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Sabatini, Rafael, 1875-1950

"Captain Blood"


His lordship did not omit the consideration that Blood's present
outlawry might well have been undertaken not from inclination, but
under stress of sheer necessity; that he had been forced into it by
the circumstances of his transportation, and that he would welcome
the opportunity of emerging from it.
Acting upon this conclusion, Sunderland sent out his kinsman, Lord
Julian Wade, with some commissions made out in blank, and full
directions as to the course which the Secretary considered it
desirable to pursue and yet full discretion in the matter of pursuing
them. The crafty Sunderland, master of all labyrinths of intrigue,
advised his kinsman that in the event of his finding Blood
intractable, or judging for other reasons that it was not desirable
to enlist him in the King's service, he should turn his attention
to the officers serving under him, and by seducing them away from
him leave him so weakened that he must fall an easy victim to Colonel
Bishop's fleet.
The Royal Mary - the vessel bearing that ingenious, tolerably
accomplished, mildly dissolute, entirely elegant envoy of my Lord
Sunderland's - made a good passage to St.


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