Corsair by Dudley Pope

well, that being so, what’s it matter that Sir Harold hasn’t a ship to carry an envoy anywhere?”
    “All you know,” Aurelia said, “is that in the province of Colombia there can be no trade. But what about Cuba? Or Hispaniola? Puerto Rico? Their governors might allow it.”
    “It’s not what governors or viceroys will allow,” Ned said stubbornly. “It’s what Spain says. The Privy Council should have started negotiations in London, through the Spanish ambassador. This is a matter between London and Spain, between kings, not between a fool like Loosely and the governor of somewhere like Puerto Rico.”
    “I still think you should help Sir Harold,” Aurelia said.
    “So do I,” Diana said. “Old Loosely’s a fool, yes, but he has instructions from the Privy Council and it’s up to him to try to carry them out. Don’t forget it takes six months to get fresh instructions from London – three months for London to hear from Loosely that he can’t do something, and three months for fresh instructions to arrive.”
    “And you may get a new governor,” Aurelia said. “If Loosely annoys the Privy Council, they will replace him. Who knows who you might get then? This man is a disaster, but at least you now have him listening to you. A new one might make even bigger mistakes and ignore you.”
    Ned sniffed crossly. “So what do you want me to do? Take Heffer on a cruise, asking the Dons politely if we can sell them a few yards of cloth and a gross of needles?”
    “Very well, supposing the Dons say no,” Aurelia pointed out, “what have you lost? They say no and you come home. It isn’t as though you’ve lost a battle.”
    Ned looked over at Thomas, who grimaced. “The only place we’ve never raided is Santo Domingo, so I suppose we could take old Heffer there for him to talk to its governor. It’s not far to go, and we wouldn’t have to wait long for the governor’s answer, apart from the fact we won’t be recognized.”
    Aurelia brushed back her long, ash-blonde hair with her hand, a gesture which could mean either that she was impatient or too hot. “You’re just being stubborn Ned. You’re refusing to help the governor when you should be thinking about the island. Just suppose the Spaniards did allow a trade – what an enormous difference it would make to Jamaica. Why, the merchants could do ten times the trade. Five times as many ships would call here…”
    Ned said: “I can’t forget the buccaneers will end up starving because of that damned governor… The Dons regard them as pirates anyway, commissions or not, but commissions meant they could still use Jamaica as a base, and get their prizes properly condemned in the court.”
    “The buccaneers won’t end up starving,” Aurelia said crisply. “They’re all rich men. They could all buy enough land to start estates, just as we have done.”
    “Yes, they could,” Ned agreed, “and they’d be just as unhappy: never knowing whether to be on their estate or on board their ship.”
    Aurelia nodded: that was an argument she had to concede because, when she was up at the house she dreamed of being at sea in the Griffin , and when she was on board the Griffin she thought only of the cool house, the gardens now being cultivated, the flowering shrubs and trees growing, spurting higher with every shower of rain. She liked walking along the corridors; she enjoyed being in the kitchen discussing dinner with the cook. Yet there was the thrill of the Griffin pounding to windward, sheets of spray hurling back across the deck, the thrill of new landfalls, the thrill of wondering what new adventure was waiting over the horizon.
    But the governor was over there, in that house, which had been taken over as the governor’s residence, and he was a defeated man; defeated because he could not carry out his orders, and defeated because the former buccaneers would not help him.
    “Although you refused him a ship,” Aurelia said, “you don’t know