Lastly, before anyone gets exceeding wroth with the author and wastes postage or toll charges upon irate phone calls or scathing diatribes, allow him to plead dramatic license. Captain William Bligh was still at Jamaica, having just delivered his breadfruit, at long last, in the Indiaman Providence. There was no way he could have been in London, nor at the Admiralty, to meet our boy Lewrie in late January 1793. You know this. The author, more to the point, knows this. But since mutiny, revolution and all were indeed the spirit of the age, Bligh's appearance in the tale neatly foreshadows that which came later aboard Cockerel, and in France and at Toulon. There, satisfied, now? Besides, it was a slow morning for the author, too, when he wrote that, and he couldn't help himself.
So, there is Commander Alan Lewrie, master and commander into a proper King's Ship, husband, father, lover, scared so bad he would not trust his own arse with a fart…! What will Sophie de Maubeuge say to Caroline in future? How will he juggle wife and family on one hand, and the stunning Phoebe Aretino on the other? Will it last? Will the kitten ever stop nuzzling his ear, or catch a mouse? Will Alan retain the good opinion people seem to have of him, at the moment, anyway? Most importantly, what sort of adventures… and troubles… will he get into next? We think we know… but we're not telling. Yet.
Author's Note
The Ring's Commission
Defore diving right into Alan Lewrie's latest naval adventure (if one may do so without besmirching one's own fine sense of honor by exposing it to such a rogue), it might be a good idea to discover just exactly who in the hell this Alan Lewrie character was.
Of course, for those of you with a taste for stirring action and some salacious wenching, you may plunge right on to Chapter One and elude this brief curriculum vitae. But for the more inquisitive reader unfamiliar with the previous accounts about our nautical hero, a reader not entirely taken in by splashy dust jackets and titillating blurb copy, believe me, this chronicler understands your plight. You have found this tome, and it sounded as though it might contain scads of blood and thunder, shivering tops'ls and timbers (as in shiver me timbers, mate), lots of derring-do, and some naughty bits tucked into the odd corner, but it's a wrench trying to pick up on the middle release of a whole series of nautical adventure in mid-tack, as our protagonist has learned to say at this stage of his career.
So allow me to condense this young Corinthian's past for you before getting into all the sex, swords, and sailing ships (not necessarily in that order). I look upon it as a public duty. After all, did C. S. Forester do this for you? No, you had to wait for The Hornblower Companion. Did Sherlock Holmes ever have a biography, or did you have to search for clues in the works themselves?
Alan Lewrie was born on Epiphany, 1763, in St. Martin's In The Fields Parish, London. His mother Elizabeth Lewrie passed away soon after this "blessed event" and he began life a bastard in the parish poor-house (quite appropriately, since the sobriquet of "you little bastard" was said about him by quite a few people in his life).
1766-Rescued from the orphanage and poor-house, ending a promising career of oakum-picking and flax-pounding, for no apparent good reason by his true father, Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby of St. James Parish, St. James Square (unfortunately not the good side), Knight of the Garter, ex-captain 4th Regiment of Foot (The King's Own), member White's, Almack's, Hell-Fire Club, and the Society for the Diminution of the Spread of Venereal Diseases.
There is a long biographical gulf between 1766 and 1776 for lack of information, but since most childhoods are wretchedly uninteresting, who bloody cares?
1776-The American Colonies rebel. Alan Lewrie discovers what a goose-girl will do for a shilling, and chambermaids and mop-squeezers may do for free if one can only run fast enough to catch them.
1777-Entered into Westminster School, obviously to get him out of the neighborhood, instead of being tutored at home with his half-sister Belinda and half-brother Gerald. Expelled same year for licentious behavior, though he did post some decent marks.
1778-Entered Eton, expelled Eton, see above.
1779-Entered Harrow, expelled Harrow. As above, but with the codicil that he was implicated in a plot to blow up the Governor's coach house in youthful admiration for the Gunpowder Plot. There was no mention in the school records of licentious behavior this time, so we must assume that such goings-on were not taken as seriously at Harrow as at other places in those days.
1780-Nabbed in flagrante delicto with his aforementioned half-sister Belinda Willoughby. For once, this incident was not his fault (well, not totally, anyway). Booted from the bosom (so to speak) of his family with one hundred guineas a year and told never to show his face in Society or the family digs again. Turned over to an officer of the Navy Impress Service and entered the Royal Navy as a midshipman, in Portsmouth.
January 10, 1780, signed aboard H.M.S. Ariadne, 3rd Rate, sixty-four guns, Capt. Ezekiel Bales. Seven months Atlantic convoy duties. During this time, he became, believe it or not, a passably competent midshipman, which says volumes for the return of corporal punishment in schools and flogging as a spur to proper naval discipline.
July 1780-Ariadne fights a bloody battle with a disguised Spanish two-decked ship, and upon arrival at Antigua in the Leeward Islands is adjudged too damaged to repair. Her captain and first officer are court-martialed for her loss, the third officer for cowardice. None of this was Alan Lewrie's fault, either. In fact, he acquitted himself well under fire on the lower gun deck and won some small fame for his coolness in action (though readers of The King's Coat remember his behavior differently, especially his wish to go below and hide among the rum casks).
August 1780-Appointed midshipman into H.M. Sloop Parrot, Lt. James Kenyon master and commander. There followed five months of enjoyable duties wenching and swilling all over the Caribbean and Atlantic coast.
January 1781-A new personal best of two older ladies in Kingston, Jamaica, in two days, but, during a week on passage for Antigua, he (1) became second officer when almost everyone senior went down with Yellow Fever; (2) saved the ship from a French privateer brig, burning her to the waterline in the process; (3) saved a titled Royal Commissioner and his lady who were their passengers; (4) almost had the leg over the lady; and (5) came down with Yellow Fever himself (a damned trying week, in all).
February-March 1781-Recovering on Antigua, then staff-serf to Rear Adm. Sir Onsley Matthews. Met, wooed, and fell in thrall with the admiral's niece, Miss Lucy Beauman. Fought a duel for her honor (her family was awfully rich), killed his opponent, and was posted to sea before he could say "Jack-Ketch."
April 1781 to present-Midshipman into H.M. Frigate Desperate, 6th Rate, twenty guns, Comdr. Tobias Treghues (one of God's own cuckoos). Several successful raiding cruises, raid on the Danish Virgin Islands, many prizes taken. Battle of The Chesapeake, Siege of Yorktown (from which he escaped, or we wouldn't be following his career any longer, would we?). Evacuation of Wilmington, North Carolina, November 1781 (see The French Admiral). Made acting master's mate, confirmed in December 1781.