The Fortune of War

HMS Leopard sails from Desolation Island to Port Jackson where she drops 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 the courier ship La Flèche, 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 the boat carrying Aubrey and Maturin is picked up on Christmas Eve by HMS Java, headed for Bombay and commanded by Captain Henry Lambert.

The watch sees a ship hull-up on the horizon, USS Constitution, which Java immediately pursues. Aubrey and others from Leopard man two guns but the fight goes badly when Java's foremast gives way. The American commander makes few mistakes and soon Java strikes its colours. Constitution returns to Boston to refit, having taken part of 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, 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.

Much of the action of this novel takes place in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, during the War of 1812

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, realizing now why his exchange is taking so long. Maturin is reacquainted with both Louisa Wogan and Michael Herapath, and then meets their daughter Caroline 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 from 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 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 never reaches him. Chesapeake comes out in apparent pursuit of Aubrey and engages Shannon. The battle lasts fifteen minutes, until Chesapeake strikes her colours to Shannon. Aubrey leads 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.

British:

• Jack Aubrey - Former captain of HMS Leopard.
• Stephen Maturin - ship's surgeon, friend to Jack and an intelligence officer.
• Sophia Aubrey - Jack's wife and mother of their three children.
• Diana Villiers - love interest of Stephen and cousin of Sophia, living in Boston with Johnson.
• Barret Bonden - the captain's coxswain.
• Preserved Killick - Aubrey's ever loyal servant.
• Babbington - 1st lieutenant in Leopard.
• Captain Moore - commands the Marines in Leopard.
• Mr Foreshaw - young midshipman on Leopard, killed in the battle aboard Java.
• George Byron, originally a midshipman on HMS Leopard, acting fourth lieutenant after the epidemic. He brings his temporary commission papers with him fleeing the burning ship.
• Faster Doudle - prime seaman on Leopard, played as wicket keeper in the cricket match cut short by arrival of La Flèche
• Admiral Drury - admiral on station at Pulo Batang in the Dutch East Indies.
• Wallis - British intelligence at Pulo Batang, Maturin meets with him.
• Captain Yorke - captain of HMS La Flèche.
• Warner - 1st lieutenant in La Flèche.
• McLean - young Scottish ship's surgeon in La Flèche, also a skilled anatomist.
• Captain Henry Lambert - captain of HMS Java.
• Chads - 1st lieutenant in Java.
• General Hislop - Governor-designate of Bombay aboard Java.
• Captain Philip Broke - captain of Shannon.
• Watt - 1st lieutenant in Shannon, killed in the action.
• Mr Jack - surgeon in Shannon.

American:

• Michael Herapath - Once Maturin's assistant on Leopard, he ran from Desolation Island with Mrs Wogan aboard an American whaler; now living in Boston, studying to be a doctor.
• Mrs Louisa Wogan - an attractive young woman, American spy arrested in England, living with Herapath and their daughter in Boston.
• George Herapath - father of Michael and grandfather of little Caroline, a loyalist in the US Revolutionary War, reconciled to the new country, successful Boston merchant especially in trade with China.
• Otis P. Choate - Doctor in Boston who runs the Asclepia, a small private hospital where Aubrey recuperates.
• Henry (Harry) Johnson - Wealthy American from Maryland travelling with Diana, keeps slaves; much involved with US policy and spying. Last seen by Maturin leaving Diana's house in Alipur (India)
• Evans - surgeon in USS Constitution.
• Commodore Bainbridge - commander of USS Constitution.
• Jahleel Brenton - of the American Navy Department, with the same name as a recent Baronet in the British Royal Navy, Captain Jahleel Brenton. This led to Aubrey believing him a psychiatric patient on his first visit.
• Captain James Lawrence - captain of USS Chesapeake immediately before the ship engaged with Shannon; previously captain of Hornet.

French:

• Jean-Paul Pontet-Canet - tall Frenchman travelling to the United States from San Salvador on USS Constitution; Maturin met him years before near Toulon, during the Peace of Amiens.
• Jean Dubreuil - French spy in Boston, first seen by Maturin in European capitals.

• British:
  • HMS Leopard - a 50-gun fourth rate (converted to troop transport)
  • HMS La Flèche - a 20-gun sixth rate (caught fire and exploded)
  • HMS Cumberland - a 74-gun third rate
  • HMS Java - a 38-gun frigate (destroyed in battle, burned and exploded)
  • HMS Shannon - a 38-gun frigate
  • HMS Aeolus - a 32-gun frigate
  • HMS Belvidera - a 36-gun frigate
• American:
  • USS Constitution - a 44-gun frigate
  • USS Chesapeake - a 38-gun frigate
  • USS President - a 44-gun frigate
  • USS Congress - a 38-gun frigate

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]

• 1979, UK, Collins hardback First edition ISBN 0-00-222498-4
• 1980, May UK, Fontana paperback ISBN 0006159931
• 1980, UK, Collins hardback ISBN 978-0-00-222498-7
• 1991 W. W. Norton & Company Paperback First USA edition ISBN 0-393-30813-8
• 1992, William A. Thomas Braille Bookstore Hardcover edition
• 1992, Books on Tape; Audio edition ISBN 5555358717
• 1994, W. W. Norton & Company Hardcover edition ISBN 0393037061
• 2001, Thorndike Press Hardcover Large-print edition ISBN 0754015882
• 2001, Thorndike Press Paperback Large-print edition ISBN 0754024490
• Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull ISBN 1402591772
• 2011, W. W. Norton & Company e-book edition ISBN 978-0-393-08849-6

This novel was first published by Collins in the UK. There was no US publisher until W W Norton issued a reprint 12 years after the initial publication as part of its reissue in paperback of all the novels in the series prior to 1991.

The process of reissuing the novels initially published prior to 1991 was in full swing in 1991, as the whole series gained a new and wider audience, as Mark Howowitz describes in writing about The Nutmeg of Consolation, the fourteenth novel in the series and initially published in 1991.

Two of my favorite friends are fictitious characters; they live in more than a dozen volumes always near at hand. Their names are Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, and their creator is a 77-year-old novelist named Patrick O'Brian, whose 14 books about them have been continuously in print in England since the first, "Master and Commander," was published in 1970. O'Brian's British fans include T. J. Binyon, Iris Murdoch, A. S. Byatt, Timothy Mo and the late Mary Renault, but, until recently, this splendid saga of two serving officers in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars was unavailable in this country, apart from the first few installments which went immediately out of print. Last year, however, W. W. Norton decided to reissue the series in its entirety, and so far nine of the 14 have appeared here, including the most recent chapter, The Nutmeg of Consolation.[3]

• Maps for The Fortune of War