These orders were immediately obeyed; and while Lord Beverley, pretending to be still very ill from the effects of his voyage, was suffered to lie on the cabin-floor till he could be led to a block-house which had been fortified, near the water-gate of the city, Colonel Ashburnham and the magnanimous Captain Barecolt were marched up to the residence of the governor, and speedily introduced to his presence.
Of Sir John Hotham himself we cannot give a better account, and in all probability should give a much worse one, than that which has been furnished by the celebrated historian of the great rebellion:--
"Hotham," says Lord Clarendon, with those remarkable powers of delineating human character which probably Theophrastus himself possessed in a very inferior degree, "was by his nature and education a rough and rude man, of great covetousness, of great pride, and great ambition, without any bowels of good nature, or the least sense or touch of generosity. His parts were not quick and sharp, but composed, and he judged well. He was a man of craft, and more like to deceive than to be cozened."
Such was the man, according to Lord Clarendon's account, before whom Colonel Ashburnham was now brought; and there being, as he had said to the Earl of Beverley, some enmity existing between the family of Hotham and himself, he might well expect to be treated with very scanty ceremony and kindness. Nevertheless, to his surprise, he was received with a good-natured air, and a shake of the hand, Hotham exclaiming--
"Welcome, colonel! welcome!--though, to say the truth, I wish to heaven you had not put yourself in the way of our ships, or that the people had let you go."
"The latter unfortunate case can soon be remedied, Sir John," said Colonel Ashburnham, "by your doing what they left undone, and letting me go yourself."
"I fear not, colonel; I fear not," replied Hotham. "We have got some great rogues here," he added in a lower tone, "who look after me more sharply than I look after them, otherwise I would let you go at once, upon my honour, and will do it yet if I can."
"Well, I thank you, Sir John, for the intention, at all events," answered Ashburnham; "and it is the more gratifying to me, as I always had a regard for you, notwithstanding my quarrel with your son, which you took up so warmly at one time."
"Ah, the knave!" said Hotham; "I have found him out since that time; and now he has come down here to act as spy and controller against his own father. But who have you got there? Is he one of your people?"
"Oh, no," answered Ashburnham; "some poor devil of a Frenchman, seeking service, I believe. I found him and another in that cursed cutter, when I was fool enough to go aboard. The other has been dead sick all the way; but I know nothing of them, for we were taken almost immediately after I got into her;" and he proceeded to explain that he had been returning to England in the "Good Hope," but judging from what he heard that the time was not yet quite propitious for his reappearance, he had sought to make his way back to France or Holland in the vessel in which he was taken.