in your company is a pledge of his loyalty.”

“Well, well, Sir Wycherly, I would not give you a false idea of my friend Atwood, if possible; and so I may as well confess, that, while his Scotch blood inclines him to toryism, his English reason makes him a whig. If Charles Stuart never gets the throne until Stephen Atwood helps him to a seat on it, he may take leave of ambition for ever.”

“I thought as much, Sir Gervaise – I thought your secretary could never lean to the doctrine of ‘passive obedience and non-resistance.’ That’s a principle which would hardly suit sailors, Admiral Bluewater.”

Admiral Bluewater’s line, full, blue eye, lighted with an expression approaching irony; but he made no other answer than a slight inclination of the head. In point of fact, he was a Jacobite: though no one was acquainted with the circumstance but his immediate commanding officer. As a seaman, he was called on only to serve his country; and, as often happens to military men, he was willing to do this under any superior whom circumstances might place over his head, let his private sentiments be what they might. During the civil war of 1715, he was too young in years, and too low in rank to render his opinions of much importance; and, kept on foreign stations, his services could only affect the general interests of the nation, without producing any influence on the contest at home. Since that period, nothing had occurred to require one, whose duty kept him on the ocean, to come to a very positive decision between the two masters that claimed his allegiance. Sir Gervaise had always been able to persuade him that he was sustaining the honour and interests of his country, and that ought to be sufficient to a patriot, let who would rule. Notwithstanding this wide difference in political feeling between the two admirals – Sir Gervaise being as decided a whig, as his friend was a tory – their personal harmony had been without a shade. As to confidence, the superior knew the inferior so well, that he believed the surest way to prevent his taking sides openly with the Jacobites, or of doing them secret service, was to put it in his power to commit a great breach of trust. So long as faith were put in his integrity, Sir Gervaise felt certain his friend Bluewater might be relied on; and he also knew that, should the moment ever come when the other really intended to abandon the service of the house of Hanover, he would frankly throw up his employments, and join the hostile standard, without profiting, in any manner, by the trusts he had previously enjoyed. It is also necessary that the reader should understand that Admiral Bluewater had never communicated his political opinions to any person but his friend; the Pretender and his counsellors being as ignorant of them, as George II. and his ministers. The only practical effect, therefore, that they had ever produced was to induce him to decline separate commands, several of which had been offered to him; one, quite equal to that enjoyed by Sir Gervaise Oakes, himself.

“No,” the latter answered to Sir Wycherly’s remark; though the grave, thoughtful expression of his face, showed how little his feelings chimed in, at the moment, with the ironical language of his tongue. “No – Sir Wycherly, a man-of-war’s man, in particular, has not the slightest idea of ‘passive obedience and non-resistance,’ – that is a doctrine which is intelligible only to papists and tories. Bluewater is in a brown study; thinking no doubt of the manner in which he intends to lead down on Monsieur de Gravelin, should we ever have the luck to meet that gentleman again; so we will, if it’s agreeable to all parties, change the subject.”

“With all my heart, Sir Gervaise,” answered the baronet, cordially; “and, after all, there is little use in discussing the affair of the Pretender any longer, for he appears to be quite out of men’s minds, since that last failure of King Louis XV.”

“Yes, Norris rather crushed the young viper in its shell, and we may consider the thing at an end.”

“So my late brother, Baron Wychecombe, always treated it, Sir Gervaise. He once assured me that the twelve judges were clearly against the claim, and that the Stuarts had nothing to expect from them.”

“Did he tell you, sir, on what ground these learned gentlemen had come to this decision?” quietly asked Admiral Blue-water.

“He did, indeed; for he knew my strong desire to make out a good case against the tories so well, that he laid all the law before me. I am a bad hand, however, to repeat even what I hear; though my poor brother, the late Rev. James Wychecombe – St. James as I used to call him – could go over a discourse half an hour long, and not miss a word. Thomas and James appear to have run away with the memories of the rest of the family. Nevertheless, I recollect it all depended on an act of Parliament, which is supreme; and the house of Hanover reigning by an act of Parliament, no court could set aside the claim.”

“Very clearly explained, sir,” continued Bluewater; “and you will permit me to say that there was no necessity for an apology on account of the memory. Your brother, however, might not have exactly explained what an act of Parliament is. King, Lords, and Commons, are all necessary to an act of Parliament.”

“Certainly – we all know that, my dear admiral; we poor fellows ashore here, as well as you mariners at sea. The Hanoverian succession had all three to authorize it.”

“Had it a king?”

“A king! Out of dispute – or what we bachelors ought to consider as much better, it had a queen. Queen Anne approved of the act, and that made it an act of Parliament. I assure you, I learned a good deal of law in the Baron’s visits to Wychecombe; and in the pleasant hours we used to chat together in his chambers!”

“And who signed the act of Parliament that made Anne a queen? or did she ascend the throne by regular succession? Both Mary and Anne were sovereigns by acts of Parliament, and we must look back until we get the approval of a prince who took the crown by legal descent.”

“Come – come, Bluewater,” put in Sir Gervaise, gravely; “we may persuade Sir Wycherly, in this manner, that he has a couple of furious Jacobites in company. The Stuarts were dethroned by a revolution, which is a law of nature, and enacted by God, and which of course overshadows all other laws when it gets into the ascendant, as it clearly has done in this case. I take it, Sir Wycherly, these are your park-gates, and that yonder is the Hall.”

This remark changed the discourse, and the whole party proceeded towards the house, discussing the beauty of its position, its history, and its advantages, until they reached its door.