War by Edward Cline

Author:Edward Cline [Cline, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781596929487
Publisher: M P Publishing Limited
Published: 2006-10-29T18:30:00+00:00

At that moment in Hampton, Jared Turley, known to his Customs colleagues in Hampton as Jared Hunt, paced up and down the deck of the sloop-of-war Basilisk, proud as a captain. Formerly a privately owned merchant vessel that ran contraband, and named the Nassau, it had been converted into a warship by shipbuilders at Annapolis contracted by the Customs Service. It had been seized by the navy, and its owner, a notorious smuggler with “patriotic” sympathies, was charged with gross violations of the Navigation and other Acts by the Admiralty Court.

Hunt had chosen the new name for the vessel, a mythological serpent that could kill with its breath and glance. Hunt took the liberty of writing Governor Dunmore about the quality of the acquisition, boasting that it could probably better police the rivers of the Roads than any naval vessels or Customs cutters currently on duty in the Bay. “She is as slick as a trout in the water, sir, and I believe she has a glorious career ahead of her in service to the Crown. She will be managed by a loyal captain from the Eastern Shore, and he has assembled for the Basilisk an eager and hearty crew. He has also employed a Negro pilot who claims to know every rock, eddy, and sandbar in the Bay and in the rivers. She sports eight guns deck-side, in addition to a swivel. She is not impressive to look at when seen alongside a man-of-war, but she could level Norfolk or any town in this region just as thoroughly as one of His Majesty’s best ships.”

* * *

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.