Sentence:  Instead of quelling the dissension , as <WSD>many</WSD> captains of the era would have done ( Sir Francis Drake lopped a man 's head off under similar circumstances ) , Hudson decided to be reasonable . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  a quantifier that can be used with count nouns and is often preceded by `as' or `too' or `so' or `that'; amounting to a large but indefinite number