"But, why go to America for a schooner, Captain Marble, when the
French are polite enough to give us one here, exactly where we are?"
"I begin to understand you, boy. There is a little consolation in the
idee, but this Frenchman has already got my commission, and without
the document we should be no better than so many pirates."
"I doubt that, sir, even were a ship to act generally, provided she
actually sailed with a commission, and lost it by accident.
Commissions are all registered, and proof of our character could be
found at home."
"Ay, for the Crisis, but not for this 'Pretty Polly'"--for so Marble
translated Petite Pauline--"The commission is only good for the vessel
that is named in it."
"I don't know that, Captain Marble. Suppose our ship had been sunk in
an action in which we took our enemy, could we not continue our voyage
in the prize, and fight anything that came in our way, afterwards?"
"By George, that does look reasonable. Here was I just threatening to
go out as a pirate, yet hesitating about taking my own."
"Do not the crews of captured vessels often rise upon their captors,
and recapture their own vessels? and were any of them ever called
pirates? Besides, nations at war authorise almost every sort of
hostile act against their enemies.
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