Mr Ray and Mr Lee were friends and compatriots. Prior to Deane’s departure for England, Ray had bought a ship for Lee and had begun fitting it out for a voyage to Cadiz. The ship was in a bad condition and the work was shoddy. The practice of fitting ships ‘to be no more than is necessary to preserve them from perishing’ was endemic in Ostend and met with John Deane’s disapproval. Now that he was back in Ostend, Ray applied to Deane for help in acquiring a pass for such a ship. Deane was not impressed and determined to subject the ship to a thorough inspection.
Despite initial hostility, John Deane was optimistic about the prospect of change for the better. In addition to Townsend, Robert Daniels and the Marquis De Campo, Deane had received a pledge of support from his old friend Sir Charles Wagner. The English admiral promised to do ‘everything in his power to facilitate the impending affairs here’. A meeting of the merchants of Bruges and Ostend had been arranged to address the problem of consulage. Deane believed Bruges was something of a lost cause but was confident he could make the merchants at Ostend see sense.
All the while, Deane continued to work as an intelligence agent. He acquired access to some of Ray’s correspondence from a company manager at Antwerp. He unearthed intimations that a count had ‘discovered the resolutions of England and Holland to sink or burn all ships of this place that they should meet beyond the cape… ’. Deane also learned that a French cardinal believed that ‘Europe could expect no peace’ while the Vienna alliance survived. John Deane passed the information on to his superiors. Deane assumed that attempts would be made to read his own mail and took measures to assure that this did not happen.
Deane’s meeting with the merchants took place in Bruges. There was debate. There were the inevitable tensions. As expected, Mr Lee opposed John Deane. The discussion was heated. Deane felt his temper rise but was able to suppress it. He now possessed the letters from Townsend that he needed to validate his demands for consulage and this seemed to begrudgingly settle the matter. Deane assured his superiors that he was now determined to ‘retrieve the government’s honours and interests’.
Outwardly John Deane could project immense confidence, bull-headedness and strength as he prosecuted his duties. But the old private fears of destitution and financial ruin gnawed away at him. Deane was worried that his fortunes were so inexorably linked to the favour of Lord Townsend that, should the secretary of state die, he would not be supported. Ironically, now that he was properly authorised to collect it, consulage became a real source of anxiety. Consulage was Deane’s only source of income, yet the amassed earnings he was entitled to were meagre in comparison to the financial demands of his rank and position. In Ostend, a man’s status and authority was linked to his ability to reciprocate hospitality. If Deane were invited to a person of influence’s house for dinner he was expected to respond in kind or risk a belittling of status. In Ostend, status and authority were conjoined twins. Deane put it this way: ‘If I ate a bit of meat or drink a glass of wine at another’s house, I must return it, and not water for wine.’ Whether he made up the shortfall in his earnings by borrowing or dipping into personal savings is not known, but by the closing months of 1728 John Deane complained of being £200 ‘out of pocket on this account’. From now on, the formal and deferential tone of much of Deane’s subsequent correspondence with his superiors would often be upended by a tormented sentence or paragraph bewailing his purgatorial financial state.
As Deane continued to do his job as both consul and spy, the winter unfolded in a series of conclusive incidents and dramatic non sequiturs.
Deane worked with De Campo to introduce the practice of ships displaying their country’s colours when coming in and out of port.
Deane arrested the Irish master of an English-built ship but let him go.
Deane passed on information to the admiralty about a man named Robert Smith who had snuck in and out of port without paying the British government what he owed it.
Deane passed on information received from the director of post that it was known that commissions were being given by the British ‘to destroy’ Ostend Company ships, ‘if found attempting to go to India’.
Deane passed on his suspicions about a ship called The Seahorse that was ‘cargoed with a host of mysterious secrecy’. Onboard was a Captain Combs who had a price on his head for shooting a customs officer in England.
There was some consternation about a sixteen-gun frigate that had been spotted at Dunkirk. Deane met three men outside the walls of Ostend who provided him with information about the frigate.
Mr Ray complained about a pass that he had hoped Deane would grant him that Deane admitted to his superiors Mr Ray had ‘little hope of seeing’.
The relations between Deane’s allies became strained, manifest in a rift between Robert Daniels and the Marquis De Campo. Tension was endemic. ‘Jealousy and suspicion abound here,’ Deane reported. He complained that, ‘I am frequently cursed by drunken sailors’, and that, ‘some of better fashion whisper as I pass by’. Deane was convinced that there were elements in Ostend that were trying to glean information about him through his servant. His public response to all of this was to look unconcerned and avoid ‘all disputes or giving offence’. Privately, Deane wilted. He seemed particularly upset that his vast naval experience had failed to win him any respect or confederacy among fellow seafarers.
In December rumours spread around Ostend that the English king was dead. John Deane had to write home to confirm that this was not the case in order that he might scotch the incendiary gossip. A ship that Deane was convinced was a smuggling vessel left Ostend. The boat was supposed to be transporting tallow but it took two men to row a single cask aboard, effort not commensurate with the cargo. The cargo was loaded between midday and one o’clock in the afternoon, the time when virtually everybody in Ostend was sitting down to dinner. Deane believed that the illicit cargo was money. He passed the information on to his superiors.
Deane’s own relations with the Marquis De Campo showed signs of wear and tear. Deane complained of De Campo’s neglect regarding certain matters of harbour management. Deane had tried to instruct De Campo as to the correct manner in which he should be going about his duties. He had received De Campo’s assurance that he would put Deane’s instructions into practice. Nothing was done. Deane felt frustrated.
A degree of mutual suspicion had infected the relationship between John Deane and the Marquis De Campo. It needed to be dealt with. De Campo liked English food. Deane arranged a dinner for De Campo. By necessity, also present at the dinner was the despised burgermaster and his wife. The dinner was a partial success, easing the tensions between Deane and De Campo but at the expense of a portion of John Deane’s pride. Deane was forced to humble himself, bite his tongue and weather a degree of gentle derision from his dinner companions. Deane’s religion was the subject up for ridicule. Deane complained that he was ‘teased’ regarding the state of his soul. He tried to change the subject. He swallowed their mockery for diplomacy’s sake but took solace in the private contempt he felt for their primitive grasp of theology.
As 1728 ended and the New Year commenced, Deane’s financial position had not changed. He complained once again to his superiors about fiscal circumstances he described as ‘miserable’. He asked for money or credit. Deane’s concerns had become increasingly dominated by finance and his correspondence with Lord Townsend took on an unprecedented, increasingly bold and indignant tone. He invoked his years of service to Townsend in a virtual demand for redress: ‘and that I, after being seven years under your Lordship’s patronage, and desiring only bread, should be neglected is really very grievous, being confident that on every occasion I have, even at the hazard of my own life, obeyed your Lordship’s commands’. Deane concluded his letter to Townsend with an apology for the nature of his request for money. But the flavour of the apology was tokenistic, Deane’s sense of betrayal temporarily outweighing any sense of deference to his patron.