After that shocking chance meeting, Lt. Edward (or Ed'ard) Urquhart had had a rather trying day. His proper reporting aboard was not so bad, nor was his reception in Capt. Lewrie's great-cabins, where he had been offered a glass of cool tea with lemon and sugar, been told he would be one of the rare "Johnny New-Comes" aboard Savage, after most of the officers and crew of Lewrie's old ship, HMS Proteus, had volunteered to turn over into this new frigate… a great honour to Lewrie, to elicit such loyalty. But for those of warrant or petty officer rank who pretty much stayed with one ship, commission after commission, such as the Bosun and his Mate, Cooper, Sailmaker, Master Gunner, and lived aboard even when a warship was laid up in-ordinary, HMS Savage was now manned by officers and hands who had "rubbed together" for three years, and would squint with chary eyes at an interloper, 'til they had had a chance to take his measure.

Capt. Lewrie had informed him that he detested tyrannical, "flogging" officers, and had found that his "people" had never been of the insubordinate sort; that the necessity for corporal punishment was rare aboard, and that he'd found "firm but fair" treatment from solidly experienced officers, not Tartars, worked better than anything else.

Lt. Urquhart had heard scads about Capt. Alan Lewrie from his fellow officers, not just from the newspapers and such. He was not as famed as the gallant Pellew, or Collingwood, not quite the nationally cheered Nelson, but he had a reputation as a fighter, so Urquhart had come aboard feeling rather fortunate to have a chance to serve under a man who had a fairly well-known name in the clannish family of fellow Royal Navy officers. Capt. Lewrie was also possessed of a repute that was, well… colourful, to put it charitably.