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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: something in the smallness of the numbers engaged, and the bleak
dangerous sea-surroundings, that made these acts of piracy far the
most revolting. I confess ingenuously I could never proceed unless
I was three parts drunk; it was the same even with the crew; Teach
himself was fit for no enterprise till he was full of rum; and it
was one of the most difficult parts of Ballantrae's performance, to
serve us with liquor in the proper quantities. Even this he did to
admiration; being upon the whole the most capable man I ever met
with, and the one of the most natural genius. He did not even
scrape favour with the crew, as I did, by continual buffoonery made
upon a very anxious heart; but preserved on most occasions a great
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