DELANCEY had been invited to dine at Suffolk House, Prince of Wales Island, and his host, Mr William Phillips, had asked him to bring one of his officers as a fellow guest. Greenwell had been his choice and Delancey, having hired a two-horse palanquin, told this officer what to expect. He had to confess to himself that Greenwell was not the ideal fellow guest, being round-shouldered, haggard in appearance, and tongue-tied in company. Delancey had supposed, however, that the experience would be good for him. Leaving the harbour area they could see, looking back, the Albion (74 guns) at anchor, together with the frigates Duncan and Caroline and the sloop Seahorse.
“Mr Phillips,” he explained, “is Collector of Customs and Land Revenue. He is not a Member of Council but he affects a superior style of living. He plans, I have been told, to make Suffolk House a smaller copy of the Governor-General’s palace at Barrackpore. It already has a park, it seems, and begins to look out of the ordinary. The dinner to which we have been invited will follow a pattern set by the Dutch in Java. You are used to curry, I know, but this will be something more elaborate. It is usual to drink beer with it rather than wine and it is followed by a Malay dish of sago, coconut milk, and gula Malacca.”
“What is gula Malacca, sir?”
“A sort of molasses derived from the palm tree. It has a cooling effect after the curry—not that Malay curry is so very hot, compared at least with what they have at Madras.”
“Seems to me odd, sir, that people who live in so hot a climate should like curry at all.”
“Well, they have the spices and so maybe incline to make use of them. Our fellow guests on this occasion will include Sir Edward Pellew, Captain Macalister, and a number of Mr Phillips’s colleagues in government.”
“I hear, sir, that the Admiral was a guest last night on board the Earl Camden.”
“Yes, and Captain Woodfall deserves the compliment. We are fortunate to be serving under Sir Edward’s flag. Did you ever see him before?”
“No sir. Like everyone else I’ve heard tell of him for years past. When he was a captain I have been told that he could race any midshipman to the topmast-head, giving him to the maintop. He is remembered as the man who sank the Droits de l’Homme and who rescued the crew of the Dutton, East India-man, when she was wrecked at Plymouth.”
“Yes, he is an almost legendary character. But he is Commander-in-Chief for the first time and has no easy task. He has about thirty ships in all and has with these to defend all the commerce of India against the French cruisers and privateers.”
“Wouldn’t he do better to capture their base?”
“This is, no doubt, what he would prefer to do. But for that he needs the co-operation of the Government of India. They have not so far seen fit to provide the troops. If they were to lose a few Indiamen they might think differently.”
The two sturdy ponies from Acheen in Sumatra were plodding more slowly as the track grew worse. On one side was a pepper plantation, on the other an area of virgin jungle with immensely tall trees and, beyond them, the distant summit of Penang Hill. Their vehicle stopped for a few minutes while the Malay syce went to inspect the planks of a dubious bridge. It was then that Delancey became aware of the noise, the call of the birds, the continuous sound of the cicadas, the rustle of the treetops. There were also myriad scents, the less acceptable coming from a Chinese hovel by the wayside from which a slant-eyed child gazed at them in solemn wonder. It was hot and humid and the two officers had removed their uniform coats and loosened their cravats. Presently their syce returned and their journey was resumed. Ten minutes later they entered the grounds of Suffolk House, which could be seen on the rise to their left. Delancey and Greenwell now put on their uniforms, adjusted their cravats, and reached for their hats. Curving up the hillside, the drive finally brought them to their destination, a timber-built, palm-thatched, white-painted house in the local style. A veranda surrounded it on the first floor and there was an open-sided room over the carriage port into which their carriage was driven. Indian servants came forward to open the vehicle’s door and the visitors were ushered upstairs to find their host awaiting them on the first floor. He was a youngish man with a red face, in shirtsleeves and holding a wine glass.
“Come in, gentlemen, come in! Captain Delancey, your servant. And this officer? Mr Greenwell, I am happy to make your acquaintance. And do please remove your coats and loosen your cravats. It is hot enough in this climate without being overclothed as well!” Delancey and Greenwell discarded the garments they had just put on and bowed to the company at large. “And now you must meet my other guests. I need not introduce you to Admiral Sir Edward Pellew, nor perhaps to Captain Macalister. Allow me, however, to present Mr Hobson, Mr Robinson, Mr Erskine, and Mr Ibbetson. Captain Laurence of the Albion . . . Mr Riley of the Admiral’s staff, Mr Barstow of the Duncan . . .”
Sitting down, Delancey found himself next to Captain Macalister, a Member of Council and Commander of the Company’s troops in the island.
“I am interested to meet someone of your name, Captain Delancey. It is not, I should say, a common name and yet there is—or was—another Delancey in the East Indies. Could it be a relative?”
“I had an elder brother who went to sea and to India but I have heard nothing from him for years and had assumed that he was dead. He was mate at one time of a parsee-owned country ship out of Bombay but that was when I was a midshipman. Is he really still alive?”
“There was a man of that name here in Georgetown and he had certainly been mate in a country ship. He sustained some injury, however, which brought him ashore as a ship’s chandler. He was here for some years and I remember him quite well. Then he went to live on the mainland, in Kedah. I last heard of him in Malacca but was told at the same time that he had left there. Your brother—if it is your brother—would seem to be a rolling stone. Does that sound like the character you knew as a boy?”
“Yes, sir, I think it does. He was a good seaman, I fancy, but wild and unruly, seldom out of trouble.”
“Well, now you mention it, the Delancey I knew had a rather dubious reputation. I cannot recall now whether anything was proved but his departure was welcome, I think, to the government. He had children by a Malay and finally deserted her and them. He is not a relative who would do you credit and I shall not mention the possible relationship to anyone else.”
When dinner was served Delancey found himself on the Admiral’s right. Pellew was a vigorous man of middle age, with piercing eyes and hearty manner, somewhat running to fat but looking like the great seaman he was known to be. Their first meeting had been merely formal but the Admiral now studied Delancey with some care.
“I am glad of the chance that has made you my neighbour at dinner,” said the great man (but was it mere chance?). “I have heard about you from Woodfall, on whom you have made a great impression. By his account you saved the China Fleet!”
“He is too generous, Sir Edward. Most of the credit should go to the Commodore himself and not a little to the other commanders.”
“That is not their opinion, and I have learnt more from them than from your report.”
“I excluded from my report all mention of tricks we may wish to repeat.”
“We’ll never dare repeat that one. I take your point, however, and applaud your brevity. Your immediate reward will be a good dinner. Look at that—our opponents in line ahead!”
The dinner table had been laid in a central room, opening on the veranda at either end and cooled by a through breeze and by the punkah overhead. The Admiral, on their host’s right, was being offered rice, to begin with, from a large wooden bowl. The white-uniformed servant who carried it was followed in succession by thirty-one other servants, the leaders bearing dishes of curried meat, chicken, or fish, with the more junior servants bringing up the rear with the sambals (chutney, bananas, prawns, cucumber, and so forth). Mere politeness compelled each guest to take a little from every dish and even the most cautious ended with a small mountain of food on the plate. Those who had begun with too much temerity were puzzled at the end about where to put the last delicacies which were offered. Wine was provided but most people preferred beer. They were soon mopping their foreheads as the curry had its effect and many began to feel unbearably replete.
“Rice fills you up,” the Admiral explained, “but the effect wears off, leaving you with some appetite for supper. One feels at this stage that one will never be hungry again!”
Hardly were the first plates empty before the column of servants re-formed for a fresh attack, but few would accept more than a token replacement. Then the toasts were proposed, to the King, to the Royal Navy, to the East India Company, to the prosperity of the island. By then the sweet was being served with a cooling effect and with it the formalities were relaxed.
“For your skirmish with Commodore Garnier you deserved a good dinner,” said the Admiral to Delancey, “but you also deserve a relief from convoy duty. Perhaps you will have heard the name mentioned of Pierre Chatelard, commanding the Subtile?”
“The French privateer? Yes, sir.”
“I want the Subtile destroyed.”
“She will not be easy to take, sir.”
“Nor is it enough to take her. I want her burnt, sunk or completely wrecked.”
“And that is to be my task?”
“Yes, I think you are the man to do it. In the ordinary way we treat privateers like mosquitoes. We have some sort of mosquito net to keep them out of particular places like the Bay of Bengal. We slap at them when they bite us. We never plan a systematic hunt for one particular mosquito. But this man Chatelard has gone too far. I mean to detach a frigate with no other duty, her orders to destroy the Subtile. I need a captain with brains and I think you should be the man. Have I made a good choice?”
“I may be as good a man as the next. But it is not a task that everyone will want. A privateer is not a Spanish register ship from which to make a fortune. She is not a French frigate from the capture of which a captain might gain credit. Out of a privateer destroyed we cannot even make prize-money. I have given some thought, however, to the problem posed by Pierre Chatelard and have reached one conclusion. It is this, that Chatelard acts upon information received from spies on shore, one of them probably in this settlement.”
“Why are you so sure of that?”
“Because he has no failures. If one of our sloops were to turn pirate, the first merchantman her captain saw would have naval escort, the second would be too heavily armed, the third would be too fast, and the fourth would be in ballast. The Subtile is never outsailed or outgunned. She appears in the right place at the right moment, clearly as the result of good intelligence.”
“One might think that you had commanded a privateer.”
“I did command one, years ago.”
“That being so, you are the very man I want. I shall give you your orders in writing tomorrow but their substance I give you now—“Find and destroy the Subtile.” Do you think you can do it?”
“I think it probable, sir. But you must be prepared to accept a heavy loss of life. Cruising among the islands will lead to sickness among my crew, the result of proximity to all these pestilent swamps. Destroying the Subtile may mean the destruction of the Laura as well.”
“A heavy price, I must confess. But I have to confront the government, the merchants, and underwriters and they leave me no alternative.”
“Would you think it wrong of me to ask for a reward?”
“What do you ask?”
“For the Laura to be sent home.”
“I’ll do my best. Failing that, I could transfer you to the Cape, as a move at least in the right direction. By next year we may regard the Laura as worn out. She would have been built in—let’s see—in about 1775? At the beginning of the last war?”
“No, sir—in 1773.”
“Thirty-three years . . . yes, she’s an old ship. She should be sent home in 1808 at latest and this I shall be prepared to recommend.”
“Thank you, sir. My chances of locating the Subtile would be greatly improved if your staff could list the prizes she has taken and the location of each capture.”
“Tell Riley what you want. I gather, by the way, that Chatelard has been extremely kind to his prisoners; they all live to tell the tale.”
“The good privateersman is always humane, sir. He thus encourages merchantmen to surrender without a fight.”
“You know the trade too well, Delancey. I wonder you gave it up!”
“To be a successful privateer, sir, one needs to be on the losing side. Our privateer commanders made fortunes during the last war. It is the French who have their opportunity in this.”
“And that’s a fact and be damned to them!”
It was late afternoon when the dinner ended, everyone more than replete. As if by magic the different carriages began to appear at the door. Waiting their turn to say good-bye, Delancey and Greenwell could look across the straits to the mountains on the mainland culminating in Kedah Peak; the green carpet of jungle trees darkened by a cloud shadow moving slowly towards them. As they watched, the peak was blotted out by greyness. The wind had risen and the air felt cooler as they left. “If you ask me,” said Greenwell, “I think it is going to rain.” As their carriage drove off the two officers, who had donned their uniform coats before leaving, removed them again, reflecting that these garments existed in the East only for the purpose of a very fleeting ceremony. The sky presently darkened and a few drops of rain fell, at which their syce, smiling broadly, produced two umbrellas made of oiled paper on a bamboo frame.
“A cheap imitation,” said Greenwell. “I could wish that I had my boat cloak.”
“On the contrary,” replied Delancey, “I have been told that the umbrella was invented in these parts and took this form, of which the European version is the copy. As for your boat cloak, you would be as wet with perspiration in it as you are going to be without it.”
“I see what you mean, sir.”
Abruptly and without further warning the downpour began, such rain as Delancey had never seen before. It fell solidly as if thrown down by invisible buckets. They were wet through in a matter of seconds and no conceivable umbrella or cloak could have made the slightest difference. Rain drummed and bounced on the track, cut through the foliage of trees, and turned each ditch into a miniature river or torrent.
The whole world had turned, seemingly, to water, a fact which gave amusement to their driver if not to the ponies. The vehicle was finally brought to a halt under a clump of trees which offered a little protection. Ten minutes later the rain stopped and the sun came out again, turning much of the water into vapour. In the atmosphere of a Turkish bath the journey was resumed and the two-horse palanquin brought them back to the waterfront near the fort, the point from which their journey had begun. Delancey had been given a great deal to think about.
Calling next day on the Admiral, Delancey was given his written orders and told to victual his frigate for a six-month cruise. The flag lieutenant gave him, in addition, a list of captures made by Pierre Chatelard. To this was added a sealed letter, to be opened after the capture of the Subtile, authorizing him (he was told) to proceed to the Cape. A further sealed packet was to be opened after twelve months if the Subtile should have eluded him. Armed with these various orders, Delancey said good-bye to the Admiral with a certain finality. “Remember,” Sir Edward concluded, “I don’t want to have the Subtile as a prize. I don’t want to have Chatelard as a prisoner. I merely don’t want to hear of them again!” Going back to the Laura, Delancey placed the list of captures alongside the chart and neatly marked them in with the date of each. He dined alone that day and spoke to nobody, returning continually to the chart and studying what he must try to see as a pattern. The art of the thief-taker, he told himself, is to forecast the future crimes of one whose past crimes reveal a certain habit. If the same man broke into houses A, B, and C, we may know something at least about his preferences and methods. What could he tell, in the same way from a list of prizes taken?
The list read as follows:
One thing apparent from the chart was that Pierre Chatelard’s most valuable captures had been among the latest; probably the Susannah and the Ganges. These were the losses which had spurred the Calcutta merchants into activity and protest. The next point of interest was the apparent length of the cruise. No ship could remain so long at sea without returning to base for supplies. A man-of-war could refit at sea with the aid of a supply ship but a privateer could rely on no such system. The Subtile had sailed from Mauritius, but could not possibly have refitted there, or anywhere so distant, between October 28th and January 21st. That period represented, nevertheless, a break in her activities. In theory, Chatelard might have been merely unlucky during those weeks. But Delancey thought that unlikely. It was far more probable that he had withdrawn then from the trade routes in order to refit at some chosen port of call. How long would such a refit take? Pierre Chatelard was, he remembered, a man of the old regime who had been at sea before the revolution. He would almost certainly choose to be in port for Christmas with sucking pig as the chief item on the menu. Allowing time for the seasonal festivities he would want a month ashore, roughly the month of December. His chosen port must therefore be within three weeks’ sail of the Sandheads and at no greater distance from Pulo, Pangkor. The distance might be something over two thousand miles. It could not be in the Andamans or Nicobars. He doubted whether he could use a harbour in Sumatra without the fact being known in Penang, and the same argument applied almost equally to Java. The Subtile, he concluded, must have a secret base in Bali, Lombok, or Timor. But Timor, come to think of it, was too distant . . . His thoughts turned to Borneo, to a thousand miles of unexplored and imperfectly charted coastline. But much of this, he argued, would be too far away. The ideal base would be somewhere, surely, between Cape Datoe and Cape Sambar, somewhere more or less equidistant from the Straits of Malacca and Sunda. To search that area would be to cover six hundred miles of coastline with little or no help from the primitive inhabitants. Before attempting such a search he would need better information than he now possessed.
Delancey thought now, as he paced the deck, of Chatelard’s system of intelligence. Suppose he had spies ashore at Bassein, Penang, Malacca, and Palembang, how could they communicate quickly enough with their employer? Take the case of an opium ship, laden with rice, wheat, piece goods, and specie (in addition to the drug). She would sail from Calcutta in January or thereabouts and call at all the major ports right down to the Lingga Archipelago, collecting tin, pepper, rattan, wax, and betel-nut before going on, eventually, to China. If the Subtile had a rendevous near Lingga, how could an agent at Malacca ensure that his information would arrive in time? In point of fact the only opium ship taken by the Subtile had been intercepted off the Sandheads, in the approaches to Calcutta, but what about the Macaulay, taken off Cape Rachado? Could news of her coming have been sent from Penang? It was true, of course, that an opium ship would lose time in discharging and shipping cargo but the boat which conveyed the message might equally lose time in finding the privateer. Was there a native boat suitable for the purpose? He decided at this point to take Mather into his confidence. After all, if he himself were to go down with fever, it would be Mather’s task to destroy the Subtile. So Mather needed to know all that his captain had been told or had guessed. Nor was Mather unhelpful when consulted.
“I should not have thought that the ordinary native boats were built for speed. I suspect that the bamboo slats in the sails of the Chinese craft give them some capability of working to windward. Sampans are slow, I should say, and the Malay prahus no better. But there was something I heard recently which might have a bearing on this problem. A lieutenant in the Seahorse had been ashore somewhere in the Riau Strait—maybe Pulo Bintan or thereabouts—and visited a Malay village where the men raced model boats against each other, betting on the result.”
“I never heard of that. But why is this relevant?”
“Well, sir, the boats were perhaps two feet long, each with an outrigger and a float on the end of it.”
“Yes?”
“The outrigger enabled each boat to carry a vast sail area in relation to its size. They could sail at a remarkable speed. The officer who had seen this tried one of these boats against his six-oared cutter. Pulling their utmost, his men were outdistanced each time, and still outdistanced when they hoisted sail. He was surprised at the result of these trials and wondered whether the Malays ever built full-size boats of the same pattern. If they did, he thought, they would be just as fast. But the Malays he questioned could give him no sufficient answer to his queries on this point, probably because they did not understand him.”
“Mr Mather, I am obliged to you. I understand that there are boats at Madras with an outrigger, called catamarans and designed so as not to upset in the surf. But success with a model is not quite the same thing as success with an actual boat. For one thing, no one is drowned when a model capsizes!”
“Very true, sir. But if there are small craft with an outrigger and a large sail area, they could be very fast indeed. They might not be suitable for the ocean but could work up a great speed in the Straits of Malacca. Should we see a craft of this kind we shall have the clue, perhaps, to the plan which Chatelard follows.”
“I agree. We should learn nothing, however, from intercepting such a vessel. She would carry nothing in writing, of that we may be sure, but her mere presence would show us how the trick is done.”
What further information they could obtain about catamarans in Far Eastern waters was contradictory and confused, some people having heard that such craft existed but none claiming to have seen them at sea. By one account they had once been common but had more recently gone out of fashion.
While still refitting and shipping provisions at Penang, Delancey received the following letter from the Admiral:
Sir—Captain Stavely of the Seahorse has recently been admitted to hospital with a serious illness, since when a medical board has reported that he must be invalided home. It is now my duty to appoint an acting captain to that ship and I have decided to promote Lieutenant Nicholas Mather into the vacancy in recognition of your success in the recent action against the French ships Tourville, Charente, and Romaine. You will accordingly direct Lieutenant Mather to assume command of the Seahorse, giving him the acting commission enclosed herewith. You will no doubt wish to promote one of your other officers as first lieutenant and one of your young gentlemen to the vacant lieutenancy. If you will submit the names for promotion I shall make out the acting commissions accordingly . . .
With this letter before him, Delancey reflected that this moment had long since been inevitable. He could not have expected to keep Mather any longer and had been lucky indeed to have kept him for so long. Now he would have to make do with Fitzgerald as first lieutenant, a handsome, black-haired, thin-faced man much admired by the ladies, a man with an attractive Irish accent but a poor replacement for Mather, an officer who was good in battle but no pastmaster in day-to-day training and management. At this point the deterioration of his crew would begin. His acting-lieutenant would be the Hon. Stephen Northmore, over the head of Wayland, who had failed the examination, leaving Topley next in line. Northmore would make a good officer, of this there could be no doubt. But what if Fitzgerald were promoted or killed? Greenwell would be hopeless as first lieutenant and Northmore would lack the experience. Losses, moreover, had begun on the lower deck, a petty officer and three seamen invalided out (all members of the one boat’s crew), one seaman drowned, and one marine private deserted. So it would go on, with no replacements to be found. In the meanwhile, he must congratulate Mather and wish him joy on promotion. He sent for him at once and came to the point:
“Mr Mather, it is my, pleasure and privilege to hand you your acting commission as Master and Commander of the Seahorse, succeeding Captain Stavely, who has been invalided home. I suggest that you call on the Admiral now and go on board the Seahorse tomorrow in the forenoon, returning to this ship for a farewell dinner at which your messmates will say good-bye to you. For my part I must thank you now for all your past service under my command. I could not have had a better first lieutenant. I am totally confident of your fitness to command your own ship and I look forward to hearing of your being made post. I shall do all in my power to further your career and have no doubt that it will be not merely successful but distinguished.”
More unnerved than Delancey had ever seen him, Mather stammered his thanks and withdrew. Interviews followed with Fitzgerald and Northmore, with Greenwell, Wayland, and Topley. A weakened team had to re-group so as to face the future. If only Greenwell had any personality, if only Wayland had any brain!
The Admiral sailed next day for Madras, taking his squadron with him and leaving the Laura to complete her refit and proceed on her mission. The farewell dinner for Mather was followed next day by a farewell dinner on board the flagship. All seemed very quiet after the squadron had gone. Leaving Fitzgerald to find his feet as first lieutenant and leaving Northmore to have his new uniform made by a Sikh tailor in Georgetown, Delancey spent time ashore making discreet inquiries about possible enemy agents. He found that Penang had been visited last year by a slightly suspect European who had described himself as a missionary and who had presently been asked to leave. If his object had been to set up a network of native agents there was little hope of identifying his representatives in Georgetown. There were swarms of tradesmen there, Chinese, Eurasian, and Indian, and almost any one of them might serve his purpose, few of them feeling any particular allegiance towards the East India Company. One government official, the Assistant Secretary, proved particularly helpful—being fluent in Malay—but he offered little hope of finding the needle in this particular haystack. He knew of the Malay type of catamaran but had never actually seen one in Penang harbour. Nor could he see that such a craft could serve any useful purpose, whether for fishing or for trade. That Pierre Chatelard should have a system of intelligence seemed to him very possible and he promised to look out for any sign of espionage. He told Delancey what he knew about Borneo but admitted that he had never been there. He was evidently a keen antiquary and told his guests at dinner one day that the ancient capital of Kedah lay buried somewhere in the jungle, perhaps near the foot of Kedah Peak. He had heard stories about it and had been shown one or two carved stones said to come from there. The conversation centred presently on the future of Prince of Wales Island. Trade was flourishing there but the place, it was now clear, was far from deserving its reputation for health. Many had died recently of malaria and there had been too many deaths from the liver complaint. The one certain fact was that seamen fared better at sea or even in harbour if prevented from going ashore. On land there was nothing as fatal as the pestilent swamps which surrounded many a river mouth. What no one could understand was why Georgetown, surrounded by recently cleared jungle, was as unhealthy as it was proving to be.
As the process of refitting and victualling came to an end Delancey had the opportunity to write home.
April 25th 1806
My dearest Fiona—My last letter, of immense length and full of detailed information, went with a man-of-war to Madras but the opportunity occurs to write again, entrusting the letter to a ship which should reach home even sooner. Our stay here is nearing its end, the chief event being the promotion which has deprived me of my first lieutenant, Mr Nicholas Mather, whom you will remember. The promotion was more than justified but I cannot persuade myself that his replacement will leave me with so little to do! It is all too likely that we shall have other losses and that I shall have to work harder as time goes on. You might suspect that I might as readily fall sick as anyone else but I never think that at all likely. I feel (wrongly, no doubt) that I am indispensable and that, whoever goes sick, it must never be me. I dread the moment, however, when I become, in effect, my own first lieutenant because I was never very good in that role and have been spoilt for years by having, in Mather, the perfect deputy. This is a beautiful country and I have been royally entertained by the folk who are stationed here. I have made a friend of one rather junior official, Thomas Raffles, who is clearly the government’s chief source of inspiration and energy. Some more senior men think of themselves as in exile from London or Calcutta but this is his first overseas appointment and he is fascinated by everything. He has a charming wife called Olivia and a delightful Malay-style house full of native documents, and curios. With his help I have picked up some slight acquaintance with the Malay language and some slight knowledge of Malay institutions and folklore. All this may be useful in the months to come. But you will ask at this point how many months must pass before I begin the voyage home. The answer must be that I have no idea. In more cheerful moods I say ‘1807.’ When sunk in gloom, which is not very often, I groan ‘1810.’ I am now to be employed on ‘a particular service.’ You last heard the phrase applied to Sir Home Popham’s conquest of the Cape. On this occasion the service is different to this extent that only my own ship is involved. All else is secret and I must say no more lest the enemy should see this letter. Do you remember young Northmore? He now dons his uniform and wears his sword as acting lieutenant and I expect to see my other midshipmen similarly transformed, boys made into men with a stroke of the pen! I wonder how they will do as officers and then I remind myself that older men long ago had as many doubts about me, and perhaps with more reason! Mine was a chequered career, God knows, but I am now a grave and responsible officer, older than most people on board, and no youngster can imagine that I was once of his age and thought (at one time) to have no future at all. I shall reveal no important information if I tell you that I shall presently visit Malacca, for long the chief city in the Straits of that name, fortified by the Portuguese but now dwindled in importance. It is said to be picturesque and I may be tempted to portray its crumbling glories in watercolour. I have made several sketches of Penang but will not attempt to send them home. You shall hear of all these places some day when seated by the fireside at Anneville and our friends will mutter to each other “How tedious the old man is with all his tales of the East!” This thought warns me to curtail my description now and end this letter, asking you to believe me still, and always,
Your most affectionate husband,
Richard Delancey
