"Of course, we pay them out when we get a chance," the captain replied. "It isn't likely we are going to stand being always put upon, and not take our chance when it comes. We only want fair trade and no favour, while those rascals want it all to themselves. They know they have no chance with us when it comes to fair trading."
"You know, captain, that the Genoese say just the same things about the Venetians, that the Venetians do about them. So I expect that there are faults on both sides."
The captain laughed.
"I suppose each want to have matters their own way, Messer Hammond, but I don't consider the Genoese have any right to come interfering with us, to the eastward of Italy. They have got France and Spain to trade with, and all the western parts of Italy. Why don't they keep there? Besides, I look upon them as landsmen. Why, we can always lick them at sea in a fair fight."
"Generally, captain. I admit you generally thrash them. Still, you know they have sometimes got the better of you, even when the force was equal."
The captain grunted. He could not deny the fact.
"Sometimes our captains don't do their duty," he said. "They put a lot of young patricians in command of the galleys, men that don't know one end of a ship from the other, and then, of course, we get the worst of it. But I maintain that, properly fought, a Venetian ship is always more than a match for a Genoese."
"I think she generally is, captain, and I hope it will always prove so in the future. You see, though I am English, I have lived long enough in Venice to feel like a Venetian."
"I have never been to England," the captain said, "though a good many Venetian ships go there every year. They tell me it's an island, like Venice, only a deal bigger than any we have got in the Mediterranean. Those who have been there say the sea is mighty stormy, and that, sailing up from Spain, you get tremendous tempests sometimes, with the waves ever so much bigger than we have here, and longer and more regular, but not so trying to the ships as the short sharp gales of these seas."
"I believe that is so, captain, though I don't know anything about it myself. It is some years since I came out, and our voyage was a very calm one."