"Spite, sir, pure and simple!" Lewrie managed to declaim.

"Spite, perhaps, on Colonel Cashman's part," Nicely countered. "A parting jape on the whole detestable Beauman clan, and an expensive one. For, wherever your friend Cashman lit in the United States, the dozen fit and young slaves would prove useful in a new farming venture, or a source or ready funds, if not, but…"

Nicely had drawn out that "but," turning it into a descending glissando worthy of a dying diva's final aria, nailing the first spike into the coffin lid by adding, "Of late, though, Hugh Beauman, head of their clan, has heard-tell that your crew has quite a few more Cuffy sailors in it than the usual frigate so long on station in the Caribbean."

"Why, those bastards!" Lewrie spluttered, summoning up every shred he could muster that even resembled righteous indignation, and whey-faced innocence. "Cashman slew Ledyard, /killed one of Hugh's cousins, so…! Before your time, sir, in my midshipman days during the American Revolution, Lucy Beauman and I were, ah… friendly. We even considered a union, should I earn a commission, but the Beaumans would have none of it. Almost had t'duel one of 'em then! Barred the house, Lucy and I cut off…!"

He pointedly didn't supply that he'd been rogering a scandalous older "grass-widow" on the side whilst trying to squire Lucy, that he had escorted Hugh's married sister, Anne, about town unchaperoned one day, and not his fault, that faux pas in gentlemanly behaviour.

"So I have learned, Lewrie," Nicely had sternly muttered. "Just as I'm aware of the Beaumans' threats on your life following the duel, which Mister James Peel of the Foreign Office took seriously enough to discover to me, and get you and Proteus safely out to sea, and out of their reach. We are all aware of that."

"Ah… we, sir?" a stalwart Capt. Lewrie had quailed.