Sublime

The fleet consisted of 259 ships, including 39 battleships and heavy cruisers, manned by 63,000 officers, sailors, and marines, with an annual budget of $144 million—roughly 20 percent of all federal expenditures.11 The British Admiralty ranked it third in the world (behind Great Britain and Germany), but the numbers concealed the antiquated design

the Hercules’s lifeboats. Our American mole had reported that the ship they used is much faster than we were led to believe. He should call me soon to tell me how it went, but

American merchants even sold rice to China.

‘Now, gentlemen, this is a delicate business: we must not offend the Company’s officers, and some of them are very touchy – the least sense of ill-feeling would be disastrous. The men must be made to understand that thoroughly: no pride, no distance, no reference to tea-waggons, or how we do things in the Navy. Our one aim must be to keep their gun