Publisher's Synopsis
1810: Captain Horatio Hornblower has been handed H.M.S. SUTHERLAND, the ugliest and least desirable two-decker in the Navy List. Half his crew consists of raw landsmen; he is so short of funds he has been obliged to pawn his best sword; and he must serve under Rear Admiral Leighton - the new husband of Barbara Wellesley, for whom he nurses a frustrated passion. Charged with escorting an East India Company convoy before heading to the Catalonian coast, there to make an attack on Napoleon's vulnerable flank, it will take all his seamanship to steer a course to victory and home.
