"Let the fellow go to the devil!—Do you not think I had better go out, without waiting for despatches from town?"
"It is hard to say. Your orders may send us all down into Scotland, to face Charles Stuart. Perhaps, too, they may make you a duke, and me a baron, in order to secure our fidelity!"
"The blackguards!—well, say no more of that, just now. If M. de Vervillin is steering to the westward, he can hardly be aiming at Edinburgh, and the movements in the north."
"That is by no means so certain. Your really politic fellows usually look one way and row another."
"It is my opinion, that his object is to effect a diversion, and my wish is to give it to him, to his heart's content. So long as this force is kept near the chops of the channel, it can do no harm in the north, and, in-so-much, must leave the road to Germany open."
"For one, I think it a pity—not to say a disgrace—that England cannot settle her own quarrels without calling in the aid of either Frenchman or Dutchman."
"We must take the world as it is, Dick, and act like two straight-forward seamen, without stopping to talk politics. I take it for granted, notwithstanding your Stuart fervour, that you are willing enough to help me thresh Monsieur de Vervillin."
"Beyond a question. Nothing but the conviction that he was directly employed in serving my natural and legitimate prince, could induce me to show him any favour. Still, Oakes, it is possible he may have succours for the Scotch on board, and be bound to the north by the way of the Irish channel!"
"Ay, pretty succours, truly, for an Englishman to stomach! Mousquetaires, and régiments de Croy, or de Dillon, or some d——d French name or other; and, perhaps, beautiful muskets from the Bois de Vincennes; or some other infernal nest of Gallic inventions to put down the just ascendency of old England! No—no—Dick Bluewater, your excellent, loyal, true-hearted English mother, never bore you to be a dupe of Bourbon perfidy and trick. I dare say she sickened at the very name of Louis!"
"I'll not answer for that, Sir Jarvy," returned the rear-admiral, with a vacant smile; "for she passed some time at the court of le Grand Monarque. But all this is idle; we know each other's opinions, and, by this time, ought to know each other's characters. Have you digested any plan for your future operations; and what part am I to play in it?"