Roger could hardly believe his ears, but a few moments later he had the evidence of his eyes to support them. The Prime Minister had drawn a sheet of notepaper towards him and was writing on it. When he had done he sanded it carefully then handed it across. It was a Letter of Marque consisting of a single potent sentence:
Mr. Roger Brook knows my mind upon the matter of Nootka Sound, and is commissioned by me to speak upon it.
William Pitt.
As Roger folded it and tucked it into his inner pocket, Mr. Pitt said: “I shall be seeing His Grace of Leeds tonight and also my brother, Chatham. If you will wait upon the former at the Foreign Office tomorrow morning he will furnish you with such funds as you may require, and papers ensuring that all diplomatic facilities will be afforded to you. When you have finished with His Grace go to the Admiralty and send your name up to the First Lord. I will ask my brother this evening to give orders for a frigate to carry you to Lisbon, and when you see him tomorrow he will inform you of the name and port of sailing of the ship selected. Now; are there any questions you would like to ask me?”
“Yes, sir. In the event of the Dons climbing down, have you any instructions for me with regard to terms? I do not infer the giving way by a hair’s-breadth over Nootka; but they are a proud people, and did you see your way to offer them something to salve their pride it might make the difference between peace and war.”
The Prime Minister smiled. “Mr. Brook, I approve your language. ’Tis a pleasure to see how readily you slip into the role of a budding Ambassador; but I think we must leave the discussion of terms to a fully accredited envoy. Mr. Alleyne Fitzherbert has been sent his recall from the Court of The Hague, and should peace continue I have it in mind to send him out to fill the vacant post of Ambassador in Madrid; but another month or more must elapse before he would be ready to proceed there. When he arrives in London His Grace of Leeds and I will discuss with him how far we are prepared to meet the Dons should your own mission prove successful. They have long complained of infringements by our adventurous merchants of their rights in South American waters and of British smuggling activities between our islands in the West Indies and the Spanish Main. We could, if we would, give a formal undertaking to check these interferences with their commerce; but it will be time enough to go into details about such matters if your report of their attitude proves favourable.”
“My function then, sir, is solely to threaten war?”
“Yes. You will not, of course, actually declare it, but are to make it plain that we mean war unless the Spaniards are willing to give us full satisfaction without further delay. If they consent to do so, you may indicate that they would find me not unwilling to give favourable consideration to steps for removing their commercial grievances against us. But before I am prepared to talk at all, I must have their assurance that the North American Pacific coast from parallel forty-five degrees northward to Alaska, and all its hinterland as far east as the St. Lawrence river, will be recognised in a formal treaty as part of His Britannic Majesty’s dominions.”
As Roger rode back to London he could still hardly believe it true that he had been entrusted with such a weighty matter. But as he thought it over he saw that his mission was actually a very straightforward one. He was being sent to Madrid as a herald to throw down the gauntlet, and the possible results of his action had been well weighed beforehand. If the Spaniards failed to pick it up, that would stop a war, but even if they accepted the challenge, that should prevent a war of much greater magnitude with real menace to the security of Britain.
Nevertheless, having been given such a task showed that Mr. Pitt could not think too ill of him, in spite of the recent differences that had occurred between them, and his reinstatement in the great man’s service filled him with elation. He was still somewhat perturbed at the thought of Isabella, as he realised very plainly that he was now no longer in a position simply to go out to Madrid and abduct her. But, as an offset to that, now that a frigate was to carry him to Lisbon he would reach Madrid considerably earlier than he could otherwise have done; and once there he felt confident that he would find some means of protecting her. The whole essence of his mission was to obtain a plain answer swiftly, so it could not detain him in the Spanish capital for long. If Isabella was really in imminent danger she could run away from her husband and somehow he would arrange for her to hide in the city until he was ready to leave it.
Next day he waited upon the Duke of Leeds at the Foreign Office. His handsome Grace proved as charming and friendly as ever. He congratulated Roger on his reinstatement, and further increased his elation by saying that he had found much valuable information in his reports from Paris, which were now proving to have contained more accurate forecasts on some aspects of the situation than those sent by the British Embassy.
He added that, in his view, Roger had been right to go to Florence and Naples on behalf of Madame Marie Antoinette, as they had plenty of people who could collect information about the deputies, but no other who was now so well placed as himself to inform them of the intentions of the Queen; and that he knew Mr. Pitt’s strictures on the matter to have been governed, not by disapproval of Roger’s initiative, but by his strong feeling that no servant of the British Crown should involve himself in anything which might weaken the new democratic Government of France.
Much heartened to find he had such a champion in His Grace, Roger received from him bills of exchange on Lisbon and Madrid, a diplomatic passport, and a letter of introduction to Mr. Anthony Merry instructing the Consul to render all possible assistance. He then walked on up Whitehall to the Admiralty.
After a wait of an hour he was shown in to the First Lord. It was the first time that Roger had met Mr. Pitt’s elder brother, so he had been looking forward to the interview with interest. The second Earl of Chatham was then thirty-three, so some two and a half years older than the Prime Minister. He had started life as an Army officer and had served both at the siege of Gibraltar and in the American War. It was said that his appointment to the Admiralty, eighteen months earlier, had not been altogether due to nepotism, as he was held in high personal regard by the King; but he was far from generally popular and entirely lacked both the wit and energy of the brilliant Billy. He was of heavier build, lethargic by nature, and affected with the same nervous frigidity in the presence of strangers.
As Lord Chatham expressed no interest whatever in his visitor, the interview was limited to a formal exchange of compliments and the handing over of a letter; so within a minute Roger was out of the First Lord’s room, and prepared to agree with the general opinion that he was cold, ponderous and haughty.
Roger had already noted that the letter was addressed to “Captain G. B. Harcourt, H.M.S. Amazon, Lying in Portsmouth Roads”; so he walked over to Charing Cross and booked a seat in the night coach for Portsmouth. He then returned to Amesbury House, wrote to his mother, finished his packing and spent his last few hours in London in the company of the amiable Droopy Ned. By eight o’clock the following morning he was on Portsmouth Hard.
A bumboat took him off to H.M.S. Amazon; and when introducing himself to her Captain he mentioned that it was in her that his father had returned to England on being recalled from the West Indian Squadron in the summer of ’83. As that was nearly seven years ago Roger was surprised to hear that Captain Harcourt had had the Amazon then, and well remembered carrying his father home with despatches.
The Captain remarked that as he was a long way down the list, far from expecting promotion to the command of a ship-of-the-line, he was very lucky to have retained a ship at all in times of peace, as after the late war scores of fighting vessels had been scrapped. When serving in the West Indies he had known a dozen promising junior Captains who had since been high and dry for years. For instance, one youngster of extraordinary dash and brilliance named Nelson; but he had been on the beach for a long time past, and it was now doubtful if he would ever get another ship unless Britain again went to war.
Roger naturally said nothing of the business that was carrying him to Lisbon; but he wondered if it would result in Captain Nelson, and those other frustrated young sea-dogs, being recalled from their quiet farms to once more pace a quarter-deck and order their ships to close upon the enemy. He sincerely hoped not; for if shaking a fist in the face of the Spaniards could prevent it, the fault would not lie with him if Britain had to draw the sword again.
H.M.S. Amazon was that month the duty frigate which was always kept in readiness for special service, so within an hour of Roger coming aboard she put to sea. Off Ushant they struck bad weather, but in spite of that, owing to good handling the ship put in to Lisbon on the afternoon of Sunday, March 28th.
On landing Roger went straight to the Embassy, where Mr. Robert Walpole, who had been British Minister to Portugal for nearly eighteen years, gave him an excellent dinner, put him up for the night and made arrangements for him to proceed on his journey to Madrid the following morning.
Only then did Roger’s troubles begin. The Portuguese roads proved abominable and those in Spain, if possible, worse. Mr. Walpole had provided him with a Portuguese courier who spoke enough French to act as interpreter, but neither bribes nor threats delivered through him seemed to hurry the personnel that accompanied Roger’s coach. It was drawn by eight mules, while an additional team of six ambled along behind, as a reserve which could be hooked on in front of the others to help pull the coach up hills, or out of boggy patches, when it got stuck—which seemed to happen with maddening regularity every three-quarters of an hour. The muleteers proved more mulish than the mules; and the six armed guards, which Mr. Walpole had insisted on his hiring to protect him from bandits, apparently hoped that the journey would last a month, as they refused to lift a finger to help even when the coach had to be dragged across the worst of the stony watercourses that severed the road at the bottom of every valley.
The inns in France that Roger had regarded as such miserable places were, he now found, mansions by comparison with those in the Peninsula. Most of them consisted only of a single bare room, with a lean-to behind it in which the innkeeper and his family huddled in appalling squalor. Few of them could even boast a chimney stack, so that the smoke that failed to find its way out through a hole in the roof filled the soot-blackened common room where occasional travellers both ate and slept. Every one of them was so alive with bugs that he was soon red from head to foot with bites, and in an endeavour to escape further torment took to sleeping in his coach. Such food as he could get was brought to him half raw, half cold and smothered in garlic; so that he was near sick every time he forced himself to swallow a mouthful. And the journey seemed never-ending.
Actually, although it did not appear so to him at the time, his lavish offers of largesse for increased speed did have considerable effect, as the coach covered the 400 miles in twelve days, instead of the three weeks that he was assured it would normally have taken. On Friday the 9th of April he arrived in Madrid, itching all over, half-famished from lack of decent food, and cursing Spain for the lousiest country that he had ever had the ill-fortune to enter.
To add to his fury he found the British Embassy shut up; but, to his relief, it soon transpired that Mr. Anthony Merry was living in a smaller house near by. The Consul turned out to be a youngish man of not very enterprising disposition. Madrid was his first post and he had not been there many months when the Ambassador had been recalled, leaving him as Chargé d’ Affaires; and it was soon clear to Roger that he did not care for the responsibility, particularly now that serious trouble was brewing with the Spaniards. It was perhaps this, added to a natural politeness, which accounted for the particular warmth of the welcome he extended to Mr. Pitt’s personal representative.
He said a little plaintively that it was all very well for Whitehall to complain about delays; they did not realise there how hopeless it was for anyone of his junior rank to compel the attention of a Spanish Hidalgo like Count Florida Blanca, but perhaps the Prime Minister would be more impressed by a special envoy, even if Roger did not carry the powers of a Minister Plenipotentiary.
Roger had a good mind to tell him that rank had nothing to do with the matter, and that he ought to be ashamed of himself. For ten months he had been the sole representative of His Britannic Majesty at the Court of Madrid, and that was status enough for any man to demand an audience of the King of Spain himself, if need be. But Mr. Merry’s lack of initiative was not his affair, and, even tired and irritable as he was, he was much too tactful to give gratuitous offence to a man upon whom he would have to depend for all sorts of trivial services. So he gratefully accepted Mr. Merry’s offer of a bath, put on clean linen and rejoined him for dinner.
Mr. Merry was naturally anxious to hear all the news from home and would have liked to spend the evening enjoying an account of the latest gossip in London, but Roger had no mind to let the grass grow under his feet. While the servants remained in the room he did his best to satisfy the craving of his host, but directly they had gone, he said:
“I expect to be here only a few days, so I have no time to waste, and I would be greatly obliged if you would tell me all you can of the Court of Madrid.”
Mr. Merry laughed. “I think, sir, you would be well advised to count your days as weeks while you are in this country; for it is the immemorial custom here.”
“That we shall see, sir,” replied Roger with a hard note in his voice. “In any case, I should be glad if you would accede to my request.”
His host shrugged. “Let us start then with King Carlos. He is a typical Bourbon, both physically and mentally. His muscular strength is quite exceptional, he is entirely devoted to sport and enjoys only the simplest amusements. He is religious, good-tempered, believes implicitly in the Divine Right of Kings, and is one of the stupidest men you could meet in a long day’s march. It is Queen Maria Luisa who wears the breeches. You must have heard the classic story of her as a little girl?”
As Roger shook his head Mr. Merry went on: “She was a daughter of Parma, and married at the age of twelve. The very day she heard that her marriage contract with the Prince of the Asturias had been signed, she became so puffed up that she said to her brother, Ferdinand: ‘You must learn to treat me with more respect, because I’m going to be the Queen of Spain, while you’ll never be anything but the little Duke of Parma.’ To which he replied: ‘If that’s the case, the little Duke of Parma will now have the honour of boxing the Queen of Spain’s ears.’ And he did.”
Roger laughed. “ ’Tis a delightful anecdote. Does she still ride so high a horse?”
“Yes. For all the years her husband was heir-apparent she kept him under her thumb; and on his succeeding to the throne in ’88 it was she, not he, who called the first Council of Ministers in the new reign. She is a ghoul to look at, with small, pig-like black eyes, no teeth of her own but false ones that fit badly, and a greenish, withered skin. Yet from her teens she has never ceased to command lovers to her bed, and woe betide any handsome fellow of the Bodyguard who has the courage to refuse her.”
“Has she any special favourite at the moment?”
“There is a young man of about twenty-three, named Manuel Godoy, who bids fair to become a permanency. He was a Lieutenant in the Flemish Guard at the time Maria Luisa first singled him out for her favours. She was then still Princess of the Asturias, and from fear of her father-in-law kept her liaisons as quiet as possible, but since his death she has made no secret of them, and has showered honours on this handsome paramour of hers. Since he has stayed the pace for nearly three years now, it seems likely that he has acquired a certain influence over her other than by merely satisfying her passions.”
“Think you, sir, that it might repay us to court this Senor Godoy, and promise him some substantial reward if he is willing to use his influence with the Queen in our favour?”
Mr. Merry shook his head. “No, sir. I fear you would find such a course a waste of time. ’Tis not that Godoy would refuse your p
resents. It is said that he was so poor when he first became the Queen’s lover that he had to spend every other day in bed in order to have his only shirt washed; so he is now seeking by every possible means to amass a fortune while his star is in the ascendant. But I greatly doubt if he has the power to be of the least service to you in any political matter. It is believed that on King Carlos IV coming to the throne the Queen made a secret pact with Count Florida Blanca, by which he was to be left in control of all affairs of State while she should be allowed a free hand in the disposal of offices and honours. So ’tis to the Prime Minister that I advise you to address yourself.”
“He has held sway at this Court for many years, has he not?” Roger asked.
“For the best part of thirteen, sir. He came to power as the result of the resignation of Grimaldo and General O’Reilly, following the disastrous joint attack by Spanish and Tuscan forces on the Moors of Algiers. His only serious rival for power has been the famous General Conde d’Aranda, who was King Carlos III’s first great Minister. He lost his place in ’73, owing to the humiliation Spain suffered at our hands in her abortive attempt to deprive Britain of the Falkland Islands. He was sent as Ambassador to Paris and remained there fifteen years; but his personal prestige continued to be so great, and he is such a forceful personality, that a slip on Florida Blanca’s part at any time might well have led to d’Aranda being recalled to replace him as Prime Minister, Even now, although d’Aranda has been living in retirement for the past few years, his recall is not beyond the bounds of possibility.”
Roger asked if Mr. Merry knew the Sidonia y Ulloas, but he did not, and had heard the name only as that of one of the great Spanish families. For a further hour they talked on while Roger absorbed as much information as he could about the Spanish Court; then, just as they were about to go to bed, he said:
The Rising Storm Page 52