“Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, hah!” Cotton fumed. “Didn’t think him capable, but Wellesley at least beat the French right proper, and he deserved better than this, England deserves better than this rot. Dalrymple must be going senile, and Burrard, that puff pastry…! Don’t tell me that Wellesley signed this willingly.”
“I was given to understand that he had very little say in it, sir,” Lewrie told him, “and I don’t know, but suspect, that the other gentlemen used their seniority to press him to it.”
Lewrie got his tea from a cabin-servant, a cup and saucer in an intricate and delicate Meissen china pattern, with a sterling silver spoon to stir with, and a tray bearing fresh-cut lemons and a sugar bowl was presented him.
“This will be the utter ruin of them all,” Cotton predicted. “Even Wellesley’s family can’t save him from it, this time. I wish I’d been ashore to see it, though, and how anyone beat the French.”
“I was, sir,” Lewrie said with a grin. “It was all quite cleverly managed. He placed his troops along a long, two-mile ridge, and hid the bulk of his men on the back slope, only summoning them up at the moment the French columns got in musket-shot. Two or three thousand muskets firing down on the front and flanks of the columns just melted them away in a twinkling, and then they followed that up with bayonet charges, for the most part, sending the French stampeding back in complete dis-order. It started round nine in the morning, and it was done by noon, or thereabouts.”
“You went ashore?” Cotton marvelled, squinting.
“I wanted to see it, one way or another, sir,” Lewrie said. “The slopes were carpetted with French dead, and thirteen pieces of artillery were captured. It was … grand!”
“Hmm, well,” Cotton said, referring to that damnable treaty once more. “I don’t see any mention as to the disposition of the French warships, or the Russian squadron, at Lisbon. What were you told of them, Captain Lewrie?”
“Nothing, sir,” Lewrie told him. “I don’t believe that they were even considered, but that’s the Army for you. Perhaps Sir Hew Dalrymple might’ve imagined that the French ships would escort their army back to France, but that would be ridiculous.”
“Damn what Dalrymple imagined, or wants!” Cotton said, slamming a fist on his desk hard enough to make his pens jump. “I have long planned to find a way to bring them to action, or make prize of them, and by God, I will! As for Admiral Senyavin’s Russian squadron, well … Russia isn’t an out-right belligerent, yet, and Napoleon and the Tsar had it out last year at the Battle of Friedland, so it isn’t clear if they and the French are allies, either. The Russians might not make Good Prize, but I could force them to intern themselves back in England ’til London tells me different.”
“Aye, sir,” Lewrie agreed. “No sense in allowin’ them to roam free if they are, or will become, French allies.”
“Does your summary say anything about what constitutes ‘personal possessions,’ Captain Lewrie?” Cotton asked, squinting at the documents more closely. “And, what the Devil does it mean, that ‘the export of specie will be permitted’?”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it, sir,” Lewrie had to admit, “but it sounds very much like a license to steal. Damned Frogs.”
“I’ve a few sources of information from Lisbon, you know,” the Admiral slyly boasted. “That Foreign Office fellow at Gibraltar…”
“Mister Thomas Mountjoy, sir?” Lewrie prompted.
“Aye, that’s the one,” Cotton said. “He recently managed to get one of his skulking types into Lisbon, overland from Ayamonte on the Spanish border, who sent me a note by one of my regular fisherman informants … signs himself Aranha, which means ‘Spider.’ He said that the French brought portable mints with them when they invaded. Made no sense at the time, but … that would be a sly way to melt down all their loot from cathedrals, churches, monasteries, and wealthy homes, and turn silver and gold to French coins. Just one more way that the Dowager’s been gulled. This agent’s latest says that Junot is hiring five neutral Danish ships to carry his own personal ‘baggage’! They fully intend to make off with the spoils of their conquest in spite of this damned treaty! Simply appalling!”
“Ehm, this Spider chap,” Lewrie asked, sure that he knew the agent’s identity. “Are his messages … does he sound a tad insane?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” the Admiral confirmed for him.
“Know him,” Lewrie said with a shake of his head. “Well, met him once. He was in Madrid, before the Spanish revolted, and helped it along. He’s daft as bats.”
Romney bloody Marsh! Lewrie thought; How’s he still alive?
“But, incredibly brave and clever,” Admiral Cotton said with a firm nod of praise.
“Anything else you wish to know, sir?” Lewrie asked, finishing his cup of tea. “If not, I must be off to Gibraltar, to deliver General Drummond his copy of the treaty.”
“Good!” Sir Charles Cotton boomed. “I now recall where I’ve heard your name before, Captain Lewrie. The newspapers, and the Naval Chronicle. Quite the dashing and active frigate captain, and more fortunate than most when it comes to prize-money. Not to be uncharitable, but, those French ships are mine, and my squadron’s. We’ve all been banking on them, and I trust you would not wish to dilute the pot and deprive an older man his long-denied due, hah!”
“God no, sir!” Lewrie said with a laugh. “You’re more than welcome to the spoils, tempting though it is to see the French humbled, and tour Lisbon, at last.”
“So you will be off at once,” Admiral Cotton sort-of-asked, one brow up in worry that he might linger, after all, for a few hundred pounds of profit, with a deep scowl to warn him that he shouldn’t.
“Can’t even stay long enough for a second cup of tea, sir,” Lewrie vowed as he got to his feet. “And, may I wish you great joy of your coming success at Lisbon.”
“Capital, simply capital!” Admiral Cotton barked with great satisfaction as he, too, rose to see Lewrie to the entry-port.
* * *
When HMS Sapphire coasted to a stop and dropped her anchor off the Old Mole at Gibraltar, it was evident that the grand news which Mountjoy had carried from Vimeiro was already known from one end of the town to the other. Bands were parading, and all the battlements were fluttering with Union Flags everywhere one looked. The faint sounds of drunken cheers made their way out to the ship, and some daytime fireworks were being let off in enthusiasm.
The mood was not so merry at the Convent, though, when Lewrie handed over the copy of the Convention of Cintra to Major-General James Drummond. Lewrie had had no dealings with the man so far, but that worthy struck him at once as a much more active, intelligent, and capable officer than Dalrymple.
“Hmm,” Drummond grumbled as he read it through a second time, still dis-believing. “Quite extraordinary, even astonishing. Not to criticise my predecessor, but … it appears the French wrote it and our senior officers slavishly surrended to them! Damme, we had them in the bag, then they just let them wiggle free!”
“It’s worse, sir,” Lewrie gloomily told him, repeating what he had gotten from Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, and Romney Marsh’s mystifying despatches. “Junot’s loading five ships with his own loot, and the mints have been workin’ round the clock. Napoleon may end up with as much solid coin as he got when he sold Louisiana, and gets an entire army back, with all their arms. Well, we get to keep all their artillery, about two-dozen waggons full of powder, shot, all their stores, cavalry mounts and draught animals, and over twenty thousand rounds of ammunition. Once Lisbon harbour is ours, a lot of that could be useful to the Spanish. All in all, though, Portugal ends up completely looted. The cupboard’s bare.”
“I would have made them march back to France,” Drummond said with a derisive snort, “if they had to be set free. Ideally, I would have imprisoned them all, but for the cost of feeding the bastards. Bah! How could we have settled for this?”