Naval Adventures

It is the summer of 1760 and the British navy reigns supreme on the oceans of the world; only in the Mediterranean is its mastery still seriously challenged. Admiral Saunders is sent with a squadron of ships-of-the-line to remind those nations that are still neutral of the consequences of siding with the French.

Captain Alan Lewrie, Royal Navy, is still in Gibraltar, his schemes for raids along the coast of Southern Spain shot to a halt. He is reduced to commanding a clutch of harbor-defense gunboats in the bay while his ship, HMS Sapphire, slowly grounds herself on a reef of beef bones! Until Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of peaceful Portugal and his so-called collaborative march into Spain change everything, freeing Sapphire to roam against the king's enemies once more!

It is 1758, and the Seven Years War is at its height. The Duke of Cumberland’s Hanoverian army has been pushed back to the river Elbe while the French are using the medieval fortified city of Emden to resupply their army and to anchor its left flank.

Fort Niagara is the key to the American continent. Whoever owns that lonely outpost at the edge of civilisation controls the entire Great Lakes region. Pitt’s grand strategy for 1759 is to launch a three-pronged attack on Canada. One army would move north from Lake Champlain, a second would sail up the St Lawrence to capture Quebec, and a third force would strike across the wilderness to Lake Ontario and French-held Fort Niagara. Commander George Holbrooke is seconded to command the six hundred boats to carry the army through the rivers and across Lake Ontario.

North America’s French and Indian War may be over, but at the end of 1760 the wider Seven Years War is still raging in Europe and across the seas of the world. Nevertheless, the New England merchants are growing restless at the restrictions on their trade with the French islands, and one Rhode Island company is determined to defy the law and bring home a cargo of contraband molasses.

By late 1759 it is clear that France is losing the Seven Years War. In a desperate gamble, the French Atlantic and Mediterranean fleets combine to dominate the Channel and cover a landing in the south of England, but they are annihilated by Admiral Hawke at Quiberon Bay. Meanwhile, a diversionary landing is planned in the north of Britain, and it sails from Dunkirk before news of the disaster at Quiberon Bay can reach its commander.

Treacherous Moon is the twelfth Carlisle and Holbrooke novel. The series follows the two sea officers through the Seven Years War and into the period of turbulent relations between Britain and her American colonies prior to their bid for independence.

At the opening of the War of 1812, the British control the most powerful navy on earth, and Americans are again victims of piracy. Bliven Putnam, late of the Battle of Tripoli, is dispatched to Charleston to outfit and take command of a new 20-gun brig, the USS Tempest. Later, aboard the Constitution, he sails into the furious early fighting of the war.

Intrepid voyager, writer and comedian Michael Palin follows the trail of two expeditions made by the Royal Navy's HMS Erebus to opposite ends of the globe, reliving the voyages and investigating the ship itself, lost on the final Franklin expedition and discovered with the help of Inuit knowledge in 2014.

Summer comes to Ireland, and an uneasy peace holds at Loch Garman. The Northmen, eager to get to sea, work relentlessly on their ships, with the aid of their unlikely allies, the Irish, who are just as eager to see them go. But not everyone is willing to just let them sail away. Certain that God demands the heathens be punished, the one-eyed warrior turned monk Brother Becc is determined that Thorgrim and his men will not simply go free. And when another band of raiders arrives, Becc finds the excuse he needs to take action.

Rocks and Shoals is the seventh of the Carlisle & Holbrooke naval adventures. The series follows Carlisle and his protégé George Holbrooke through the Seven Years War and into the period of turbulent relations between Britain and her American colonies in the 1760s.

In the annals of seafaring and exploration, there is one name that immediately evokes visions of the open ocean, billowing sails, visiting strange, exotic lands previously uncharted, and civilizations never before encountered - Captain James Cook. Full of realistic action, lush descriptions of places and events, and fascinating historical characters such as King George III and the soon-to-be-notorious Master William Bligh, Dugard's gripping account of the life and death of Captain James Cook is a thrilling story of a discoverer hell-bent on going farther than any man.

It is 1801, and President Thomas Jefferson has assembled a deep-water navy to fight the growing threat of piracy, as American civilians are regularly kidnapped by Islamist brigands and held for ransom, enslaved, or killed, all at their captors' whim. The Berber States of North Africa, especially Tripoli, claimed their faith gave them the right to pillage anyone who did not submit to their religion.

In 1991, acting on a tip from a local fisherman, two scuba divers discovered a sunken German U-boat, complete with its crew of 60 men, not too far off the New Jersey coast. The divers, realizing the momentousness of their discovery, began probing the mystery. Over the next six years, they became expert and well-traveled researchers, taught themselves German, hunted for clues in Germany, and constructed theories corrective of the history books, all in an effort to identify this sunken U-boat and its crew.

Three mismatched troop transports, lots of 29-foot barges, and an under-strength regiment of foot - a waste of Royal Navy money, a doomed experiment, or a new way to bedevil Napoleon's army in Italy? Either way, it's Capt. Sir Alan Lewrie's idea, and it seems to be working, with successful raids all along the coast of Calabria. But it depends on timely information, and Lewrie must trust Don Julio Caesare, a lord of a Sicilian criminal underworld, and his minions, or the amateur efforts of a disorganized network of Calabrian partisans.

Following the naval victories of the War of 1812 and the Second Barbary War, the United States is finally expanding its navy to take a place of prominence in world affairs. Bliven Putnam, now Captain of the sloop of war Rappahannock, has come into his own as a leader and is ordered to the Pacific. But with this new tour of duty to last more than two years, his patient wife, Clarity, unwilling to accept such a brief time together, at last puts her foot down. If she can't keep Putnam with her, then she'll just have to go with him.

They called themselves the Bombay Buccaneers - and under that flamboyant name they blazed a trail of daring and adventure from the Gulf of Oman to the waters of Macao. For courage, loyalty, and renown few of the Buccaneers could match their Captain, Percival Merewether, a brilliant seaman who was already the hero of a score of fabled sea-faring campaigns. Newly in command of the 36-gun frigate Pitt, Merewether is about to set sail again.

Captain Alan Lewrie and his small squadron defeat four French frigates off northern Spain, winning honor, glory, and renown. So, why is such a successful captain suddenly without a ship, or another active commission? Why do rumors swirl that jealous foes' powerful patrons are blighting his career? Months on end ashore, even in entertaining London getting his portrait painted, put him in serious sulks. Well, the artist is the sister of one of his midshipmen, a delightful and talented young lady of a modern outlook, but not modern enough to become Lewrie's lover.

Patrick O'Brian transports you to the high seas of the Napoleonic era when the French demagogue is making a desperate attempt to control the European world. While Napoleon pursues the British across Europe, rumors fly about him forging a secret link with the forces of Islam. Soon an ominous horde of Muslim mercenaries gather.

Sherlock Holmes takes an interest in the case of a British Foreign Office employee who has had an important naval treaty stolen from his office. "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 stories in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. It is one of the longest stories in the Sherlock Holmes collections.