But in any case you will never be flogged- no, no you shall not be flogged,' he added, gazing with pure affection, and with something like awe, at so magnificent a prodigy, at an ignorance so very far beyond anything that even his wide-ranging mind had yet conceived. You must allow me to explain our naval ranks some time. Yet Jack, though no great scholar, no judge of a hexameter, was tolerably quick, and after gasping no more than twice he said, 'My dear sir, I beleive you have been lead astray by the words master and master and commander- illogical terms, I must confess. If Stephen had called the sophies stem her stern, or her truck her keel, he would have understood the situation directly but that Stephen should confuse the chain of command, the relative status of a captain and a master, of a commissioned officer and a warrant officer, so subverted the natural order, so undermined the sempiternal universe, that for a moment his mind could hardly encompass it. 'Yes,' said Stephen looking attentively at him, with his head slightly inclined to the left. 'The master?' cried Jack, with inexpressible amazement. After appearing in two stage productions during the mid-2000s, Pirkis made his film debut in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), after the film crew recruited him at his school, Eton College. 'Were I under naval discipline, could that fellow have me whipped?'He nodded towards Mr Marshall. Max Pirkis (born 6 January 1989) is an English actor. 'Tell me,' he said, in a low voice, some moments later. It is slightly unusual, though perfectly authentic, in having been issued by the local Commander-in-Chief ( Lord Keith) rather than by the Admiralty.“Stephen nodded. Jack Aubrey's commission as commander of the Sophie is given in full in the first chapter of Master and Commander. Somewhat confusingly, a commander who held a current commission - in other words, who was actually in charge of a vessel - was addressed and referred to as 'Captain ' despite the fact that he was not strictly a captain. This was very far from guaranteeing he would have a ship to command, since the number of commanders was often three or more times as great as the number of suitable vessels. It was not uncommon for a lieutenant who had distinguished himself in action (perhaps by leading a boarding party or commanding a cutting out operation) to be promoted to commander shortly afterwards. In recognition of this, the words 'Master and' were officially deleted from the designation of the rank in 1794, although undoubtedly many officers already in the service (such as Jack Aubrey) would have continued to use the old familiar form of words for many years afterwards. However, by the late eighteenth century all but the smallest sloops (those with ten or twelve guns and a total crew of 45) carried a warranted master as well as the commander. The rank developed in the late seventeenth century and derives from the fact that, originally, such an officer was required to function as his own master as well as exercising overall command. The primary function of an officer with this rank was to take command of a small naval vessel (a sloop) which did not qualify for any of the six rates and therefore did not merit a post-captain. A Master and Commander was a commissioned officer ranking above a lieutenant but below a post captain.
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