Quote#Wisdom
The last three ships we took proved to be manned entirely by orphans,…
Quote byW. S. Gilbert · 1836–1911
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Pirates of Penzance (1879), Frederick explaining to the other pirates why their merciful ways are incompatible with the profession of a pirate..
English (original)
The last three ships we took proved to be manned entirely by orphans, and so we had to let them go. One would think that Great Britain’s mercantile navy was recruited solely from her orphan asylums – which we know is not the case.
— W. S. Gilbert
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