<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> T H E B O S U N ' S C H R O N I C L E All the latest news/views for fans of Julian Stockwin ++ always sent in plain text: guarantees no virus/malware on your computer ++ <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> February, 2011 In this issue - how to get your hands on a Collectors Set of CONQUEST, a double helping of books to consider for your library - and all about the red, white and blue admirals... 1 DISPATCHES 2 BOOKSHELF 3 ASK JULIAN 4 CONTESTS 5 NELSON IN... 6 WIT & WISDOM OF THE SEA 7 SHIPMATES AHOY! ==================== 1 DISPATCHES + Major restoration for HMS "Victory" There has been concern for some time over the state of the hull and rigging of HMS "Victory" but with the announcement of a 10-year major restoration project, this iconic ship's future now looks secured. Julian has learned she will continue as the Second Sea Lord's flagship and remain open to the public for the foreseeable future. + Collectors Set for CONQUEST We will be offering a special Collectors Set of CONQUEST - a signed, numbered and embossed First Edition of the UK edition of the book, a signed postcard and an exclusive Julian Stockwin leather bookmark. The Set is strictly limited to 500 and you can reserve a copy by emailing We are also accepting pre-payment for the set and all pre-payments made before the end of February go into a draw for a Bonus Box of Books, a splendid mix of salty tomes, including several of Julian's! CONQUEST will be published on June 9 in the UK & Australia/New Zealand; in South Africa in July; in Cananda in September - and will be available in the States in October. + Essex Book Festival Julian is among leading writers from around the world invited to this year's Essex Book Festival. The venue for his event, a martello tower, is very appropriate for a talk by one of the foremost Age of Sail authors! In the early 1800s, as a defence against French invasion, 103 martello towers were built along the South and East Coasts from Seaford in Sussex to Aldeburgh in Suffolk. These were all modelled on a single tower in Corsica which the British Navy had experienced great difficulty in capturing. The Corsican tower stood on Mortello Point, hence the name given to the English towers. The Jaywick Martello Tower where Julian will give his talk is now a thriving arts and community venue. There are some exciting other events in the pipeline for Julian in 2011 and we'll bring you full details as they come to hand. And do please check the website Events page from time to time; it's kept right up to date with Julian's author appearances schedule. + KYDD week Running January 31 - February 6 is a special KYDD Week on Facebook. Read about Julian's favourite character (stand fast Kydd and Renzi), have a go in a great competition - and ask Julian any questions you have about the debut novel in the Kydd series. And while you're visiting the page, why not add a photograph of yourself with KYDD? This will be followed by a special focus on each of the titles over the coming weeks. + Speed reader or what! American fan Jeff Koster told us: "In the space of one week I have read all the KYDD books - much to my wife's dismay - but much to my pleasure!" + Australian Wooden Boat Festival It's celebrating the maritime heritage Down Under from February 11-14. There's a great lineup: six Tall Ships will be in Hobart for the festival including "James Craig", "One and All", "Enterprize", "Young Endeavour", "Windeward Bound" and "Lady Nelson". + Orme on CONQUEST Consultant copy editor Hazel Orme has been involved with the Kydd series from the outset. Her first experience at sea, a week-long Mediterranean cruise, was not the happiest one: "Unfortunately, the weather was frightful - winds at gale force 9, mountainous seas, hammering rain, ship rolling all over the place." However this has not dampened her enthusiasm for Julian's salty tales. This is what she said about CONQUEST: "This is a thrilling and exhilarating addition to the Kydd oeuvre - and the best ever! Kydd and Renzi are a terrific double act: the friendship between them is beautifully understated but entirely apparent, as are the differences between the two men." ==================== 2 BOOKSHELF Admiral Saumarez versus Napoleon by Tim Volecker Published by the Boydell Press ISBN 978 184 383 4311 Two hundred and fourteen years ago this month the Battle of St Vincent saw 15 ships in the British fleet defeat 27 Spanish ships-of-the-line. During this battle Captain James Saumarez distinguished himself, as he did on many engagements with the enemy. Julian wrote about Saumarez in TREACHERY* (he was then an admiral) and during the research for that book Julian came to admire his many qualities - outstanding seamanship, abilities as a fighting captain, and warm humanity. Julian feels that to a large extent Saumarez has been overshadowed by the giant figure of Lord Nelson. One key theatre of the war against Napoleon after Trafalgar was the Baltic. For five years from 1808 Saumarez, as Commander-in-Chief of a large Baltic fleet, skilfully played an important diplomatic role, combining firmness and restraint. Despite the determined efforts of Denmark's gunboats and privateers, he successfully kept vital British trade flowing in and out of the Baltic, undermining Napoleon's "Continental System" - the economic blockade of Britain - and leading to Napoleon's fateful decision to invade Russia in 1812. This book, based on extensive original research in both British and Scandinavian archives and making considerable use of Saumarez's unpublished correspondence, charts the maritime and political history of the war in the Baltic. *published as THE PRIVATEER'S REVENGE in the US. === Written on the Water British Romanticism and the Maritime Empire of Culture by Samuel Baker published by University of Virginia Press ISBN 978 0 8139 2795 4 The word "culture" has traditionally evoked the land. But when such writers as Renzi's friend William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron and later Matthew Arnold developed what would become the idea of modern culture they modelled that idea on Britain's imperial command of the sea. This book focuses on the relatively short period at the outset of the nineteenth century when a British literary elite saw the ocean as at once their nation's proper domain, the central geopolitical theatre of their age, and the main natural force shaping their world. ==================== 3 ASK JULIAN, part 2 In the last issue of the Chronicle, Julian explained about various rates and ranks in the Royal Navy. Here, he looks at a number of exceptions to the general advancement structure for ratings that he outlined. + A master's mate (as Kydd was in SEAFLOWER) could be promoted from a petty officer or from a midshipman. A very valued member of the ship's complement, he could be relied on to take over a prize vessel, lead a landing party and other skilled tasks. As mate-of-the-watch he was in effect an understudy to the officer-of-the watch. + Idlers - although today this term is used to describe someone who takes things easy and shirks work, in Kydd's day it had no negative connotations, merely referred to the technical rates who worked a day shift and did not have to stand watch. They had limited promotional prospects and included carpenter's mate, steward, cooper's mate, carpenter's crew and surgeon's mate. + The cook held a warrant like a warrant officer and was usually a seaman who had been crippled in action, but often knew only how to boil salt pork (the officers had their own cook.) === And we've had quite a few queries about admirals of the red, white and blue. We did cover this in an earlier issue of the newsletter, but that was a while back, so we're reprinting Julian's comments on the topic. "At the time of Elizabeth I, the three squadrons of her fleet were denoted by a red flag for the admiral's squadron, a white for the vice admiral's and blue for the rear admiral's. Later, as the number of ships in the fleet grew, and the three squadrons into which they were divided became larger, three admirals were allocated to each squadron (based on the line of battle) - a full admiral in command; a vice admiral as his second, taking the van (forward); and a rear admiral as third in command in the rear. The squadrons ranked in the order red, white and blue and admirals took rank according to the colour of their squadron. (Some officers were promoted rear-admiral, but to no particular squadron. They were known colloquially as yellow admirals.) Generally - and there were many variations in Kydd's day - the white squadron controlled the waters around Britain itself, the coasts of France and the Mediterranean; the red squadron had the rest of the North Atlantic and the Caribbean, as well as the northern South Atlantic; the blue had the rest of the South Atlantic and all of the Pacific and Indian oceans. There was no set number of ships that an admiral would find himself in charge of, it depended on the operation and the availability of vessels at the time. In 1864 the organisation of the British fleet into coloured squadrons was discarded and the White Ensign became the sole ensign of the Royal Navy. In some ways the Red Ensign might have seemed a more obvious choice, as it was the ensign of the senior squadron, historically. However this would not have worked as the presenting problem was the potential confusion as to whether a ship was a merchantman (signified by a Red Ensign with the Union Jack in the canton) or a member of the red squadron. I think another reason that contributed to the choice was Admiral Nelson's preference for the White Ensign as a symbol of purity. Thus today the Red Ensign flies for the Merchant Navy; the Royal Navy hoists the White Ensign and the Blue Ensign is seen on merchant ships commanded by an officer of the Royal Naval Reserve, naval auxiliary vessels and Trinity House craft. ==================== 4 CONTESTS This month we have a contest with a twist - which of Julian's books do you think is the longest? We have a fabulous Maritime Mystery Prize for the first correct entry drawn on February 25. Emails to Don't forget to include your full postal address. Congratulations to Alistair Rimmer, last month's winner: his was the first correct entry drawn to identify the UK title of the book in which Kydd is engaged as a privateer as TREACHERY. ==================== 5 NELSON IN... During his lifetime Nelson travelled all over the world. Here is the second in a series of articles looking at various places he visited. + Antigua Now sympathetically restored after falling into disrepair in the late nineteenth Nelson's Dockyard at English Harbour, Antigua is the only remaining original Georgian dockyard in the world. Construction of the naval yard at Nelson's Dockyard began in 1725. The facility was finally closed down by the British Navy in 1889. The yard was originally called "His Majesty's Antigua Naval Yard", it only became known as Nelson's Dockyard after a major restoration project which began in 1951. For nearly a hundred years from 1713, the Caribbean was the scene of struggle for naval supremacy in which Britain, Spain, Portugal, France and the United Provinces were competitors. English Harbour's importance grew in the eighteenth century not only as a port but also as a hurricane refuge and for careening His Majesty's Ships in the deep water against the shore. By being able to repair, victual and water ships in the West Indies, Britain was able to keep a squadron of ships continually in the Caribbean, thus maintaining naval superiority. Nelson arrived in 1784 at the head of the Squadron of the Leeward Islands. He spent almost all of his time in the cramped quarters of his ship, declaring the island to be "a vile place" and "a dreadful hole". He was a staunch enforcer of England's Navigation Acts, establishing himself as a power to be reckoned with when it came to illegal trading between the English colonies in the Caribbean and traders from the United States. In Antigua Nelson met Mary Moutray, the wife of the Commissioner of the Dockyard. He fell in love with her but the relationship stayed on the level of friendship and Nelson remained in touch with her to the end of his life. Serving under Nelson at the time was Prince William Henry, the future King William IV, for whom the altogether more pleasant accommodation of Clarence House was built in 1787. In 1785 when passing near Nevis, one of the northernmost of the Leeward Islands, Nelson spotted four American ships trading just off Charlestown in violation of the Navigation Acts. He proceeded to board the ships and seize them and all their cargo. Shortly after this altercation Nelson was sued by the ships' captains, supported by the Charlestown merchants and traders, for assault and imprisonment in the amount of ?40,000. In the ensuing trial, which Nelson did not attend, the judge upheld Nelson's right to seize the American ships. In Nevis, Nelson met a young widow named Frances Nisbet and they became betrothed. They were married on March 11, 1787 with Prince William Henry acting as father giver. Some months later the Nelsons returned to England, and Nelson did not go back to sea until 1793, remaining ashore on half pay despite fervent representations to the Admiralty. ==================== 6 WIT & WISDOM OF THE SEA Starting this month, the first in a series of salty thoughts about Neptune's Realm:- "The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness." - Joseph Conrad, The Mirror of the Sea =================== 7 SHIPMATES, AHOY Two readers on opposite sides of the globe have special reasons to thank Julian for his work. Tristan Chaomhanach Kavanagh is a student at the University of Winchester and had occasion dip into VICTORY for his studies on representations of famous men. "Horatio Nelson has been immortalized by many books about the decisive victory of Trafalgar that give an accurate account of his tactics and character traits... VICTORY by Julian Stockwin features an intriguing account of the glorious battle and how the men from all ranks under Nelson's command viewed him as the glorious leader who emancipated Britain from the threat of the seemingly unstoppable armies of France, and its tyrannical emperor Napoleon Bonaparte'. Coincidentally, Tristan used to live on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent (where Julian went to school as a very young boy). He had two questions for Julian - Do Renzi and Cecilia get married? And when will Kydd get a ship of the line? Julian reserved his author's right to keep the answers secret - for the moment... And Rod Redden, who's studying for his MA, found a font of useful information for a paper on military metaphors in Julian's non-fiction book, STOCKWIN'S MARITIME MISCELLANY. When he's not working or studying, Rod is a drummer in the Tokyo Pipeband. Currently living in Japan, Rod has been a military re-enactor since age eleven. He is pictured with his family on a recent visit home to Canada in Shipmates Album on the website. Perhaps we should call Julian "El Professore"? =================== Julian loves hearing from readers around the world and personally answers all his mail and other communications - so do get in touch if you have a comment or query about the world of Thomas Kydd or things maritime in general! Connect with Julian on Twitter Follow Capt. Thomas Kydd himself on Twitter Visit Julian's Facebook Page or email him Snail mail may be sent to Julian c/o Sophie Missing, Hodder & Stoughton, 338 Euston Road, London, NW1 3BH, UK. ================== Coming next month: Julian gives his views on historical accuracy in fiction - and we talk to Oliver Johnson, Associate Publisher at Hodder & Stoughton - and Julian's new editor there. Yours aye, THE BOSUN ++ Download back issues from the WebSite ++