Post Captain

The second novel in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, set during the Napoleonic Wars, opens in the English Channel as the British frigate Charwell pursues an unknown vessel that proves to be a vastly superior French warship. Before her captain must decide whether to fight, a smuggler's cutter brings astonishing news: a peace treaty has been signed. The crew erupts in celebration, but the officers understand that peace means unemployment, half-pay, and the end of prize-money. Among the passengers are Captain Jack Aubrey, known as "Lucky Jack" for capturing a Spanish frigate with a 14-gun brig, and his closest friend, Dr. Stephen Maturin, an Irish-Catalan physician who formerly served as Jack's surgeon. Though Jack's promotion to post-captain remains stalled, he plans to enjoy shore life.

Jack and Stephen settle at Melbury Lodge in Sussex, staffed by former crewmen. Through their neighbor Admiral Haddock, a retired officer, they meet the Williams family of nearby Mapes Court. Mrs. Williams, a vulgar and domineering widow fixated on advantageous marriages, has three unmarried daughters: Sophia, the eldest, a tall, grey-eyed beauty of quiet intelligence and deep reserve; Cecilia, cheerful and frivolous; and Frances, still a tomboy. Also in the household is their cousin Diana Villiers, a penniless young widow whose father and husband were killed fighting in India. Diana is as striking as Sophia but in a contrasting mode: dark-haired, dashing, experienced in the world, and chafing under her aunt's petty tyranny. Mrs. Williams immediately begins scheming to match Sophia with Jack.

At a lavish St. Valentine's ball Jack hosts, Diana speaks with remarkable candor to Stephen. She outlines her pragmatic requirements for a husband, assesses Jack as a fine match but too immature, and declares Stephen the only man she trusts as a true friend. She kisses him as she leaves, and Stephen realizes he is falling deeply in love. The evening marks the beginning of a tangled web of affection: Jack is drawn to both Sophia and Diana, Stephen is obsessed with Diana, and Sophia's feelings remain unspoken.

Catastrophe strikes when Jack's prize-agent absconds with all his money, and an Admiralty court reverses its verdict on two captured ships, ordering Jack to repay 11,000 pounds he does not possess. Jack visits the Admiralty to beg for any command. The First Lord, Lord St. Vincent, receives him with contempt and refuses. Mrs. Williams, learning of Jack's ruin, sweeps her daughters off to Bath, ending any courtship. Diana remains at Mapes, and Stephen begins visiting her secretly at night. Their relationship is intense but ambiguous, marked by Diana's alternating warmth and cruelty. When sheriff's officers arrive to arrest Jack for debt, Stephen orchestrates an emergency escape to France and then to Spain.

In Toulon, they visit Captain Christy-Pallière, a French officer who once captured Jack's brig. The narrative reveals that Stephen secretly serves as an intelligence agent for the British Admiralty, gathering information about Catalan independence movements and Spanish military preparations. He receives a coded warning from Dr. Ramis, his most important Catalan contact, that war will be declared the next day and Bonaparte is seizing all British subjects. Stephen disguises Jack inside a bearskin, and they travel over 300 miles across France as a performing bear and its leader, enduring terrible physical suffering before crossing the Pyrenees by a smugglers' path to reach Stephen's estate in Spanish Catalonia, a castle on a jutting rock overlooking the plain. Jack convalesces for weeks from a severe fever.

Sailing home from Gibraltar aboard a slow East Indiaman, they are intercepted and captured by the Bellone, a powerful 34-gun Bordeaux privateer. Jack fights ferociously, commanding the forward gun division until he is knocked unconscious. As prisoners being carried toward Spain, they are rescued when a British squadron appears and Jack compels the French prize captain to strike his colors.

Back in London, the new First Lord, Lord Melville, offers Jack HMS Polychrest, an experimental sloop designed to carry a secret rocket weapon, with twin bows and sterns, sliding keels, and a hull built by a shipyard of dubious reputation. At a society gathering, Jack meets Mr. Canning, a wealthy Bristol merchant who offers him command of a frigate-sized privateer on generous terms. Jack is deeply tempted but ultimately declines in favor of the naval appointment.

The Polychrest proves crank, slow, prone to going backwards, and built with fraudulent "robber-bolts," copper bolts with their middle sections removed to save material, leaving only the visible ends in the timbers. At a feast celebrating the promotion of Thomas Pullings, Jack's loyal former acting-lieutenant, bailiffs burst in to arrest Jack. His crew fights them off, and Jack escapes by leaping from a window.

During Channel service under the hostile Admiral Harte, whose wife Jack had previously been involved with, Stephen takes leave to visit Sophie. She confides her misery: Mrs. Williams is pushing her toward a marriage she finds hateful, and she declares there is only one man she will ever marry. Stephen advises that Jack cannot approach first given his debts and her fortune.

The Polychrest escorts a convoy toward Lisbon, losing her mizzenmast in the Bay of Biscay. In a second encounter with the Bellone off Cape Ortegal, Jack closes to devastating carronade range and smashes the privateer in a running battle, ultimately driving her onto a reef where she breaks her back. Admiral Harte dismisses the victory.

Jack and Stephen's friendship deteriorates. Jack, tormented by jealousy over Diana and frustrated by professional failure, calls Stephen a coward and a liar. Stephen demands a duel, but urgent orders intervene. Stephen warns Jack that the crew is on the verge of mutiny. Jack addresses the men, acknowledges the plot, promises no punishment, and shames them into loyalty by ordering an immediate assault on Chaulieu, a fortified French port sheltering invasion transports.

The Polychrest runs aground on a sandbank under cross-fire from French batteries. Jack leads a cutting-out expedition that captures the corvette Fanciulla in savage hand-to-hand fighting, then uses her to tow the Polychrest free. After attacking French transports, the Polychrest, hulled by over 200 shots, sinks. Jack is the last to leave.

Lord Melville promotes Jack to post-captain, fulfilling his deepest professional ambition. Jack takes acting command of HMS Lively, a crack 38-gun frigate. Stephen arranges for Sophie to take passage aboard the Lively. During the voyage, becalmed off the Isle of Wight, Jack and Sophie reach an understanding: not a secret engagement but an agreement never to marry anyone else. Mrs. Williams erupts in fury and forbids all contact. Stephen learns that Diana has become Canning's mistress. At the opera, he observes her with agonizing clarity: Her natural, unconscious grace has been replaced by something calculated and displayed.

Stephen returns from intelligence work with crucial information: Spain is about to enter the war but will not declare until four treasure frigates carrying nearly six million pieces of eight reach Cadiz from South America. If the treasure is intercepted, Spain will be too bankrupt to support France. As his sole reward for years of unpaid service, Stephen requests that the Lively join the intercepting squadron.

Off Cape Santa Maria on October 5, 1804, four British frigates sight the Spanish squadron. Negotiation fails, and a general battle erupts. The Mercedes explodes; two other Spanish frigates strike. The Fama, carrying the bulk of the treasure, flees under full sail. The Lively gives chase in a magnificent display of seamanship and overhauling the Fama until she strikes. Jack invites both captured Spanish captains to dinner and raises a toast: "Gentlemen, I give you a toast. I beg you will drink Sophia."