Captain Ashby had fired guns to disperse a spout that threatened his frigate and these had been taken for distress signals. When the weather cleared, however, there was no sign of the Icarus, and though the squadron reversed course until darkness and then hove-to for the night, the dawn showed the three remaining frigates and the schooner alone.
'I suppose', Drinkwater had remarked as David Gordon returned to the deck shaking his head after sweeping the horizon from the masthead, 'our still being in company is a small miracle.'
But two days later Ashby's Icarus had hove over the eastern horizon, her damage repaired and a cloud of canvas rashly set, proving at least that she was a fast sailer and Ashby a resourceful man with a competent ship's company. Now, as the gale blew itself out and they closed the lee of the American coast, Drinkwater chewed over their prospects of success and the risky means by which he hoped to achieve it. His orders gave him wide discretion; the problem with such latitude was that his judgement was proportionately open to criticism.
'A sail, I hear, sir,' said Quilhampton, coming on deck and touching the fore-cock of his hat at the lonely figure jammed at the foot of the weather mizen rigging.
Drinkwater stirred out of his brown study. 'Ah, James, yes; Tyrell's gone to investigate and Belchambers is aloft keeping an eye on the chase.'
'I see we've the frog ensign at the peak ...'
'You disapprove?'
Quilhampton shrugged and cast his eyes upwards. 'I comprehend your reasoning, sir, it just feels damned odd ...'
'Any ruse that allows us time to gather intelligence is worth adopting.'
'Has Icarus gone off flying the thing, sir?'
'If he obeyed orders he has, yes.'
'Deck there!' Both officers broke off to stare upwards to where Belchambers swung against the monotone grey of the overcast, his arm outstretched. 'Land, sir, four points on the starboard bow!'
'What of the chase?' Drinkwater bellowed back.
'Looks like a schooner, sir, to the sou'westward. Hasty's hull down but I don't think he's gaining.'
'He won't against a Yankee schooner,' Drinkwater grumbled to his first lieutenant. 'Though Belchambers can't see it yet, she'll be tucked under the lee of the land there with a beam wind, damn it.' Drinkwater sighed, and made a hopeless gesture with his hand. 'I really don't know how best to achieve success…'
'I heard scores of Yankee merchantmen left New York on the eve of the declaration with clearances for the Tagus,' remarked Quilhampton.
'Aye, and we'll buy their cargoes, just to keep Wellington's army in the field, and issue licences for more, I daresay.' He thought of the boasting finality he had threatened Captain Stewart with, calling up the iron ring of blockade to confound the American's airy theories of maritime war. Now the government in London showed every sign of pusillanimity in their desire not to interfere with supplies to the army in Spain. 'I wish to God the government would order a full blockade and bring the Americans to their senses quickly.'
'They misjudged the Yankee's temper,' agreed Quilhampton, 'thinking they would be content with the eventual rescinding of the Orders-in-Council.'
'Too little too late,' grumbled Drinkwater, 'and then David struck Goliath right betwixt the eyes…'
No further reference was necessary between the two men to conjure up in their minds the humiliations the despised Yankee navy had visited upon the proud might of the British. Before leaving Plymouth they had heard that Commodore Rodgers' squadron had sailed from New York on the outbreak of war and, though the commodore had missed the West India convoy, his ships had chased the British frigate Belvidera and taken seven merchantmen before returning to Boston. Furthermore the Essex had seized the troop transport Alert and ten other ships. They knew, too, that the USS Constitution had escaped a British squadron by kedging in a calm, and finally, a week or two later, she had brought His Britannic Majesty's frigate Guerrière to battle and hammered her into submission with devastating broadsides.
The latest edition of The Times they had brought with them from England was full of outrage and unanswered questions at this blow to Britannia's prestige. The defeat of a single British frigate was considered incomprehensible, outweighed Wellington's defeat of the French at Salamanca and obscured the news that Napoleon had entered Moscow. On their passage westward, Drinkwater had plenty of time to mull over the problems his discretionary orders had brought him. They contained a caution about single cruisers engaging 'the unusually heavily armed and built frigates of the enemy', and the desirability of 'drawing them down upon a ship-of-the-line', an admission of weakness that Drinkwater found shocking, if sensible, had a ship-of-the-line been within hail. Yet he had been under no illusion that with 'so powerful a force as four frigates' great things were expected of him, and was conscious that he sailed on detached service, not under the direct command of either Sawyer at Halifax or his successor, Sir John Borlase Warren, even then proceeding westwards like themselves.
Drinkwater had been close enough to Admiralty thinking in those last weeks before he sailed, when he cast about desperately for men to make up his ship's company again and the Admiralty dithered, to know of their Lordships' concern over Commodore Rodgers. The news that Rodgers had sailed with a squadron and had not dispersed his ships, added to the rumour that he had been after the West India convoy and had sailed almost within sight of the Scillies, had caused consternation at the Admiralty. To defend so many interests, the convoy routes from the West Indies, from India and the Baltic, the coastal trades and the distant fisheries and, by far the most important, the supply route to Lisbon and Wellington's Anglo-Portuguese army, meant the deployment of a disproportionate number of ships spread over a quarter of the world's oceans. Until Warren reached Halifax and organized some offensive operations with the inadequate resources in that theatre, Captain Drinkwater's scratch squadron was the only force able to mount offensive operations against the Americans. With a thousand men-of-war at sea the irony of the situation was overwhelming.
Drinkwater had twice posted up to London for consultations, briefings and last-minute modifications to his orders. Suddenly the fact that he was a senior captain fortuitously on hand to combat the alarming situation was not so flattering. Imbued with a sense of urgency, the difficulties the Admiralty experienced in scraping together the exigous collection of ships they had at last dignified with the name of 'flying squadron' seemed trivial; Drinkwater was more concerned with his lack of manpower.