to
L17,000, was decreed as due also to the company of the _Algerine_,
numbering almost four hundred men, which left small pickings for
Captain Dickinson and his heroes. This was so obviously unfair that he
appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which
increased the award by the sum of L12,000, in which Commander the
Honorable J. F. F. de Roos and his belated treasure seekers were not
entitled to share. The influential committee of Lloyd's thought that
Captain Dickinson should not have been so bumptious in defending his
rights, and because he disagreed with their opinions, they ignored him
in a set of resolutions which speak for themselves:

"1st. A vote of thanks to Admiral Sir Thomas Baker, for his zeal and
exertions.

"2nd. The same to Captain de Roos, of the _Algerine_, and a grant of
L2,000 to himself, his officers, and crew, being the amount they would
have received had they been parties to the appeal.

"3rd. To mark the sense of the meeting of Captain de Roos's conduct,
they further voted to this officer a piece of plate to the value of one
hundred guineas."

In other words, an unimportant naval captain deserved this censure
because he had not been content to take what was graciously flung at
him by Lloyd's and the Admiralty, but had stood up for his rights as
long as he had a shot in the locker. There is something almost comic
in the figure cut by Commander the Honorable J. F. F de Roos, who
reaped the reward of another man's labors and received the formal
thanks of Lloyd's as the chief treasure finder of the _Thetis_ frigate.
Captain Thomas Dickinson was a dogged and aggressive sort of person,
not in the least afraid of giving offense in high places, and had he
not been of this stamp of man he would never have fought that winning
fight against obstacles amid the hostile cliffs and waters of desolate
Cape Frio. He shows his mettle in a fine outburst of protest, the
provocation for which was a sentence in a letter published in a London
newspaper while his case was under discussion: "Had Captain Dickinson
relied on the liberality of Lloyd's Coffee House, _he would not have
been a poorer man_."

This was like a spark in a magazine, and the captain of the _Lightning_
flings back in retort:

"Here, then we arrive at the development of the real feelings of the
Underwriters; here is exposed the head and front of my offending. Rely
on the liberality of Lloyd's Coffee House!! So that bec