![]() ![]() Vorstenbosch addresses his clerk: "We may record our verdict. ![]() ![]() "I spit on your drumhead trial."Ĭaptain Lacy issues a gargantuan belch. "That," Vorstenbosch asks, "was your closing statement?" The old whale-oil lantern sways and hisses. ![]() In such times, Vorstenbosch, a man's sole insurance is salable goods in the warehouse.Why else, for God's sake, are you here?" The British seized the Cape, Coromandel, and Ceylon without so much as a kiss-my-arse, and that Java itself is their next fattened Christmas goose is plain as day! Without neutral bottoms like this"-he curls his lip at Captain Lacy-"Yankee, Batavia would starve. Why so certain there'll still be a company to pay us in five years' time? Amsterdam is on its knees our shipyards are idle our manufactories silent our granaries plundered The Hague is a stage of prancing marionettes tweaked by Paris Prussian jackals and Austrian wolves laugh at our borders: and Jesus in heaven, since the bird- shoot at Kamperduin we are left a maritime nation with no navy. Chapter Two: Captain Lacy's Cabin on the Shenandoah, Anchored in Nagasaki HarborĮvening of J"How else," demands Daniel Snitker, "is a man to earn just reward for the daily humiliations we suffer from those slit-eyed leeches? 'The unpaid servant,' say the Spanish, 'has the right to pay himself,' and for once, damn me, the Spanish are right. ![]()
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