Patrick O'Brian - Desolation island

"It sounds the sweetest voyage," said Stephen, "and I have always longed to see New Holland. Such a fauna - monotremes, marsupials . . . But tell me, what is this curious situation to which you advert - what is the state of affairs at Botany Bay?"

"You remember Breadfruit Bligh?"

"I do not."

"Of course you do, Stephen. Bligh, that was sent to Tahiti in the Bounty before the war, to collect breadfruit trees for the West Indies."

"Yes, yes! He had an excellent botanist with him, David Nelson: a most promising young man, alas. I was looking into his work on the bromeliads only the other day."

"Then you will remember that his people mutinied on him, and took his ship away?"

"Sure, I have some hazy recollection of it. They preferred the charms of the Tahitian women to their duty. He survived, did he not?"

"Yes, but only because he was a most prodigious seaman. They turned him adrift with precious little food in a six-oared boat, loaded to the gunwales with nineteen men, and he navigated her close on four thousand miles to Timor. A most astonishing feat! But perhaps he is not quite so lucky with his subordinates: some time ago he was made Governor of New South Wales and the news is that his officers have mutinied on him again - they have deposed him and shut him up. Army people for the most part, I believe. The Admiralty don't like it, as you may imagine, and they are sending out an officer of sufficient seniority to deal with the situation and set Bligh up again or bring him home, according to his Judgement."

"What kind of man is Mr. Bligh?"

"I have never met him, but I know he sailed with Cook as master. Then he was given a commission, one of those rare promotions from warrant-rank: a reward, I dare say, for his uncommon seamanship. Then he did well at Camperdown, taking the Director, sixty-four, right in among the Dutch ships of the line and then lying alongside their admiral - as bloody a fight as ever you could wish. And he did well at Copenhagen too: Nelson mentioned him particularly."

"Perhaps it is still another instance of a man's being corrupted by authority,"

"It may be so. But although I cannot tell you much about him, I know a man who can. Do you remember Peter Heywood?"

"Peter Heywood? A post-captain who dined with us aboard the Lively? The gentleman upon whom Killick poured the boiling ]am sauce, and whom I treated for a not inconsiderable burn?"

"That's the man," said Jack.

"How did the sauce come to be boiling?" asked Sophie.

"The Port-Admiral was with us, and he always says, jam sauce ain't worth eating if it don't boll; so we shipped a little stove just abaft- the scuttle of the coach. Yes, that's the man: the only post-captain in the Navy who was ever condemned to death for mutiny. He was one of Bligh's midshipmen in the Bounty, and one of the few men or boys to be taken."

"How did he come to commit so rash an act?" asked Stephen. "He seemed to me a mild, peaceable gentleman; he bore the Admiral's strictures on his flinging the jam about with becoming modesty; and he bore the jam itself with so Spartan a fortitude that I should have conceived him incapable of acting in such an inconsiderate manner. Was it the petulance of youth, or a sudden disgust, or a dusky amour?"

"I never asked,"said Jack. "All I know is that he and four others were ordered to be hanged, and I saw three of them run up to the yardarm of the Brunswick with a nightcap over their eyes when I was a youngster in the Tonnant. But the King said it was all stuff to hang young Peter Heywood. So he was pardoned, and presently Black Dick Howe, who had always been fond of him, gave him his commission. I never did learn the ins and outs of it, although Heywood and I were shipmates in the Fox: it is a delicate thing to touch upon, a court-martial and such a court-martial! But we can certainly ask him about Bligh when he comes to the house on Thursday: it is important to know what kind of a man we have to deal with. In any case, I want to ask him about those waters. He knows them well, because he was wrecked in the Endeavour Straits. And even more than that, I want him to tell me about Leopard's little ways: he commanded her in the year five. Or was it six?"

Sophie's attentive ear caught a remote howl, a howl far fainter than it would have been before Ashgrove Cottage burst its seams, but still a howl. "Jack," said she, as she hurried from the room, "you must show Stephen the plans of the orangery. Stephen knows all about oranges."

"So I shall," said Jack. "But first, Stephen - a little more coffee? There is plenty in the pot - first let me tell you about an even more interesting plan. Turn your mind to the wood where the honey-buzzards are nesting."

"Yes, yes. The honey-buzzards," cried Stephen, brightening at once. "I have brought a Jointed booth for them."

"What do they want with a jointed booth? They have a perfectly respectable nest."

"It is a portable booth. I mean to set it up at the edge of the wood, and advance it by degrees to the rise that dominates their tree. There I shall sit at my ease, unseen, protected from the vicissitudes of the weather, watching the progress of their domestic economy. It is supplied with flaps, and every convenience for making observations."

"Well, I showed you the Roman mine-shafts, I remember - miles of 'em, and mortal dangerous - but do you know what the Romans mined there?"

"Lead."

"And do you know what all those lumpy hills are? One of them is the very place where you mean to set up your booth."

"Dross."

"Well, Stephen," said Jack, leaning forward with a very knowing look indeed, "now I shall tell you something you do not know, for once. That dross is full of lead; and what is more, that lead contains silver. The Romans' way of smelting did not extract it all, no, not by a chalk as long as your arm, and there it lies, thousands and thousands of tons of valuable dross just waiting to be treated by Kimber's new process."

"Kimber's new process?"

"Yes. I dare say you have heard of him - a very brilliant fellow. fie proceeds by lixiviation with some particular chemicals and then by cupellation according to principles discovered by himself. The lead pays for the working, and the silver is pure profit. The scheme would answer even if there were only one part of lead in one hundred and thirty-seven of dross, and one part of silver in over ten thousand; and on the average of close on a hundred random samples, our dross contains more than seventeen times as much!"

I am amazed. I did not know the Romans ever mined silver in Britain."

"Nor did 1. But here's the proof.' He unlocked the door of a cupboard under the window-seat and came staggering back with a pig of lead upon which there lay a little silver ingot, four inches long. "That was the result of no more than a first rough trial," he said. "No more than a few cart-loads of dross. Kimber set up a little furnace in the old linhay, and I saw the stuff pour out with my own eyes. I wish you had been there."

"So do I," said Stephen.

"Of course, it will call for quite a considerable capital outlay - roads, buildings, proper furnaces and so on - and I had thought of using the girls' portions; but it seems that they can't be touched by reason of the trust - that they have to remain in Consols and Navy five per cents, although I proved that it was mathematically impossible for them to yield a seventh part as much, even going by the poorest sample. I do not mean to set it going full-blast until I am likely to be on shore for some years on end

"You foresee this eventuality?"

"Oh yes. Unless I am knocked on the head, or unless I am caught doing something very wicked, I should get my flag in the next five years or so - sooner, if those old fellows at the head of the list did not cling to life so - and since it is harder for an admiral to find employment than a captain, I shall have plenty of time to build up my stud and work my mine. But I do mean to make a start, in a modest way, just to get things running and to lay by a fair amount of treasure. Fortunately Kimber is very moderate in his demands: he leases me the use of his patent, and he will supervise the working of the stuff."