"I disparage no ship, Sir, for character is character, and none should
speak lightly of their fellow-creatures, and, least of all, of any thing
which follows the sea. I allow the Coquette to be a lively boat on a wind,
and a real scudder going large; but one should know the wright that
fashioned yonder brigantine, before he ventures to say that any vessel in
Her Majesty's fleet can hold way with her, when she is driven hard."

"These opinions, Trysail, are fitter for the tales of a top, than for the
mouth of one who walks the quarter-deck."

"I should have lived to little purpose, Captain Ludlow, not to know that
what was philosophy in my young days, is not philosophy now. They say the
world is round, which is my own opinion--first, because the glorious Sir
Francis Drake, and divers other Englishmen, have gone in, as it were, at
one end, and out at the other; no less than several seamen of other
nations, to say nothing of one Magellan, who pretends to have been the
first man to make the passage, which I take to be neither more nor less
than a Portuguee lie, it being altogether unreasonable to suppose that a
Portuguee should do what an Englishman had not yet thought of
doing;--secondly, if the world were not round, or some such shape, why
should we see the small sails of a ship before her courses, or why should
her truck heave up into the horizon before the hull? They say, moreover,
that the world turns round, which is no doubt true; and it is just as true
that its opinions turn round with it, which brings me to the object of my
remark--yon fellow shows more of his broadside, Sir, than common! He is
edging in for the land, which must lie, hereaway, on our larboard beam, in
order to get into smoother water. This tumbling about is not favorable to
your light craft, let who will build them."