Cornwallis occupied the most important station in the British navy. As Commander-in-Chief of the Channel Fleet he was not merely concerned with blockading Brest, but also with maintaining British vigilance off L'Orient, Rochefort and even Ferrol where neutral Spain had been coerced into allowing France to use the naval arsenals for her own. In addition there was the immense problem of the defence of the Channel itself, still thought vulnerable if a French squadron could be assembled elsewhere in the world, say the West Indies, and descend upon it in sufficient force to avoid or brush aside the Channel Fleet. On Cornwallis's shoulder fell the awesome burden of ensuring St Vincent's words were true, and Cornwallis had transformed the slack methods of his predecessor into a strictly enforced blockade, earning himself the soubriquet of 'Billy Blue' from his habit of hoisting the Blue Peter to the foremasthead the instant his flagship cast anchor when driven off station by the heavy gales that had bedevilled his fleet since the New Year. It was clear that the responsibility and the monotony of such a task were wearing the elderly man out. Drinkwater sensed he would have liked to agree with the current opinion in London that the threat of invasion had diminished.

'Did you see much of the French forces or the encampments, Captain?' asked the stranger.

'A little above Boulogne, sir, but I was fortunate in having a favourable easterly and was ordered out by way of Portsmouth and so favoured the English coast. I took aboard the Admiralty papers at Portsmouth.'

'It is a weary business, Captain Drinkwater,' Cornwallis said sadly, 'and I am always in want of frigates… by heaven 'tis a plaguey dismal way of spending a life in the public service!'

'Console yourself, Sir William,' the stranger put in at this show of bile, and with a warmth of feeling that indicated he was on exceptionally intimate terms with the Commander-in-Chief. 'Consider the wisdom of Pericles: "If they are kept off the sea by our superior strength, their want of practice will make them unskilful and their want of skill, timid." Now that is an incontestable piece of good sense, you must admit.'