Читать книгу The Captain from Connecticut онлайн

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"Why don't we fight her, Jos?" asked Jonathan--when the crew were at quarters his station was on the quarterdeck at the captain's orders, so that he was in his right place, but Josiah wondered sadly how long it would take the boy to learn the other details of naval life.

"You must take your hat off when you speak to me, Jonathan," he said, "and you call me 'sir,' and you take your hand out of your pocket, too," he repeated patiently--he had said it all before.

"Sorry, Jos--I mean sir," said Jonathan, lifting his hat with the hand from his pocket. "But why don't we fight her?"

He jerked his thumb over the taffrail to indicate the pursuing enemy.

"Because she's twice as strong as we are," said Josiah. "And with this sea running she's three times as strong--we could never open our main-deck ports. And besides----"

Josiah checked himself. Anxious though he was for Jonathan to learn, this was not the time for a long disquisition on tactics and strategy. The two-decker had twice the guns the Delaware had, some of them heavier than the Delaware's heaviest. She had scantlings twice as thick, too--half the Delaware's shot would never pierce her sides. However heavy a sea was running she would always be able to work her upper deck guns as well as her quarterdeck and forecastle carronades, and her clumsy bulk made her a far steadier gun platform, too. From a tactical point of view it would be madness to fight her; and from a strategical point of view it would be worse than that. Here he was on the point of escaping into the open sea. Once let him get free, and he would exhaust England's strength far more effectively than by any battle with a ship of the line. He could harass her fleet of merchantmen so that twenty frigates each as big as the Delaware would be engaged in convoy duty. He could be here to-day and there to-morrow, threatening a dozen places at once. The brigs and the sloops with which England guarded her convoys from privateers would be useless against a powerful frigate. If anything could force England into peace it would be the sort of pressure the Delaware could apply. There was nothing whatever to be gained by an immediate encounter with a superior force--such an encounter could only end in his having to put back for repairs and submitting once more to blockade.