16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
more unexpected by far is that he is
strongly opposed to slavery and that although
he holds a command from
which most officers have hitherto retired
with enough wealth to ballast the ship
that took them back to Spain, he is
quite poor. As for his hatred of slavery,
he shares it with several of my friends
who were also Knights of Malta and I
believe it comes from his time in the
galleys of the Order: and as for the
king's rudeness, it consisted of addressing
the general's father as 'my relative'
rather than 'my cousin', which was due
to his rank, an offence never to be forgotten,
since Hurtado is immeasurably
proud.
It was indeed the Knights of Malta who
brought us cordially well acquainted, for
although I had an excellent introduction