Richard Delancey, inadvertently embroiled in Liverpool labor riots, sidesteps punishment by "volunteering" for the Navy. Ranked as a midshipman, he is no sooner aboard than his ship sails for the port
With his Royal Navy commission in hand, Richard Delancey is posted to Gibraltar to command the sloop Merlin for convoy protection in the Mediterranean. Overcoming problems with his crew, Delancey quic
The Nore and Spithead mutinies intervene to upset the course of Delancey's career. He devises an original legal defense in the court martial of a fellow officer accused of murder, and acquits himself
After taking command of the frigate Laura, Richard Delancey is sent to the East Indies to hunt down and destroy the French privateer Subtile, but soon after setting sail, Delancey quickly finds himsel
This 1937 work is framed as a maritime history as distinct from an economic history, and was highly acclaimed on first publication. Parkinson's focus is the activities of the East India Company in India and the East Indies between 1793 and 1815. Although a scholarly work, firmly founded on primary sources, it presents a potentially dry subject in a vivid and lively way which is extremely readable. Rather than narrating the history of the East India Company, Parkinson provides a series of descriptions of how it operated, the goods it traded, and the experiences of employees or passengers who sailed east. He reminds the modern reader of how fundamental the prevailing winds were to the trade routes, and the great discomforts of long sea voyages. This is a fascinating story of the realities of British economic involvement in India and the Far East during a key period of consolidation.
A lieutenant's rank belying his undistinguished naval career, Richard Delancey finds that his fluency in French lands him a secret mission, but to his chagrin, it goes awry.
Many know of Horatio Hornblower's exploits during the Napoleonic Wars through the novels of C.S. Forester, but how many know the true Hornblower?the man who rose from Midshipman to Admiral of the Brit
