Louis was eyeing him curiously.

“Don’t you want to hear the size of your command?” he asked.

“Yes, of course,” answered Hornblower, but he did not mind very much. The fact that he was going to command something was much more important than what he was going to command.

“You’ll have the Nonsuch, seventy-four,” said Louis. “That will give you a ship of force should you need one. For the rest you’ll have all the small stuff we can scrape together for you—Lotus and Raven, sloops; two bomb-ketches, Moth and Harvey, and the cutter Clam. That’s all so far, but by the time you sail we might have some more ready for you. We want you to be ready for all the inshore work that may come your way. There’s likely to be plenty.”

“I expect so,” said Hornblower.

“Don’t know whether you’ll be fighting for the Russians or against them,” mused Louis. “Same with the Swedes. God knows what’s building up, up there. But His Nibs’ll tell you all about that.”

Hornblower looked a question.

“Your revered brother-in-law, the most noble the Marquis Wellesley, K.P., His Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. We call him His Nibs for short. We’ll walk across and see him in a minute. But there’s something else important to settle. Who d’you want for captain in Nonsuch?”

Hornblower gasped at that. This was patronage on a grand scale. He had sometimes appointed midshipmen and surgeon’s mates; a parson of shady record had once hungrily solicited him for nomination as chaplain in his ship, but to have a say in the appointment of a captain of a ship of the line was something infinitely more important than any of these.