16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
quite right. It had slipped my mind.'
It should not have slipped his mind. For although
Shelmerston was well known for bold
enterprising expert seamen – Vidal himself had
armed a ship and cruised upon the Barbary
corsairs themselves with remarkable success –
it was even better known for its bewildering
variety of religious sects, some, like the
Sethians, with origins hazy in the remote past,
some, like the Knipperdollings, quite recent
but a little apt to be quarrelsome by land if a
point of doctrine were raised; and at the lovefeast
in Botany Bay a disagreement on the
filioque clause had ended in many a black
eye, many a bloody nose and broken head.
Jack repressed some reflexions on seamen
and theology, blue-light officers and tracts,
and said, 'Very well. I shall rearrange the
prize-crew. Peace at all costs. You shall have
the Sethians and I shall bring back what Knip-