The Fortune of War

For the ancient pub in London, see The Fortune of War Public House.
The Fortune of War

First edition
Author Patrick O'Brian
Cover artist Geoff Hunt
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Series Aubrey-Maturin series
Genre Historical novel
Publisher Collins (UK)
Publication date
 1979
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 280
ISBN 0-00-222498-4
OCLC 5658117
823/.9/14
LC Class PZ3.O1285 Fo PR6029.B55
Preceded by Desolation Island
Followed by The Surgeon's Mate

The Fortune of War is the sixth historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by British author Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1979. It is set during the War of 1812.

HMS Leopard made its way to Botany Bay, left its prisoners, and sailed to Pulo Batang where the ship was declared unfit. Captain Aubrey and some of his followers are put aboard La Flèche packet to sail home for a new commission. Fire ends the months of sweet sailing and brings them into the new war.

The Fortune of War contains lightly fictionalized accounts of two sea battles in the War of 1812.

Plot summary

HMS Leopard sails from Desolation Island to Port Jackson where she dropped off her few prisoners. Captain Bligh is already handled, so she proceeds to the Dutch East Indies station and Admiral Drury at Pulo Batang. Leopard is declared unfit for guns due to wood rot, and will probably be a troop transport. Jack Aubrey and his followers are to board La Flèche courier ship, as his next command, Acasta, awaits him in England. The rest of the crew is left with Admiral Drury. Maturin learns the success of his scheme to damage French intelligence sources from Wallis, and relays the name of a contact in the Royal Navy, mentioned by Louisa Wogan. They join a cricket game, ended abruptly by the arrival of La Flèche, which also brings mail to them. Captain Yorke visited Sophia Aubrey before leaving England, bringing Jack a personal letter and gifts from her.

Aubrey knew Captain Yorke and Maturin quickly warms to this captain who travels with an extensive library and a piano in his cabin. At Simon's Town, La Flèche learns of war between Britain and America. Aubrey spends this time of sweet sailing teaching the young midshipmen while Maturin is engrossed in dissection of specimens from Desolation Island and New Holland with McLean, the ship's Scottish surgeon, passing their evenings with music. One night in the Atlantic near Brazil a fire breaks out on board and all abandon ship to the small boats. A few hot weeks later one boat is picked up by HMS Java on Christmas Eve, headed for Bombay and commanded by Captain Henry Lambert.

Soon the watch sees a ship hull-up on the horizon, the USS Constitution, which Java immediately pursues. Aubrey and his Leopards man two guns but the fight goes badly when the Java's foremast gives way. The American commander makes few mistakes and soon the Java strikes its colours. Constitution returns to Boston to refit, having taken part of the Java for its own repair, then setting fire to her. Captain Lambert dies of his wounds ashore in Brazil. Aubrey is shot in his right arm, gravely wounded, and too ill to be put ashore. Maturin stays with his patient, and works with Dr. Evans, the amiable ship's surgeon. All of Maturin’s collections, except what he noted in his diary by words or drawings, are gone. During the voyage Maturin talks with a French passenger picked up at San Salvador, Pontet-Canet.

In Boston, Aubrey convalesces from his wounds in Dr. Choate's hospital, waiting for the next prisoner exchange. Jahleel Brenton of the US Navy Department questions him, but Aubrey puts him off and pushes him out, realizing now why his exchange is taking so long. Maturin is reacquainted with both Louisa Wogan and Michael Herapath, and then meets their daughter Christine and Michael's father George. George is a wealthy merchant and a Loyalist in the Revolutionary War whose trade with China is interrupted by the present war. Maturin encounters Diana Villiers, still the mistress of Harry Johnson. He is a wealthy American slave owner of Maryland who is active as a spy for his nation. Johnson visits Aubrey who makes a comment about Maturin that reveals too much to the bluff spy. Maturin suspects that Johnson and Pontet-Canet have turned their attention away from Aubrey, towards him. He asks George Herapath to bring Aubrey a pair of pistols.

Aubrey watches the harbor from his hospital bed. Pontet-Canet tries but fails twice to abduct Maturin in the streets of Boston. After the second try, Maturin meets Diana Villiers in the Franchon hotel when Johnson is away with Wogan. While searching Johnson's papers, Maturin kills first Pontet-Canet and then Jean Dubreuil as they come to Johnson's room. Maturin finds that Johnson had intercepted Diana's letter to him. He offers to marry her to solve her problems of citizenship. Diana wants away from Johnson. Maturin sends a note to Aubrey setting up a plan of escape that night. George Herapath allows the two to hide in one of his larger ships. Then Aubrey sails a small fishing boat and he, Maturin and Diana meet the thirty-eight gun frigate, HMS Shannon, entering the outer harbour on blockade duty and are taken on board by Captain Philip Broke, Aubrey's cousin and childhood friend. Broke writes a challenge to Captain Lawrence, the new commander of the thirty-eight gun USS Chesapeake lying in harbour, to fight one-on-one, which letter never reaches him. The Chesapeake comes out in apparent pursuit of Aubrey and engages the Shannon. The battle lasts fifteen minutes, until Chesapeake strikes her colours to Shannon. Aubrey led a gun crew, his right arm tied to his body, while Diana sits in the forepeak and Maturin waits below with the surgeon in this victory for the Royal Navy.

Characters

See also Recurring characters in the Aubrey–Maturin series

British:

American:

French:

Ships

Allusions and references

Allusions/references to history, geography and current science

The two frigate actions including one Royal Navy ship and one US Navy ship are real events in the War of 1812: HMS Java against the USS Constitution, and HMS Shannon against the USS Chesapeake (Capture of USS Chesapeake). The fictional Aubrey and Maturin have roles in both in the novel, as accidental passengers on the Java and then as prisoners of war in Boston who make a timely escape. The battle actions are transformed for storytelling effect by O'Brian. The capture of the USS Chesapeake is discussed in an 1866 source mentioned in the Author's Note for The Fortune of War.[1] The fate of the Java is one more in a string of naval losses to the new US Navy, while the victory of the Shannon heartened the Royal Navy sailors, so long accustomed to winning at sea over 20 years of battle against France.

Allusions to literature

In Chapter 7, When Maturin looks upon the two corpses in the bath, he reflects that this is like the end of Titus Andronicus, a play by Shakespeare where corpses pile up as revenge plays out. Then Maturin realizes that his situation is different, as he had had to kill or be killed by these French spies, one of whom had tortured to death two friends of his.

Allusions to other novels in the series

In Chapter 6, Stephen Maturin recalls on "the seventeenth of May" that he has been in love with Diana Villiers for "eight years, nine months and some odd days". He met her in Post Captain, during the Peace of Amiens, 1802-03. Though he seemed to know his strong attraction for her immediately in Post Captain, if the fiction is literal, he did not allow himself to fully admit it until fall of 1804. Initially he considered himself unworthy of her, and not in a position to ask her to marry him, which Sophia Williams had encouraged him to do, knowing her cousin's feelings.

The American Captain Lawrence is brought to meet Aubrey in hospital in Boston, in Chapter 7, to bring greetings from Lieutenant Mowett, himself recovering in hospital in New York. Mowett was injured when the HMS Peacock was taken by the USS Hornet under Lawrence's command. Mowett had been a midshipman and poet in Master and Commander; Maturin recites some of Mowett's lines of original poetry. He was a favorite to both Aubrey and Maturin.

In Chapter 4, Maturin recalls first seeing Pontet-Canet at a restaurant above Toulon when he and Aubrey visited French naval captain and friend Christie-Pallière after leaving England during the Peace of Amiens, in Post Captain. Maturin detected that Pontet-Canet had a different regional French accent then, compared to what he affected in this visit to America.

Quotations

The changing nature of the connection between the Americans and the British Royal Navy is captured in Aubrey's expressions of gratitude to Michael Herapath for his help in their escape from the French spies, out to a Royal Navy ship in Boston harbor. The American Herapath had served as assistant to Maturin on the Leopard.

"Jack looked long and hard. 'At high water,' he said, 'I shall go into her and run out on the ebb. Will you not come with us, Herapath? I will rate you midshipman in any ship I command, and you could be the Doctor's assistant again. Things might be unpleasant for you in Boston.' 'Oh no, sir,' said Herapath. 'That would never do: though I am obliged to you for your care of me. I have ties here. . . and then, you know, we are enemies.' 'By God, so we are. I had forgot. I find it difficult to think of you as an enemy, Herapath.'" (Chapter 8)

Reviews

This book is sharply different from its immediate predecessors in the series, as it tells of escape and shipwreck, the intensity of intrigue during war rather than battles at sea, though much happens at sea.

Jack doesn’t command a ship in this book, how about that! This is a book with a wrecked ship, a long distance open boat voyage with thirst and cannibalism, two naval battles, lots of exciting spy stuff, and a desperate escape. But it’s utterly different from the previous volumes, which have all been genre sea stories in a way this just isn’t. We were comparing this series with Hornblower earlier—it’s impossible to imagine a Hornblower volume like this. ... I very much like the whole intrigue with Johnson and the French and Stephen—it’s as exciting as the sea chases, but in a very different way. There’s a lot of very good Stephen in this volume—and some wonderful Jack malopropisms.[2]

Publication history

References

  1. ↑ Sir P B V Broke (1866). Memoir of Admiral Sir P. B. V. Broke, Bart., KCB, etc. London.
  2. ↑ Jo Walton (November 8, 2010). "The American navy was the staple diet of conversation: Patrick O’Brian’s The Fortune of War". Retrieved 11 July 2014.

External links

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