16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
to your three China ships' what will they say?
They are not man-of-war's men; and even if
they were...'
Stephen nodded. The argument was unanswerable.
But he was not quite satisfied. 'As I
was stuffing a green Andean parakeet this afternoon,'
he said, 'another thought came to
me. As you say, the Americans are capital
seamen: they beat us hollow in the Java, and
carried us prisoners away. Do you not feel that
attacking three of their China ships is somewhat
rash? Does it not smack of that pride
which goeth before destruction?'
'Oh dear no. These are not solid great
Indiamen, these are not thousand-ton Company's
ships that you could take for men-ofwar,
nor anything like it. They are quite modest
private merchantmen with a few sixpounders
and swivels and small-arms, just to