The Reverse of the Medal. Patrick O’Brian

      

      PATRICK O’BRIAN

       The Reverse of the Medal

      Copyright

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      Harper

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      Copyright © Patrick O’Brian 1986

      Patrick O’Brian asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

      Source ISBN: 9780006499268

      Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780007429387

      Version: 2019-01-15

       FOR MARY, WITH MY DEAR LOVE

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

       Diagram of a Square-Rigged Ship

      Author’s Note

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

      Patrick O’Brian by William Waldegrave

       Keep Reading

      About the Author

      The Works of Patrick O’Brian

       About the Publisher

       The sails of a square-rigged ship, hung out to dry in a calm.

      1 Flying jib

      2 Jib

      3 Fore topmast staysail

      4 Fore staysail

      5 Foresail, or course

      6 Fore topsail

      7 Fore topgallant

      8 Mainstaysail

      9 Main topmast staysail

      10 Middle staysail

      11 Main topgallant staysail

      12 Mainsail, or course

      13 Maintopsail

      14 Main topgallant

      15 Mizzen staysail

      16 Mizzen topmast staysail

      17 Mizzen topgallant staysail

      18 Mizzen sail

      19 Spanker

      20 Mizzen topsail

      21 Mizzen topgallant

      Illustration source: Serres, Liber Nauticus. Courtesy of The Science and Technology Research Center, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundation

      Author’s Note

      Those who have read any of the scores of books about Lord Cochrane, or the Earl of Dundonald as he became on his father’s death, will remember that he was tried before Lord Ellenborough at the Guildhall for a fraud on the Stock Exchange and found guilty.

      Lord Cochrane and his descendants always passionately maintained that he was not guilty and that Lord Ellenborough’s conduct of the trial was grossly unfair; and most of his biographers, including Professor Christopher Lloyd, the best of them all, agree. Lord Ellenborough and his descendants, however, took the opposite view, and one of them set about refuting the publications of the tenth, eleventh and twelfth earls in a book devoted to the question. But he found that he was not competent to deal with the legal aspects and he handed over the task, together with his papers, to Mr Attlay of Lincoln’s Inn, a very able lawyer whose long, fully-documented and closely-reasoned book might shake all but the most determined of Lord Cochrane’s supporters.

      Yet the function of Mr Attlay’s book, as far as this tale is concerned, was not to prove or disprove the guilt of either side but rather to show exactly how the trial proceeded, and this knowledge I have used, simplifying the complex legal issues, annihilating scores of witnesses, but carefully retaining the structure of the trial, together with its curious timetable. The reader may therefore accept the sequence of events, almost unbelievable to a modern ear, as quite authentic.

       Chapter One

      The West Indies squadron lay off Bridgetown, sheltered from the north-east tradewind and basking in the brilliant sun. It was a diminished squadron, consisting of little more than the ancient Irresistible, wearing the flag of Sir William Pellew, red at the fore, and two or three battered, worn-out, undermanned sloops, together with a storeship and a transport; for all the seaworthy vessels were far away in the Atlantic or Caribbean, looking for the possible French or American men-of-war and the certain privateers, numerous, well-armed, well-handled, full of men, swift-sailing and eager for their prey, the English and allied merchant ships.

      Yet although they were old, weather-worn and often iron-sick they were a pleasant sight lying there on the pure blue sea, as outwardly trim as West Indies spit and polish could make them, with paint and putty disguising the wounds of age and their bright-work all ablaze; and although some of them had suffered so from fever in Jamaica and on the Spanish Main that they could scarcely muster hands enough to win their anchors, there were still plenty of men, both officers and foremast-jacks, who were intimately acquainted with the ship that was beating up against the steady breeze and