“I think you might manage it,” Captain Crosbie said after a few minutes’ reflection. “No captain has yet been appointed to command the Carolina. You might appoint Morales to it. He belongs to a powerful family here, and they would be pleased at his promotion. So it might be a politic step, as well as serving our purpose by making a vacancy for Embleton.”
“That would be just the thing,” the admiral said.
“I am sure I should be delighted,” Captain Crosbie went on, “for Morales is of very little use; and with Mr. Embleton to aid me I should be able to get the crew into something like shape in half the time that it would take me to do it single-handed.”
“Very well, then; the thing is done. I have full powers [pg 370]to make any changes and appointments in the fleet, so I will write out the orders at once. If you will send Lieutenant Morales in here, Captain Crosbie, I will announce his promotion to him and tell him to take up his duties at once, and then Embleton can enter upon his as soon as he has provided himself with a uniform.”
Stephen was about to leave the room with Captain Crosbie when the admiral stopped him.
“I have no doubt that you are short of cash, Stephen,” he said, “and just at the present moment of course you cannot draw upon your bankers in England, for your father will naturally have long since believed you dead, and the account will be transferred to himself; so I must be your banker for the present. Here are two hundred and fifty dollars. Tell the fellows who make your uniform—Crosbie will tell you where to go to—that you will pay them something extra to get one suit finished by to-morrow. We shall sail in a couple of days.”
After thanking the admiral, Stephen retired just as the lieutenant entered the cabin. On asking the captain as to the address of the best firm of tailors the latter said:
“I am just going ashore myself to see about some stores from the dockyard, and will go there with you. As I am known to them they will probably sharpen up more than if you, a stranger, went by yourself.”
As they rowed ashore Stephen learned from Captain Crosbie that the fleet ready for sea consisted, in addition to the flagship, of one fine frigate, the Piranza, the Maria da Gloria, a converted merchantman mounting thirty-three small guns, and the Liberal, about the same size.
“We take with us two old vessels that will be used as fire-[pg 371]ships, and the Carolina and another ship that are not yet equipped will join us later on. We are first going to attack Bahia, where we shall have all our work cut out. The Portuguese have three line-of-battle ships, five frigates, five corvettes, a brig, and a schooner. The worst of the thing is that we cannot depend upon our crews. I think that our ship will be all right, but the others are all largely manned by Portuguese, who are as likely as not to mutiny directly we get near the enemy, and to take the ships over to them. Besides that, our equipments are simply miserable—the cartridges are all unfit for service, the fuses of the shells are absolutely untrustworthy, the powder is wretched, the marines know nothing either of working the big guns or of the use of the small ones, and are moreover an insolent, lazy set of rascals, and consider themselves as something infinitely superior to the sailors. Lord Cochrane will doubtless add to his own great reputation by the deeds he will perform here, but assuredly he will find that he will be harassed well-nigh to death by the different factions, and will have difficulties placed in his way at every turn, will be unable to obtain justice for his crews, and will ere long find his position altogether insufferable. The emperor is well-intentioned and honest, but is altogether devoid of any real power, and he is as completely in the hands of the clique of schemers round him, as was the President of Chili. There is not an English officer now in the service of Don Pedro who would not be delighted to leave it if they could obtain an appointment at one-fourth of the pay elsewhere.”