Quite an unassailable position, one would imagine; but the irate Governors of the Turkey Company were able to procure, by some means or other, an order from the English Government that Turkish cargoes in French vessels were to be exempt from capture. Upon this order being communicated to the privateer captains and Admiralty Courts in the Mediterranean, it was expected that Wright would refund the prize-money; but he, very properly, as it appears, refused to admit that such an order could be retrospective--he had the money, and meant to keep it; and then there was trouble. Orders were sent from England to have him arrested and sent home; the Italian authorities obligingly caught him and locked him up, refusing, with singular and gratuitous crookedness, to yield him up to consular jurisdiction--and there he remained in prison at Leghorn for six months, when he was at length handed over to the Consul. Wright had, however, had enough of prison, and, upon giving bail to answer the action in the High Court of Admiralty, he was set at liberty. The action appears to have dragged on for two or three years, without result--at any rate, Captain Wright never refunded the money, and one cannot help feeling gratified at his success. He wrote, in June 1749, a long letter to the Consul in vindication of his right, which concludes as follows: "They attacked me at law; to that law I must appeal; if I have acted contrary to it, to it I must be responsible; for I do not apprehend I am so to any agent of the Grand Signior, to the Grand Signior himself, or to any other Power, seeing I am an Englishman and acted under a commission from my prince"; surely a most logical, and certainly a most dignified attitude. Peace restored, Wright engaged in commerce, in partnership, apparently, with William Hutchinson. They fitted out as a trader an old 20-gun vessel--the _Lowestoft_--which made several voyages to the West Indies--Wright continuing to reside at Leghorn. CHAPTER X FORTUNATUS WRIGHT--_continued_ In 1755 it became apparent that a renewal of hostilities between France and England could not be long delayed; and the staunch little _Fame_ not being again available, Wright had a vessel built for him at Leghorn--quite a small vessel, which he named the _St. George_. The Tuscan authorities were, however, in spite of declared neutrality, very strongly in sympathy with France, and they did not regard Captain Wright's little ship-building venture with any favour; in fact, they instituted a minute supervision over all English vessels in the port, and naturally, knowing his reputation, they paid particular attention to Wright's little craft; and thereby they stimulated that sense of humour which he had previously exhibited at Malta.