That amount, in British coin, is some 20,000 pounds sterling, which represents two days’ produce for the Mint at the Tower; so Lothar’s factor will have to deliver some three tons of bullion to the Tower mint no later than the 17th of June. This will present something of a challenge even to a man of Lothar’s resources, and so he has been careful to insert a proviso on the four 45-day bills stating that they must be presented to the House of the Golden Mercury, Change Alley, London, no later than fifteen days before the date of expiry, i.e., the stroke of midnight, 5 June.
I remind you that the English use a calendar that long ago was abandoned by the rest of the civilized world. It is ten days behind ours, and falling further behind with each tick of the clock. All of the dates I have mentioned in this letter are in the modern (French) system of reckoning; you must subtract ten days to get their English equivalents.
In all other respects this transaction is wholly normal and self-explanatory and should present no particular difficulties for you or your agents.
It has been my honor and privilege to be of service to France in this matter. I look forward to renewing our acquaintance at the Café Esphahan after the tumult of invasion has subsided.
Your humble &c.
Samuel Bernard
Cabin of Météore, off Cherbourg, France
2 JUNE 1692
FOR THREE DAYS Météore had been swinging about her anchor in a languid circle like the shadow on a sundial, driven by the comings and goings of the tides. Eliza lived in a great cabin at the stern. Had this been a warship or a merchantman, this would have been the private domain of the captain. One of its walls consisted of an arc of windows, as broad as the whole ship, staring abaft. When Eliza’s view through those windows consisted of the town of Cherbourg, it meant that the tide was flooding in from the Channel, pushing Météore east-southeast at the end of her cable. When the tide ebbed, then, and Météore swung round the other way, she ought to have enjoyed a view out to sea. Instead, for three days she had seen nothing but fog: a murk into which all her carefully laid plans had been slowly dissolving. Very occasionally, loud booming noises would come out of it as gunners on the lost ships would take aim and fire at dark patches that were making suspicious noises. But for the most part it was a source of cacophonous music: sailors blowing trumpets and whistles, beating drums, and calling out in English, Dutch, or French and rattling chains as they raised or lowered anchors, depending on whether they judged it less hazardous to drift with the tide or stay in one place.