16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
twenty-eight-gun frigate formerly belonging to
the Royal Navy but now acting as a privateer
too, manned by privateersmen and volunteers:
she was nominally commanded by a half-pay
officer named Thomas Pullings but in fact by
her former captain, Jack Aubrey, a man much
higher on the post-captain's list than would
ordinarily have been found in so small and
antiquated a ship – an anomalous craft entirely,
for although she purported to be a privateer
her official though unpublished status
was that of His Majesty's Hired Vessel Surprise.
She had set out on her voyage with the purpose
of carrying her surgeon, Stephen
Maturin, to South America, there to enter into
contact with those leading inhabitants who
wished to make Chile and Peru independent
of Spain: for Maturin, as well as being a doctor
of medicine, was an intelligence-agent exceptionally
well qualified for this task, being a