"Well, sir, if you'd choose that tack, then you can set it to the test quick enough. What about those men who've been swimming out to the ships all day, offering to be part of the invasion? I'd call that support."
"Aye, it gave me hope at first. Then I talked with some of them, and learned they're mostly indentured servants. They claimed a rumor's going round the island that we're here to set them free. For all they care, we could as well be Spaniards." Calvert sighed. "I asked some of them about defenses on the island, and learned nothing I didn't already know. So I sent them back ashore, one and all. What we need now are fresh provisions, not more mouths to feed."
That's the biggest question, he told himself again. Who'll be starved out first: a blockaded island or a fleet of ships with scarcely enough victuals to last out another fortnight?
He turned back to the table, reached for the Declaration, and shoved it toward Powlett. "I think you'd do well to peruse this, sir. There's a tone of Defiance here that's unsettling. I don't know if it's genuine, or a bluff. It's the unknowns that trouble me now, the damned uncertainties."
Those uncertainties, he found himself thinking, went far beyond Barbados. According to the first steps of Cromwell's plan, after this centerpiece of the Caribbees had been subdued, part of the fleet was to continue on to any other of the settlements that remained defiant. But Cromwell's advisors felt that would probably not be necessary: after Barbados acknowledged the Commonwealth, the rest of the colonies were expected to follow suit. Then the Western Design could be set into motion, with Calvert's shipboard infantry augmented by fighting men from the island.
The trouble with Cromwell's scheme, he now realized, was that it worked both ways. If Barbados succeeded in defying England's new government, then Virginia, Bermuda, the other
islands of the Caribbees, all might also disown the Commonwealth. There even was talk they might try attaching themselves to Holland. It would be the end of English taxes and trade anywhere in the Americas except for that scrawny settlement of fanatic Puritans up in "New England." There would surely be no hope for the Western Design to succeed, and Edmond Calvert would be remembered as the man who lost England's richest lands.
While Powlett studied the Declaration, skepticism growing on his face, Calvert turned back to the window and stared at the rainswept harbor, where a line of Dutch merchant fluyts bobbed at anchor.
Good God. That's the answer. Maybe we can't land infantry, but we most assuredly can go in and take those damned Dutchmen and their cargo. They're bound to have provisions aboard. It's our best hope for keeping up the blockade. And taking them will serve another purpose, too. It'll send the Commonwealth's message loud and clear to all Holland's merchants: that trade in English settlements is for England.
"There's presumption here, sir, that begs for a reply." The vice admiral tossed the Declaration back onto the table. "I still say the fittest answer is with powder and shot. There's been enough paper sent ashore already."