Patrick O'Brian - The Nutmeg of Consolation

'The second is that when we met Wan Da he told me, as you know, that the Corn�e would be sailing soon. What I did not tell you was that she would be following much the same course that we should have taken in the Diane and must take in this dredged-up Dutchman, by the more or less obligatory Salibabu Passage, that she was extremely short of powder, and that as it is a state monopoly, I asked him to persuade the Vizier to allow her none.' The plum-coloured happiness disappeared from Jack's face: he looked down. 'At that time,' went on Stephen, 'I had our possible merchantman in mind, and I did not choose to have her captured or blown out of the water if I could avoid it. In any case, the Corn�e probably has some powder, salved or purchased from the Chinese merchants; and of course I cannot tell how successful Wan Da may have been.' He thought it better not to say anything about the ship's books at present; there was something of a pause, and in that pause began the drumming of the monsoon rain, louder and louder.

'Well,' said Jack, something of the first glow returning. 'I cannot tell you how delighted I am about the Governor's ship' - raising his voice - 'Killick. Killick, there. Pass the word for the barber.'

'Gentlemen,' said the Governor, 'I cannot tell you how delighted we are, Mrs Raffles and I, to see you at this table. We would indeed wish there were more of you, and that you were all whole; though to be sure' - bowing to his bandaged guests and smiling particularly at Reade, who blushed and looked at his plate - 'there are many glorious precedents...' It was a well-turned, sincere speech of welcome, delivered with that felicity which had often carried the day in committees; but it did not quite hit the naval tone, and Raffles' hearers, ordinarily fed much earlier in the day, were hungry, clammily hot and thirsty in spite of the rain that had pierced their boat-cloaks, and any speech would have been too long for them; they displayed no sullenness but no very eager attention either, and when Reade turned pale the Governor came to an abrupt close, skipping five paragraphs and drinking to their happy return in ice-cold claret-cup, considered more healthy in this climate for invalids and the young.

Dish after dish, and cheerfulness returned, helped by Mrs Raffles' natural kindness, natural gifts as a hostess, and by the cool breeze that followed the rain; it was wonderful to see how much the invalids and the young contrived to eat and how pleasantly they were persuaded to take an informal leave as soon as any lassitude appeared.

It was a diminished company that reached the port; a still smaller one that joined Mrs Raffles and the two other ladies for coffee and tea; and only Jack, Stephen and Fielding survived to walk into the library with the Governor. Jack had already made his acknowledgments, his most heartfelt acknowledgments, for Raffles' kindness in offering him the Dutch ship, the Gelijkheid, and now the Governor gave him a portfolio of her plans, sheer draught, deck draught, profile and everything else capable of exact measurement and representation, and over these the sailors pored with close professional attention while Ahmed brought the surviving botanical specimens from the voyage. Before opening the packet Stephen gave Raffles a succinct account of Kumai, that other Eden, its orang-utangs, its tarsiers, its tree-shrews. 'If I could foresee a fortnight's peace, I should go there tomorrow,' said Raffles. 'A visit of courtesy to the Sultan, confirming the alliance, would be a perfect excuse; and the sloop Plover, due from Colombo at the end of the month, would give me pomp enough. But you can have no idea of how uneasy rests a head with even a hemi-demi-semi crown upon it. Java and its dependencies have a vast population of rajas and sultans and great feudatories, and they are all given to parricide, fratricide and coups d'etat; and then there is the enmity between the Javanese, Madurese, ordinary Malays of course, Kalangs, Baduwis, Amboynese,

Bugis, Hindus, Armenians and the rest; they all hate one another but they are all ready to combine against the Chinese, and quite a small riot can spread with extraordinary speed.' He looked attentively at the packet. 'Should you like a knife?' he asked.

'I believe I can manage the knot,' said Stephen, seizing it with his canine teeth. 'Sailors do so hate to see one cut cords, ropes or even string,' he added in a muffled voice. 'There: I have it. Now this first packet is a more or less promiscuous collection of what was growing in the boreen behind van Buren's house. I make no doubt that most are familiar to you.'

'By no means all,' said Raffles: and as he sorted them into two heaps he observed 'There is a man coming this evening who knows a great deal about these epiphytic plants. Jacob Sowerby. He has published in the Transactions, and he has been recommended to me for the post of government naturalist. I have seen one or two others, but... Now this' - holding up a limp object that could have appealed only to a devoted botanist - 'is something I have never seen, nor anything remotely like it.'

'Your Excellency,' said a secretary, 'Major Bushel sends to beg you to come to the Chinese market: your presence would deal with the trouble at once. Captain West has already turned out the guard in case you see fit to go. And Mr Sowerby is here.'

'I am so sorry,' said the Governor to Stephen, and to the secretary, 'Very well, Mr Akers; I shall go by the Lion Court. Pray make my excuses to Mr Sowerby: I hope to be back in half an hour. You may as well show him up,' he called back from the farther door.

Mr Sowerby walked in, a tall thin man of perhaps forty: from his tense expression it was clear that he was nervous, and from his first words it was clear that his uneasiness had made him aggressive.

Stephen bowed and said 'Mr Sowerby, I believe? My name is Maturin.'

'You are a botanist, I suppose?' said Sowerby, glancing at the specimens.

'I should scarcely call myself a botanist,' said Stephen, 'though I did publish a little work on the phanerogams of Upper Ossory.'

'A naturalist, then?'

'I think I might fairly describe myself as a naturalist,' said Stephen.

Sowerby made no reply for some time but sat there biting his nails; it was clear to Stephen that the man regarded him as a rival, but his manner was so disobliging that Stephen did not undeceive him. Eventually Sowerby, looking at his bitten nails, said 'A very small book would deal with the phanerogams of Ossory. Ossory is in Ireland; and no great work would be required to deal with the whole country, except perhaps for the very low forms of life in the bogs. I have been there. I have been there, and although I hadbeen told of its poverty I was astonished to find how very poor it was in fact, flora, fauna and populace.'

'Oh, come; it is not every island that can boast the arbutus and the phalarope.'

'It is not every island that can boast the Iceland moss, or such hordes of barefoot savage children in the capital city itself. Extreme poverty...

Although the poverty of which Sowerby was speaking in the present instance referred to birds - no woodpeckers, no shrikes, no nightingale - the word suddenly brought Stephen's realization of Smith and Clowes's bankruptcy to life, and this added a fresh dimension to his already complex feelings. He was determined not to show how Sowerby's reflections wounded and angered him, but it was difficult to support the comparison of Trinity College in Dublin 'and its pinched brick lodgings for the students with the splendid courts of my own Trinity at Cambridge, itself but part of a far greater university: but the entire difference between the two islands is on the same scale,' and almost impossible to listen with any appearance of equanimity to the long tirade about 'the disgraceful events of 1798, when a numerous band of traitors rose against their natural sovereign, burnt my uncle's rectory and stole three of his cows' or the statement that this poverty and this ignorance had always been and would always be the lot of that unfortunate priestridden community as long as they persisted in the Romish superstition.