The Earl put the letter aside, opened the bundle and ran his eye over its contents.
"You are sure of all these men ?" "Quite." "You seem to have enough.

We mustn't overdo this, you understand?
It wouldn't do for the affair to--succeed." Captain Salt smiled.
"If they carry off a vessel or two," the Earl went on, "it's no great loss, and it will give Saint Germains the agreeable notion that something is about to happen.

They've been plaguing me again.
This time it's an urgent letter in my royal master's own hand.
He calls on me to bring over the whole army in the very first action--the born fool! Can he really believe I love him so dearly?
Has he really persuaded himself that I've forgotten-- ?" He checked himself; but for the first time that evening his face was suffused with a hot flush.

For, in fact, he was thinking of his sister, Arabella Churchill; and John Churchill, though he had made no scruple to profit by his sister's shame, had never forgiven it.
Captain Salt filled up the pause in his dulcet voice: "We want, my lord, such a mutiny as, without succeeding, shall convince England of the strong dissatisfaction felt by our forces at the favouritism shown by his Majesty towards the Dutch." "Salt," said his lordship, eyeing him narrowly, "you are remarkably intelligent." "Why, my lord, should I conceal my thoughts when they tally with my honest hopes?
I look around, and what do I see?
Dutchmen filling every lucrative post; Dutchmen crowding the House of Lords; Dutchmen commanding our armies; Dutchmen pocketing our fattest revenues.
England is weary of it.

I, as an Englishman, am weary of it.
My lord, if I dared to say it--" "Would you mind looking out and observing if the sentry is at his post ?" Captain Salt stepped to the door and opened it.