His equerryship seems to have led him to no particular good. “The smiles of princes,” says Mrs. Church, “are by nature evanescent.” The favour of princes at least, like that of other men, requires to be cultivated with due skill and attention. Possibly Marryat may have been wanting in the will or the capacity to practise the art. Certain it is that neither from the Duke of Sussex, nor from the duke’s royal brother, William IV., did he ever obtain any visible good beyond invitations to festivities which appear to have been of a somewhat dreary character. According to a story given in the preface to Bone’s edition of the “Pirate and Three Cutters,” and quoted on that authority by Mrs. Ross Church, the King, who all through his life seems to have been moved to do something silly whenever he remembered that he was a naval officer, was offended by Marryat’s condemnation of the press-gang. He not only refused to consent to the conferring of some mark of distinction on Marryat in addition to the C.B. given for the Burmah campaign, but would not even allow him to wear the Legion of Honour sent him by Louis Philippe as a reward for the code of signals. The story is credible enough of William IV., who, saving the reverence of the Crown, was very little better than a fool, and a spiteful fool, too, at times. The Admiralty of its own motion, or the Admiralty and the King together, seem to have decided that Marryat need not be employed again. In the enjoyment of literary success and liberty, he probably reconciled himself to the want of employment readily enough. He must have been prepared to do without it when he threw up his command. The Admiralty does not love captains who resign their ships. CHAPTER V. From 1830 to his death in 1848 Marryat was a working man of letters, and a busy one. His books were many, and they do not represent all his labours. There was a life of his old messmate, Lord Napier, begun--and stopped--at the request of the widow, and much miscellaneous journalism--if that is the correct description of contributions to magazines. His pen was rapid, and he had no fear of tackling new subjects, so that the length of the shelf which would hold his complete works would be considerable, and the variety of the contents of the edition not small. Sea stories and land stories, plays which never reached the stage, diaries on the Continent and in America, letters of Norfolk farmers, and didactic tales for children all went in.