Desolation Island (Aubrey & Maturin #5)

by Patrick O'Brian

He did not speak again for some while, and when he did it was to say in an obstinate, contentious voice, ‘They can talk to me about Captain Seymour and Lord Cochrane and Captain Hoste and all the rest of them, but I say our skipper’s the finest fighting captain in the fleet; and I served under Lord Viscount Nelson, didn’t I? I’d like to see the man that denies it. Who wiped a Spanish frigate’s eye in a fourteen-gun brig, and made her strike? Who fought the Polychrest till she sunk under him, and swapped her for a corvette cut out from right under their guns?’ ‘I know, Bonden,’ said Stephen mildly. ‘I was there.’ ‘Who set about a French seventy-four in a twenty-eight-gun frigate?’ cried Bonden, angrier still. ‘But then,’ he went on in quite another tone, low and confidential, ‘when we’re ashore, sometimes we’re a little at sea, if you understand me, sir. Which, being as straight as a die, we sometimes believe them quick-talking coves are dead honest too, with their patent knees and braces and goddam silver-mines, pardon the expression, sir. Now ’tis natural for any captain to think his command the finest ship that ever was: but sometimes, being stuffed up with knees and braces, we might perhaps think her finer than is quite reason, and believe it and say it too, without a lie.’