'We are neighbours at table, Captain Drinkwater,' said an austere, hollow-eyed man in the plain blue coat with the red collar and cuffs of an Elder Brother of the Trinity House. 'May I introduce myself? Captain Joseph Huddart, late of the Honorable Company's service.'

'Nathaniel Drinkwater ...' The two men shook hands and lapsed into small talk, moving eventually to sit amid the glittering silver and glass of the Duke of Clarence's white-napered table. Drinkwater's other neighbour was a Russian, the captain of the forty-four gun frigate Gremyashchi. He spoke a thick English. Try though he might, Drinkwater had difficulty understanding anything beyond three references to the Suvorov and these, he deduced, were far from complimentary. After a few moments, the Russian turned to his farther neighbour, the French captain of the Polonais who, after a few exchanges, leaned forward and asked Drinkwater in faltering English:

'Capitaine Rakov, he ask if you are English officier who capture Russian ship Suvorov?'

Drinkwater looked from the French officer to the Russian. Rakov was watching him closely.

'I am,' he replied, holding the Russian's gaze. Rakov muttered something, then turned pointedly away and settled to natter in French to the Russian on his left. Drinkwater fell into easy conversation with Huddart, whose bald head and wispy side drapes of hair hid an astute and enquiring mind. They talked of many things, discovering mutual acquaintances from Drinkwater's brief period in China, his escort of a convoy of the Company's East Indiamen and from his earlier service aboard Trinity House buoy yachts. In this vein the evening passed very pleasantly until at last, the prince, having called upon Blackwood to propose the first toast to his royal father, initiated a succession of these in which, at least so it seemed, every crowned head in Europe was thus honoured.