‘The gentleman was asking what you thought of democracy, sir,’ said Vidal, smiling.
    ‘Alas I cannot tell you, sir,’ said Stephen, returning the smile. ‘For although it would not be proper to call this barque or vessel a King’s ship except in the largest sense, we nevertheless adhere strictly to the naval tradition which forbids the discussion of religion, women, or politics in our mess. It has been objected that this rule makes for insipidity, which may be so; yet on the other hand it has its uses, since in this case for example it prevents any member from wounding any other gentleman present by saying that he did not think the policy that put Socrates to death and that left Athens prostrate was the highest expression of human wisdom, or by quoting Aristotle’s definition of democracy as mob-rule, the depraved version of a commonwealth.’
    ‘Can you suggest a better system?’ asked Dutourd.
    ‘Sir,’ said Stephen, ‘my words were those of some hypothetical person: where my own views are concerned, tradition seals my mouth. As I have told you, we do not discuss politics at this table.’
    ‘Quite right too,’ called out the merchant on Adams’ left. ‘If there is one thing I hate more than topics it is politics. Damn all talk of Whigs, Tories and Radicals, say I: and damn all topics too, like the state of the poor and slavery and reform. Let us talk about the enclosing of commons, annuities and South Sea stock, like this gentleman here, and how to make two groats where only one grew before, ha, ha!’ He clapped Martin on the shoulder and repeated ‘Two groats where only one grew before.’

• Jo Walton's Tor dot com reread post. This book is one of her favorites. I think she swaps Chile and Peru though. (I link these for plot summaries btw not to pick nits, just noting my confusion.)
• There's a lot of Aubreyisms in this one.
• Gunroom mailing list chatter 1 2.
• Maturin's medicine link again. Corrosive sublimate = mercury chloride.
• For other links see previous posts.

Disorganized Notes:
- Dumb-chalders are back and this time it's personal.
- From a post on the gunroom mailing list, yeah! there's a theme here of last minute ruin/salvation: the delicious guanaco throwing itself off a cliff, the near-abandonments of Stephen and Jack on boats, the prizes by Cape Horn then the peril of the two (unnamed) American ships of war and the iceberg and the lightning and Dundas's rescue, the near-success of the Peruvian plot itself. Lots of near things no matter how hard one tries. It's as one's fate hangs from a dumb-chalder. Rudders are lies.
- Franklin's captain tries the ol' lights-on-a-raft trick but Aubrey is so havingnoneofthatshit that it's not even worth narrating.
- Mr. Reade is fourteen.
- Mr. West's former "mild, good-humored, rather stupid face" has acquired malignity through noselessness "strengthed by a number of sombre reflections, recently acquired."
- West gets volcano-smacked and dies, and maybe Stephen put off the surgery too long, maybe not. He wonders; Martin backs him up. The wish becomes father to the thought: that just because a wish has become father to a thought, that doesn't prove the thought is false.
- West was kind of an nob topping-it-the type anyway.

- THE FALL OF REVEREND NATHANIEL MARTIN
- Martin wrecks himself so bad with guilt and mercury Stephen's like WELP BYE. Exit stage who-gives-a-shit.
- HOWEVER, Stephen is ironically incredibly strung out yearning for coca leaves through all this, and IMHO is imagining offenses from Martin, projecting disagreeableness onto him. Like, Martin takes a reasonable stand against "persistent indulgence" of drugs and Stephen is like, OMG the unforgivable insult that asshole Martin has just dealt me, poor Nathaniel Martin what sickness has burned in his mind to change him into a completely different person who is not the man I knew. Ah yes changing identity, a thing to ponder after Martin's ugly outburst. "Self-hatred usually seems more likely to generate hatred of others (or at least surliness and a sense of grievance) than mansuetude," Stephen writes to Diana, definitely talking about Martin.
- But Martin losing interest in birds and nature and becoming interested in adulting is some heart breaking YA end of majick stuff. ("velveteen rabbi": About 26,500 results.)
- Dutourd's attempts to increase access to Jack first go through Martin, but fail because Jack doesn't like Martin and his distance from Stephen is increasing. Probably would have failed anyway because they're never going to like Dutourd, but Martin does get used a bit.

- Jack notices Stephen moving, for the first time, like an old man, but somehow does not immediately tell Stephen he's an old crippled piece of shit who should get a cane.
- Knipperdollings are not true Knipperdollings but old Levellers, now social justice sailors.
- To be honest I completely lost track of where the Alastor, Franklin, and Surprise are and who's captaining which.
- Always reflections on superstition. Jinxing is the universal religion.
- Jack Aubrey weighs seventeen stone, acknowledges sixteen of them. Stephen has nine. They share sixes of toasted cheese in that proportion (4-2).
- Stephen has some memories of the French Revolution studying medicine in Paris, "when every disinterested, generous idea of freedom seemed on the point of realization, the dawn of an infinitely finer age." (What a book that would be...) Jack meanwhile is like, "Hooray for war." After this moment they have a good music session, overheard by Martin and Dutourd in a little scene of manners that's very good. Good use of the skylight in this book, see also midshipman smashing through it.
- Amalthea the goat.
- More of Jack's reflections on how "passing for officer" has also grown to mean "passing for gentleman" which is a bunch of mega classist bullshit that's probably bad for the RN.
- Retrospective passion about slavery.
- Spiteful decapod, being dissected arms held apart; Sarah and Emily not to say Monsieur Turd, or arse. Emily betrays: "She is always saying Monsieur Turd." Counting suckers. Pieces go straight to the cook.
- weevil-frass
- coin collector shoutouts maybe, w/ Dutourd's money.
- Nasty bloody battle for pirate-ish Alastor. Awkward Davies foams at the mouth. Aubrey gets pistoled point-blank, blasting his hat off, scalp wound from bullet and wadding in eye. Piked on the upper thigh. Rescue some slaves and "a few wretched little scented and rouged young boys", all put to work throwing bodies overboard.
- Slave trade was abolished in 1807 but Stephen can't remember when that was from within the time anomaly.
- Bonden takes a great cutlass slash, his ribs and breastbone exposed to public view.
- William Grimshaw makes shitty coffee.
- M. Audubon spurned new surgeon's assistant Fabien's watercolors.
- Slavery added to the already sufficient amount of Boney's evil, or perhaps sorted to the top. Proof of an evil system.
- The Inquisition though 🤔 Of a Marrano/ex-Jew: "one alleged dislike of pork – one seven-branched candlestick found in his house – no matter who put it there – and the familiars come for him." And Dutourd is denounced.
- Gregory's Liquid, Harris' Guaranteed Unguent, Carey's Warranted Arrowroot.
- whoreson pinchfart
- Jack enjoying imagining Stephen asking him to explain nautical terms like 'dish'.
- Joe Plaice is in his late 50s and a master casting net fisherman.
- Sam's dinner with prating Jack.
- In Stephen's ride up into the Peruvian highlands, the weird encounter passing a man on the road in a cloak, his horse having thrown a shoe, but taking the horse far enough off the road that no one will talk to him. Really effective at arousing worry/suspicion for the whole trip, but it's pretty safe.
- Eduardo maybe sounding Stephen for support of native uprising. Stephen sees this as doomed madness.
- Some Whiggish civilian decided days start at midnight but not in the RN by God.
- Vidal gets the boot for helping Dutourd escape.
- Bulkeley the facetious bosun (who flogged the shit out of his mate in the previous book) is put off the ship for too much cappabarre, including the ships (anachronistic) Snow Harris lightning conductor.
- Fun little ice mountain sea battle.
- Philip doing well on Dundas' Brerenice.
- Apparently Clarissa Oakes is already a widow now. Cheers!

    ‘Never despond, dear Stephen: remember that Bligh sailed four thousand miles in an open boat, with not a thousandth part of our stores. You will never despond, Stephen,’ said Jack with a very slight emphasis. ‘And I am sure you will never find any of the seamen do so, either.’
    ‘No,’ said Stephen, stifling his recollections of the terrible following seas during the frequent storms in these latitudes, the perpetual danger of being pooped, of broaching to, and of being lost with all hands in a turmoil of foam. ‘No. I shall not despond.’
    ‘And Stephen, may I beg you not to be facetious when speaking of the barky? The people are surprisingly susceptible, if you know what I mean, about her appearance. And if ever you intend to be complimentary, you might well be advised just to throw up your hands and cry “Oh”, or “Superb”, or “I have never seen anything better”, without being particular.
* * *
‘THE DOCTOR HAS been choked off for being a satyr,’ said Killick to Grimble.
    ‘What’s a satyr?’
    ‘What an ignorant cove you are to be sure, Art Grimble: just ignorant, is all. A satyr is a party that talks sarcastic. Choked off something cruel, he was; and his duff taken away and eaten before his eyes.’