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Talk:Action of 31 May 1809

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Good articleAction of 31 May 1809 has been listed as one of the Warfare good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Good topic starAction of 31 May 1809 is part of the Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811 series, a good topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
October 23, 2008Good article nomineeListed
February 28, 2009Good topic candidatePromoted
Current status: Good article

Spelling

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Is it Streatham or Stretham? (I'd guess the former, because the latter only appears twice, but it's just a guess.) Magic♪piano 21:32, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Action of 31 May 1809/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

This article is very well-written, and only a few things came up in the review:

  1. "One of these frigates was the 40-gun Caroline, built in Antwerp in 1806, weighing 1,078 tons and commanded by Jean-Baptiste-Henri Feretier, newly promoted following the sudden death of her previous captain." - I think too much is going on in this sentence and that it would be better if it was split into two sentences.
Done
  1. "On 24 May a storm had split the convoy and Victor, the small ships and two of the Indiamen were detached from the remainder, the Streatham, Europe and Lord Keith." - this seems like either two sentences or two clauses that should be joined with a semicolon instead of a comma (probably after "Victor", but it's hard to tell with the current sentence construction.
Done?
  1. Is a reference available for the storm at the end of the second paragraph of the "Background" section?
Done
  1. Why could the Chinese and lascar seamen not be relied upon in combat? Without an explanation to give this statement context, some readers could perceive it as racist.
This is a difficult one. Basically on one hand it was the considered opinion of every British naval officer or contemporary historian (and indeed modern historians that I have read) that lascar and Chinese crews of merchant ships were totally unreliable in combat. On the other, this is totally borne out by the facts: I can't think of many single incidents in which lascars or Chinese sailors on British merchant ships (and the "British merchant" distinction is important) fought against enemy forces with skill or bravery. In this very action, the Asian sailors on Streatham refused to serve their guns in the face of the French ship. This is not to suggest however that such races were genetically cowardly: no doubt these sailors were on average no more or less brave or skilled than European sailors. The big difference was that in general, lascar and Chinese sailors on British ships didn't really care whether the ship was captured or not, since they would not be held prisoner and could find employment on a French merchant ship once they had reached land. They certainly weren't generally willing to risk their lives for the cargo of the Honourable East India Company and with fair reason. I think the best way to deal with this is to quote from the source I used to properly contextualise the information which I will do tonight.--Jackyd101 (talk) 06:53, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The quote didn't work, but I have rephrased the sentence to refer more specifically to this action.--Jackyd101 (talk) 17:56, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  1. "Passing his now disabled opponent" - "Passing" seems like an odd word choice. Does it mean something special in this context?
I'll think on this, passing just means "moving past" and I'm struggling to think of another way to say it.--Jackyd101 (talk) 06:53, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just used moving past in the end.--Jackyd101 (talk) 17:56, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  1. "attached frigates" - attached or attacked?
attached, as in "attached to the ship of the line" (in this case attached is a military term meaning assigned to operate alongside and in conjunction with).--Jackyd101 (talk) 06:53, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Are any relevant external links available?
Can't think of any, this was a very minor operation.--Jackyd101 (talk) 06:53, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I will place this nomination on hold to allow for these concerns to be addressed and/or discussed. Any questions or comments can be left here, as I have placed this page on my watchlist. Best wishes, GaryColemanFan (talk) 16:22, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]


The replies look good. Splitting up the sentence worked well, "passing" is fine (I just wanted to make sure it wasn't being used in a context that readers couldn't understand), and an external links section isn't mandatory. As for the Chinese and lascar seamen, I agree that using the quotation is the best way to go about this. I understand that you're not saying anything about them being genetically cowardly, and the explanation you gave made perfect sense. To avoid having a reader assume that the article is racist, quoting (and preserving your explanation in the GA review) should be fine. GaryColemanFan (talk) 14:53, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review. Unfortunately the quotes were too convolunted and implicit to be useful in this section. I therefore made the sentence specific to this action. Hopefully this works.--Jackyd101 (talk) 17:56, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think it looks good, so I'm going to promote the article. Thanks for your hard work, GaryColemanFan (talk) 03:17, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thankyou for your review.--Jackyd101 (talk) 06:37, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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