The French Prize Read Online Free Page B

dogs. They’re right off our coast, you know. French privateers sailing free as you please within sight of our very coast, and not a damn thing we can do about it.”
    â€œSpeaking of a navy,” Jack said, wishing to change the course of the conversation, but not so radically that his father would notice, “did I see the United States planked up and near ready to go down the ways?”
    â€œYes, yes,” Isaac said with enthusiasm, his mounting irritation with the French blown clean away. “Beautiful, isn’t she? Humphries is building her, as you know. He built the frigate I commanded in the War, the Falmouth , built her pretty much where the United States sits now.”
    â€œI recall,” said Jack, stabbing a substantial piece of meat with his fork and swaying it aloft.
    â€œA month or so, Humphries tells me, and she’ll be going down the ways.”
    Jack, his mouth now full of lamb, nodded. United States was one of six frigates that had been authorized in March of 1794, more than three years prior, back when it was the Algerians who were causing so much trouble for the American carrying trade. Now, with that crisis past and the Algerians having been bought off for nearly a million dollars and, most humiliating of all, the gift of a thirty-two-gun frigate thrown into the bargain, only three of the six were slated for actual completion. Happily, United States was one.
    Jack swallowed. “She looks just the thing,” he said. “And if Humphries has drawn her and built her she’ll be a good sea boat, I’ll warrant.”
    â€œShe has diagonal bracing, do you see?” Isaac said, holding up crossed arms by way of demonstration. “Diagonal, running fore and aft from the midships and drifted into each frame. It’ll keep her from hogging, despite the fine entry she has, and the weight of the guns.”
    Jack nodded. “Isaac, dear,” Virginia interrupted, “this is all terribly boring.”
    Jack looked at his siblings. Elizabeth, he could see, was indeed bored and doing nothing to disguise the fact. Nate was enjoying it because it was manly talk and seafaring talk, even though he probably did not understand it, at least not entirely. As for himself, he was finally finding the conversation stimulating, but his mother had spoken and that was an end to it.
    They moved on to more mundane topics, more mundane, at least, to Jack: talk of Philadelphia society, gossip about the other members of Congress, news of old friends from back home in Rhode Island. Jack discovered that President Adams had called a special session of Congress to consider the French problem. Isaac expressed amazement that he could have not known that. Jack pointed out that just a week before he had been crossing the Tropic of Cancer in a full topsail breeze.
    The meal passed in a more or less amiable manner. Despite Jack’s flashes of anger it was better than it had been in years past, when such an evening might have ended with shouting and slamming doors and his mother fleeing the room in disgust. But now he did not seem to feel that passion, and his father seemed less likely to provoke.
    Jack understood he was no longer a boy. He was master of a vessel now. I have my responsibilities , he thought, I am a responsible man now . That seemed to better explain his changed attitude, but then a twinge of pain in his ribs brought back memories of the night before, or what he could remember of it, and made him question just how responsible he really was.
    Maybe it’s the old man who’s growing up , he thought. Maybe it’s his attitude that’s changed.
    The shadows were long in the streets, the evening chill settling in on the city when Jack said his good-byes, kissed his mother, shook his father’s hand, teased his sister one last time, and assured his brother he could come by the ship when they were taking on cargo. He stepped through the door, down the four steps to