Kings And Emperors
“Lt. Westcott proposed, craning his neck to look aloft. “Even if it’d be the lesser sort—”
“An Army general gave the orders, and he don’t count,” Lewrie countered, looking upwards himself. “No, I may command the escorting force … such as it is … but Admiralty’d never stand for it. I’ll stand on as I am.”
He lowered his gaze to the clutch of troop ships and supply vessels that wallowed along in passably decent order astern of his two-decker. All that could be scraped up at short notice to protect... the convoy was a 32-gun frigate, a Sixth Rate sloop of war mounting but twenty light guns, and two brig-sloops. Lewrie knew that the French warships left over from the Battle of Trafalgar, now closely blockaded in Cádiz, would never come out to harm his charges, but there were still rumours that a large squadron of French ships at Rochefort, and some frigates in the mouth of the Gironde River near Bordeaux, could sortie at any time. Those rumours kept him up at night, and he secretly hoped that he could get General Spencer’s troops ashore, and the merchant ships away, without opposition, so they would no longer be his responsibility.MoreLess
“An Army general gave the orders, and he don’t count,” Lewrie countered, looking upwards himself. “No, I may command the escorting force … such as it is … but Admiralty’d never stand for it. I’ll stand on as I am.”
He lowered his gaze to the clutch of troop ships and supply vessels that wallowed along in passably decent order astern of his two-decker. All that could be scraped up at short notice to protect... the convoy was a 32-gun frigate, a Sixth Rate sloop of war mounting but twenty light guns, and two brig-sloops. Lewrie knew that the French warships left over from the Battle of Trafalgar, now closely blockaded in Cádiz, would never come out to harm his charges, but there were still rumours that a large squadron of French ships at Rochefort, and some frigates in the mouth of the Gironde River near Bordeaux, could sortie at any time. Those rumours kept him up at night, and he secretly hoped that he could get General Spencer’s troops ashore, and the merchant ships away, without opposition, so they would no longer be his responsibility.MoreLess
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