HMS Proteus s return to English Harbour, Antigua, was actually not necessary, and mostly unproductive. The frigate's mail was still being held at Kingston, Jamaica, by the authorities of the West Indies Station, to which fleet she still putatively belonged, even after her long sojourn.
Thankfully, Lewrie's personal devils of late, Mr. Pelham and Mr. Peel, had long departed Antigua for other climes-all the way back to London, Lewrie fervently wished, so he could live his life free of their cynical machinations, ever more!
Antigua's Admiralty House atop Mt. Shirley held only one letter for him, and that from his new-found bastard son, Desmond McGilliveray, now a sixteen-year-old Midshipman aboard his uncle's (and the captain's) United States Navy Armed Ship, the Thomas Sumter. Desmond sounded as if he was thriving at his new profession, so eerily coincidental to Alan's own. Sumter had just embarked upon arduous and boresome escort duties to convoy a
trade" of Yankee merchantmen home and, most-like, would put back into her homeport of Charleston, South Carolina, for refitting and provisioning. Young Desmond chirped right-merry over the prospects of how much prize money might result from Sumter's-and her small squadron's-recent captures in the Caribbean: French merchant ships and several warships, too-ones that Lewrie had led them to, twice, using the reborn U.S. Navy as British cat's paws in Pelham's and Peel's scheme.
Desmond enthused how "half-seas-over" his hometown would be when they arrived with prizes in tow, how famous they might be once the news spread from Maine to Georgia, how eager he was to see his adoptive family once more. And, backhandedly, Desmond came close to boasting of a much better reception in Charleston society than he once had, strutting proudly in his uniform, a new-minted hero and promising gentleman seafarer. Which beat being shunned as a half-White, half-Muskogee Indian orphan all hollow, Lewrie sadly suspected.
Desmond happily enquired about Chalky, too; how large or playful the kitten had grown, etc. He'd been Desmond's gift, found shivering and cowering on the boat-tier beams of a French capture; rescued, then shyly presented to the father he'd never known, so heartbreakingly eager to please, to win Lewrie's affection, his claiming…
Lewrie looked over at the settee, where Chalky sprawled, teeth and little paws "killing" a cushion's tassel, and thought again, quite possibly for the thousandth time, that the lad had meant well, but…
His fears for Desmond's continued safety were allayed by news of Guillaume Choundas being detained on his parole aboard the USS Hancock, that monstrous frigate, which still cruised the Caribbean. Even so… did Choundas ever learn the boy's parentage, the seemingly indefatigable ogre might find a way to harm him, to get even with Lewrie. With a fond smile, Lewrie set Desmond's letter aside and pulled out the inkwell and one of his new-fangled, French-invented, steel-nib pens (one more parting gift from the lad off a defeated French corvette) to pen him a quick answer for mailing. After the British-American riots, when Proteus was last in English Harbour, he was pretty sure that the local authorities would wish them gone as soon as they'd wooded and watered. And not stand upon the order of their going, either! His working parties ashore were already limited to the docks area, and that under the wary guard of the local garrison! No, Proteus had already been absent long enough-it was time for a "fond" return to the bosom of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker's fleet on Jamaica, and the "warm" ministrations of the fleet's Staff Captain, Sir Edward "Bloody" Charles.