But these were self-pitying considerations. As the Patrician fought her way from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, he had gloomier thoughts pressing him. Presentiments of disaster were to be expected and, as he shuddered from his ague, he felt inadequate to the task the Admiralty had set him, not for its complexity, but for its apparent simplicity. It seemed, in essence, to be a mere exercise upon which almost any interpretation might be put by persons anxious to discredit him. So hazy were his orders, so vague in their intent, that he was at a loss as to how to pursue them.

To carry His Majesty's flag upon the Pacific coast of North America on a Particular Service, was all very high faluting; to make war upon Spanish Trade upon the said coast, was all very encouraging if one took as one's example the exploits of Anson fifty years earlier. But this was the modern world, and he was not allowed a free hand, being ordered to concentrate his efforts upon the North American coast, far from the rich Spanish trade routed to the Vice-royalties of Peru and the entrepot of Panama. Besides, to any British commander, the Pacific was haunted by the ghosts of a murdered Cook and the piratically seized Bounty.

As for what he took to be the core of his orders, the instruction to discourage Russian incursions into that sea and upon the coasts of New Albion, they seemed to Drinkwater to be the most nonsensical of them all, harking back to the dubious claims of Francis Drake and serving to remind him that his Russian connections had landed him in this desperate plight, thousands of miles from home or support. Mulling such thoughts as he fought his quinsy and waited for Tregembo, shaking with the mild fever of an infection, he was in a foul and savage mood. His coxwain's unannounced appearance stung him to an uncharacteristic rebuke. 'Knock before you enter, damn you!'