As for the ship, it belonged to poor people, ten [in number], who earned a living on the sea, with it, leasing it [to others], as a way of gaining [a living]; and I wanted to make it defective, for behind them, whenever they returned — or [meaning] before them now — was a king, a disbeliever, seizing every ship, that was usable, by force (ghasban, is in the accusative as a verbal noun containing an explanation of the nature of such ‘seizure’).