Truth is

Truth is .... out here on the high water markers of the Western Clyde and the Scottish Seas it is not so easy to tell. Old greybeard of the Grey Wolf is around somewhere too up here near the Icelandic coastlines and there are one or two French ships too around. Russian cargo vessels carrying silver in the main is what the old greybeard likes to raid as one of the older sort of pirate he has much to quarry on russian ships out of Murmansk on their runs to Rekjavicar and Greenland and St George's Newfoundland. The Hanseatic League of ports have approached us to go look out for this character on our sealanes but he is very alussive if not elusive and has painted his ship in grey so as to be invisible in the usual fogs up here in the northern silver seas of mercurio. Not easy spotting this one - very hanseatic himself - and drinks alot of vodka and rum. Still we shall endeavour to find him for the old Tsar Vladimir's sake. And sned him and his crew back to Port Royale with his tail between his legs.

Anyway

Anyway that was Scotland. Nice harbours and nice women but they all speak gaelic now on these shores so God knows what they are saying anymore. So we have stocked up with supplies, lemons and limes and oranges and fresh water, and we are now setting sail for the high seas to go look for pirates like old blackbeard himself down around Jamaica on the other side of the Azores. Landfall in the azores or the canaries or madeira maybe by tea time next sunday evening. We shall see. Old blackbeard of New Maulem in Surrey is a bit of a wimp when it comes to it, but we shall face him and confront him about the black gold he has been stealing off Galloway Point with his trusted steed Capt Black Eyed P of the Black Eagle and his side-kick Capt Jake Sparrow of the Black Pert from the coastal resorts of Port Royale and Kingstown and Burkestowne this last year nr where the old Lusitania went down with all hands on deck. 

Gosh quite nice up here

Scotland and its many sea lochs are so lovely. It is so nice to sail around the coastal sights and towns via Oban and Tarbert and put in to old inns and coaching houses. Ah yes, nice to be on this side of the fiery Atlantic. I see the SS Neptune has been blasting away at anything that moves with a union jack on it - obviously a French revolutionary that hates anything coronal, but maybe this lady doth protest too much, and is keen to come over to the crown that she wants to blow apart. It happens like this to old sea captains - they yearn for a knighthood like old Capt Philby of the MV Sandyeel and Capt MacClean of the MV Corbeille du pain and then Capt Burgess of the SS Remington Steele - from the old supply French fleets of our Napoleon's historical trawlers that occasionally hang around the HMS Londinium or the many decked HMS Trinovantium. Life in a Republic can become quite tedious when there are no real benefits and no reward mechanisms except next year's revolution and nother guillotine to be built in French Canada or the colonies. Yes the Neptune is quite bored with revolution. Quite bored even with boredom and always feigning her death.

The gales the gales

The gales of the seventh sea are playing up at the moment, so it is everyman to the rigging. The boys inthe crow's nests above are struggling frantically, and the whole ship is shuddering under the strain. The seventh gale in seven days on the seventh sea, not far from the North West Passage. The captain too is nort looking too good, and his niece is down below, turning a whiter shade of pale, if not green, like the sea up here. We shall make for Hudson Bay and see if there is some safe passage to the St Lawrence River. All well on board and nobody lost over the side so far. The St Lawrence River is a good stretch but if we are friendly to the Hurons we might survive.

Et alors

Well this is a surprise. It appears we have found one of the rebel French piracy ships captained by none other than Capt Greybeard himself, known sometime in an alias as Capitaine Rolfe Harrison, the French pirate who once saved the life of Napoleon during a mutiny at sea, after Napoleon had ordered a return to Marseilles. This ship, the SS Neptune, or sometimes called the Grey Wolf, has been routing up and down the coastlines of the Bahamas for some time. We caught her off the coast of Bermuda not far from the colonial coast of New Spain or les ameriques. Herewith a picture of the Greybeard himself, Capitaine Dan Day Lewis in his real identity. Pirates are easily dealt with, usually by hanging, but Greybeard assures us that he is really an enemy of Napoleon the Great. The Repulse over and out.  

Phew

Phew. A close call today. We are tacking in a somewhat choppy sea with a few blusteries to the north, off the coast of Scotland, and now that we have turned in our Royal Navy enseign and adopted French colours for a while to see if we can attract any French corvettes and maybe fire a few broadsides, so life is very interesting. A new scottish navy is emerging and we have seen a few scottish square rigs around the northern silver seas of Tacitus fame just by Ullapool. The scots - a very int lot. A new French warship has appeared on the distant horizons though, a very big brown three-tier gunner, called the SS Corbeille de L'eau which is built a little like the old Sovereign of the Seas, captained by a very thin-lipped mean miserly reptilian sort of napoleon-worshipper called Old Nick Kernet, nicknamed by the boys down below in our choir of happy lads as Capitaine Kernet the Frog. Grace a Dieu it is nearly night-time so we might slip into one of the islands to the north by the Shetlands for some supplies. Flying French colours is very attractive. A nice tricoloeur. And very big. Bigger these standard issues than we thought. We have all swapped uniforms too, but we must try to resist adopting revolutionary values too. This is only a fiction for the moment.   

Last we 'eard

Last we heard, there was another French corvette out there off the east coast of Canada carrying huron allies to the battle for Fort Bryan and its frosty environs. This ship, the SS Slipstreame, is captained by one of the most daring, dashing and devilish and scheming of all the doylieboy captains of the French Navy, a young petty officer rising through the ranks called Capt Audinette de Snape, one time sargeant in Napoleon's Iberian Army, but now transferred to the Imperial Revolutionary Navy. We have run into this one several times during the ins and outs of the 6 1/2 -year Indo-French Wars in Canada when the French made treaty with the Hurons and attacked a number of our British forts all along the frontier from Fort Michael in Columbia right along to Fort Andrew in Halifax and then along to Fort Brendan in Newfoundland. Capt Audinette de Snape is an able bodied seaman and with his cutlass he makes a difficult cuss of a snipe to snape. His superiors are a middle-aged and a middle ranking pair of officers called Chevalier Brian de Bolesy on board the SS Sous le Soleil and Capitaine Brian de Froste on board the SS Garcon Gris who like to make hay with the Hurons and the Crow and the Blackfoot, two evil scheming revolutionaries who have started many localised revolts around the colonies against the Royal Navy in the British Empire. A pair to watch. But not as dashing as Capt de Snape. Snape like his other half, Capitaine Garette de Galette-Walsh on the SS Bourgogne, is quite the done thing, quite the ticket, and recruiting many of our captains over to the Napoleonic Revolution. Am half tempted myself to go over to Napoleon. In my more insane moments. Still I might have lost my faith in Wellington but not my reason. Wellington always wins.