Mr Midshipman Hornblower

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Upon taking command, Hornblower locked up the French crew and dumped the wine they were drinking overboard, then set his prize crew to re-slinging the foretopsail yard, then set course for England. For what indeed is a truly Ingenuous Youth, if not a series of embarrassments - which includes a hearty helping of humiliation at the hands of these dark early bloomers? After dinner, Hornblower found that this was a meeting to detail a cutting out expedition to take Papillon. After discussing the situation with the surgeon, Hornblower retreated to the mizzen-top, a good place for some solitude. Not long afterward, Hornblower and his crew are caught by a privateer named Pique which was converted from a slave ship.

This book is a good series, then, of short and stirring adventures that introduce the unseasoned youth that would later become the man of experience, the midshipman that would later become the admiral. Given the success of their mission Hornblower realises the loss of the jolly boat will not be held against him, but still regrets the inevitable death of Hales. Hornblower is assigned by Edrington to find the French émigré general and suggest that he posts a detachment up the road from their location. Then the crew was picked up by the French privateer Pique , Captain Neuville commanding, the English crew taken prisoner.Ofttimes, he would go up to the shore to stare out to sea wishing he were back on board a ship of the British navy. Story 9: “Hornblower and Noah’s Ark” – This chapter reminds me a lot of The Pirate Coast by Richard Zachs, a book I read many years ago, long before starting this book-review blog. This initial book in the series reads somewhat episodic, with whole creating a rounded introductory. Lieutenant Chadd, taking command, Hornblower reports to Captain Pellew who, since Soames, the sailing master, was lost when the galley collided with the cutter, makes Hornblower Acting-Lieutenant.

The sea can be a terrifying place, and I suppose I had to wait for my move to the oceanside to understand that truth before I could really appreciate books about sailing and the sea. This chapter begins as Indefatigable sails into Gibraltar Bay with Acting-Lieutenant Hornblower on deck observing the Spanish fleet in Algeciras and reporting same to Captain Sir Edward Pellew.Díky nízkému nákladu malého nakladatele tomu, bohužel, odpovídá i cena, která to s ohledem na nevelký rozsah posouvá do kategerie "pro fajnšmekry". After a character-forming duel, several deadly chases and some dramatic captures and escapes, the young Hornblower is soon forged into a formidable man of the sea. Soon after being assigned to the midshipman's berth, Hornblower meets Simpson who just failed the examination for Lieutenant.

And so Hornblower's career begins with pain, but by the end of the first chapter we already have mention of his future mentor and promoter, Pellew of the Indefatigable. Nonetheless, his writing isn't shallow; he confronts his hero with several demands for moral decision-making. I figured I would find Forrester’s starting version of the Brit navy in the Napoleanic Wars would be just be an adventurous potboiler appropriate to satisfy my twelve-year old mind. Simpson is a sailor and a bully, to the point of making the new Midshipman Horatio Hornblower dream of suicide. When Hornblower loses the prize ship (and his first independent command) because swelling rice in the hold literally pops his ship open from the inside out I was hooked.For into such dark checkmates were the plans of the moral flyweights I knew in my career intended to lead their victims! He is given the slightest of character flaws and he occasionally fails, but his fairly consistent successes and need to chastise himself for his failings could get a bit tedious for some readers. Two days later, after Hornblower chose pistols, one charged, the other not, as his choice of weapons, Hornblower and Simpson met for the duel.