“A land of slaves,” Cromwell said derisively.

Lord William Hale might have been expected to contribute to this conversation for, as one of the six members of the East India Company’s Board of Control, he must have been familiar with the thinking of the British government, but he was content to listen with a faintly amused smile, though he did raise an eyebrow at Cromwell’s assertion that the Russians were a nation of slaves.

“The French, sir,” Cromwell went on hotly, “face a rabble of enemies on their eastern frontiers, but none on their west. They can therefore concentrate their armies, sure in the knowledge that no British army will ever touch their shore.”

“Never?” the merchant, a solid man called Ebenezer Fairley, asked sarcastically.

Cromwell swung his heavy gaze on this new opponent. He contemplated Fairley for a while, then shook his head. “The British, Fairley, do not like armies. They keep a small army. A small army can never defeat Napoleon. Ergo, Napoleon is safe. Ergo, the war is lost. Good God, man, they might already have invaded Britain!”

“I pray not,” Major Dalton said fervently.

“Their army was ready,” Cromwell boomed with a strange relish in this talk of British defeat, “and all they needed was for their navy to command the channel.”

“Which it cannot do,” the barrister intervened quietly.

“And even if they did not invade this year,” Cromwell went on, ignoring the lawyer, “then in time they will succeed in building a navy fit to defeat ours, and when that day comes Britain will have to seek peace. Britain will revert to its natural posture, and its natural posture is to be a small and insignificant island poised off a great continent.”

Lady Grace spoke for the first time. Sharpe had been pleased and surprised to see her at supper, for Captain Chase had suggested that she eschewed company, but she seemed content to be in the cuddy though so far she had taken as little part in the conversation as her husband. “So we are doomed to defeat, Captain?” she suggested.