The ship rolls and her timbers creak like a barn in a gale.

‘Have you considered turning apothecary ashore, Mr Nash?’

‘Not I, sir.’ Nash does not smile at the pleasantry.

‘I can see Nash’s Patented Elixir arrayed in a row of china bottles.’

‘Men of commerce, sir…’ Nash counts out laudanum drops into the pewter beaker ‘… for the most part, had their consciences cut out at birth. Better an honest drowning than slow death by hypocrisy, law or debt.’