Patrick O`Brian: THE REVERSE OF THE MEDAL

The morning drizzle was scarcely yet lightening in the cast, but the nearby candle-factory had already started pouring out its nauseating smell and a damp group of wives, children, friends and servants had already gathered outside the gates of the Marshalsea.

A few minutes before the time for opening Sophie Aubrey came walking through the mud, high-perched on pattens. 'Why, Stephen,' she cried, 'here you are at last! What a pleasure to see you. But how early you are. And how wet,' she added, looking at him with large, startled eyes. 'Put your hat on at once: you must not get your head wet too, for Heaven's sake. Come and shelter under my umbrella: hold my arm.'

'I particularly wished to catch you before you went in to see Jack,' said Stephen. 'But in my hurry I mistook the hour. I have never been very clever at telling what's o'clock.'

The gates swung inwards with their usual shriek and the people walked in, treading their habitual paths; but the debtors' side was open half an hour before the rest and Stephen led Sophie to the coffee-house, where they sat in a deserted corner.

'You look quite tired out, as well as wet. Give me your great-coat, Stephen.' She hung it on the back of a settle to drip. She said 'I am afraid you have not heard any good news, my dear,' but without waiting for an answer she called for 'coffee, hot and very strong, if you please, Mrs Goadby, some rolls, and two soft-boiled eggs for the gentleman'.

'Sure I have been travelling with barely a pause at all; I had hoped that hard labour would somehow earn an encouraging word, and indeed one great man did hint that the imprisonment might be remitted. But all the rest is black. Lawrence explains to me that a new trial is impossible: since all the so-called conspirators were included in the indictment and all were found guilty, they must all present themselves to make an appeal - it must be the whole body or nothing. It is a new rule of the court.'

'I low I hate lawyers,' cried Sophie, her eyes growing dark.

'So much for the appeal; and as for the sentence, time and again I was told by the men and women to whom I applied that "they could not alter the course of justice".

'Justice be damned,' said Sophie, in the very tone of her cousin Diana.

'And although to be sure that was exactly what I wanted them to do, I was even more concerned with altering the course of custom - I mean in preventing Jack's name from being struck off the. list. If he is guilty, or rather if he is found guilty of an infamous crime, an officer's name is automatically struck off: it is not a matter of law but of custom and it has such a force that as Prince William assured me, speaking most earnestly and with tears in his eyes, neither he nor the First Lord could change it. Only the King or in this case the Regent has the power. He is in Scotland and in any event I am known to him only as his brother's friend; and he and his brother are on very bad terms at present. So I travelled down to Brighton and waited upon his wife.'

'His wife, Stephen?'

'She is usually known as Mrs Fitzherbert.'

'Arc they indeed married? I thought she was a -a Roman Catholic.'

'Certainly they arc married. The Pope himself wrote to tell her the ceremony was valid and that she was his canonical wife. Charles Weld showed me the document - I knew him well, cousin to her first husband and at one time a priest in Spain. She received me very kindly, hut she shook her head, said she had almost no influence now and even if she had, she doubted anything could he done. However, she did advise me to see Lady Hertford, and that is what I intend to do. Put listen, Sophie, this appeal to the Regent cannot be made quickly, I find; if indeed it can usefully be made at all. In the meanwhile the Surprise has been bought. She is to be a private ship of war, and she now lies at Shelmerston with Tom Pullings in charge. He sends word that prime seamen by the score, many of them old shipmates, wish to embark if Jack commands her. If he will consent to do so, we can get away the moment all this is over, above all if there is to be no imprisonment. You must make him consent, my dear.'

'But why do you not ask him, Stephen? Why have you not told him all this?'

'Why,' said he, looking down at his eggs, 'in the first place there has been no time; I have been away. And then again there is a certain awkwardness, do you see? The role of deus ex machina is not one that I care for, at all. You would do it far better. If he raises the point, you will say that there is no obligation in the world: the one supplies the capital, the other the skill - I could not sail a ship across a horse-pond, nor attack a simple rowing-boat; and I should certainly never sail with any other captain. Pray tell him I hope to look in this evening to hear his good word. I must be away. God bless, now. Remember, you must not say privateer or corsair; you must say letter of marque, or private man-of-war.'

As Stephen approached Sir Joseph's door in Shepherd Market he saw Colonel Warren come out, step into a chariot that bowed under his weight, and drive off. He knew that Warren was the Horse Guards' new representative on the Committee, an unusually active, stirring, sharp-witted man; but he did not wish to be known to him, and he walked on for a few minutes. When he made his call he found his friend looking extremely grave. 'At this rate,' said Sir Joseph, 'I shall be suspecting Lord Liverpool and half the cabinet of high treason. There are some utterly inexplicable contradictions… perhaps Cerberus himself has run mad… how I wish this business were half as easily resolved as yours.' He opened a drawer and said 'Here are your letters of marque against France, Holland, the Italian and Ligurian Republics, the United States of America, vessels bearing the flag of Pappenburgh, and half a dozen others. I have had them ready for you since Wednesday.'

'God set a flower on your head, dear Blaine,' said Stephen. 'I am exceedingly grateful, and I should have looked in on Wednesday itself so I should, but it was two in the morning when I passed through London on my way to a town called Bury I have been going to see every important man or woman in the kingdom who has the least kindness for me'

'If you were travelling in Aubrey's favour, and I make no doubt you were, you might have saved your coach-hire You can no longer bribe judges in this country, nor cause them to be bribed, nor persuaded, still less commanded There is only one single exception, as I could have told you before you set out, and that is where the judge happens also to be a member of the cabinet, which is the case with Lord Quinborough; he is by definition responsive to the political wishes of his colleagues. Now your name has already been put forward as the ideal man for this entirely unofficial contact with Chile and possibly Peru to which administration attaches very great importance: it was represented that you were bilingual in Spanish, a tried and tested intelligence-agent in the ideal vessel with the ideal excuse for his presence in those waters, and that you would be a Catholic dealing with other Catholics, many of them Irish or half-Irish themselves - the younger O'Higgins, for example. These qualifications, together with that of a very large private fortune, were conclusive. The restricted gathering was delighted, and rubbed its collective hands. But a gentleman then observed that although you possessed all the virtues, you certainly would not sail unless the ship was commanded by Aubrey. So since the matter presses, I believe you may rest easy about the imprisonment.' Sir Joseph looked at the clock and said 'If you mean to be there for his appearance in court, you must hurry.'

'I do not,' said Stephen. 'It seems to me that onlookers are strangely out of place. But I have taken the liberty of desiring a message to be sent to me here.'