"A pretty thing," Lewrie said in seeming disparagement. "French, ye know."

"She's absolutely beautiful, sir," Lt. Urquhart replied, gazing at her with delight, despite the reception he would most-like receive for reporting aboard so late in the morning.

"Note her bows, though, Mister Urquhart," Lewrie went on as if to point out her flaws. "Much too fine. Fast, aye, but perhaps with less buoyancy than ye'd need t'ride a heavy sea, when it ships over the bow. She'll bury her 'nose,' like as not. And the Frogs don't space their hull timbers close, or thick, enough t'take heavy poundin'. She'll flex, in a full gale, and flll herself with scantling timber in a fight, without close-spaced, stout bracing. Kill a lot of men?"

"If Captain Lewrie has no qualms about her, sir, well…," Lt. Urquhart declared, before catching himself at being too argumentative with a strange

Post-Captain. "After all, sir, do not our own naval architects take off the lines of the newest French National Ships that we are able to capture, and emulate them? Better to serve aboard such a frigate than one of those much weaker and lighter-timbered new brig-sloops, sir," he added, with an attempt at a disarming smile.

"Like Lucifer said in Dante's poem, Mister Urquhart," Lewrie quickly riposted. " 'Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven'? I assume by your age, and the condition of your sea-chest, that you are to be her First?"

"Aye, sir… my first such commission," Lt. Urquhart proudly stated.

"Oo's fer 'is Savitch barkee, then, sirs?" the boatman at the tiller asked as his sole assistant handed the launch's lug-sail as the boat swung up to approach the frigate's starboard entry-port.