Miscellaneous

The delightful Yin has tagged me with this meme:

Here's the tag:

1. Pick up the nearest book (one of at least 123 pages)

2. Open the page to 123

3. Find the 5th sentence.

4. Post the next 3 sentences

5. Tag 5 people.

Here's mine, from Ian Toll's Six Frigates: the Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy.

More to the point, L'Insurgente was nearly 30 percent lighter than Constellation by tonnage, and she carried 12-pounders as her main battery of weapons, whereas the Constellation carried 24s.  By any objective measure the price was of lesser force than the Constellation.  But Truxtun and his officers employed a combination of bluster and obfuscation to convince their countrymen (and perhaps themselves) that the Constellation had triumphed over a more powerful opponent.

Because I am such a naval history nerd, I have to explain.  Back in the day, all "civilized" countries (yes, that's tongue in cheek) engaged in prize taking, where naval vessels (or civilian vessels carrying letters of marque) could capture enemy ships, and the officers and crew would share in the profit of the ship after she and the cargo were auctioned off.  Before that could happen, though, an admiralty court had to declare that the prize was lawfully taken.  Also, because it's not sporting, even for America, for larger ships to prey on smaller ones, whenever a ship took a less powerful opponent, half of the profits would go to a sailors' disability fund.  In case you're dying to find out what happens, Truxtun  gets busted, to a certain degree, and accepts a smaller valuation -- though still getting $8000 as his share (about $2 million today).  Reading this bit made me slightly less likely to pick up his bio in the TBR pile.

In digging up links for this post, I just discovered that the Constellation I climbed about in the mid-80s wasn't the rebuilt original, whatever the city of Baltimore said at the time.  Damn you, Baltimore. 

My major paper in law school was arguing that the marque and reprisal clause should be resuscitated and used to combat internet piracy.  Oh, it'd be glorious!

I tag: brother Phil, who is blog-less but not Facebook-less, Collateral Evidence, Isaac (I am curious to know what book Mr. Lacquedem has closest at hand!), The Q, and Stephen Fry (who does not read this blog, but it makes me giddy to link to him).