That fame had come with a tinge of scandal for Lewrie, for he had run down the Indiaman alone, then decided to let the French civilians-refugees from Saint Domingue for the most part-be put ashore from Lake Borgne to make the fifteen-mile trek to New Orleans and freedom. Some newspaper accounts thought it an honourable gesture of Christian magnanimity, the act of a proper British hero… fellow officers in the West Indies had deemed it daft, and soft-hearted-dash it all, but hadn’t Napoleon Bonaparte ordered Lewrie’s death over some insult during the Peace of Amiens, and the Ogre’s men had killed his wife with a cowardly shot in the back at the very moment they had almost made a clean escape by boat? Damme if the French hadn’t! So, why would a chap like Lewrie show a whit of mercy to the Frogs? Had they been in his boots, they’d have not, by God!

Raised from the cradle to hate the French like the very Devil, as all good Englishmen should, with anger and grief over Caroline’s murder to stoke his hatred white-hot, still… Lewrie could not make war on helpless civilians, on women or children. He’d had a moment, admittedly, when ordering a broadside had been so tempting, but he had not. He could have taken them all back to Jamaica with the navy crews of the other prizes, but… had they not suffered enough? They were innocent of Caroline’s death, and New Orleans had been so close by.

Which camp’s Loring in, I wonder? Lewrie thought as the oarsmen set a powerful stroke seaward; Am I saint or sinner, to him?