The Ionian Mission by Patrick O'Brian

The Ionian Mission by Patrick O'Brian

The Ionian Mission by Patrick O'Brian is book number 8 in the Aubrey/Maturin series of sea novels of 19th Century naval life by Patrick O'Brian. Jack Aubrey has been given the Worcester, a ship of the line of 1842 tons. The Worcester was one of the Forty Thieves, one of a set of notoriously English built ships that had been beset by corruption, incompetence and bad workmanship. It was built in Sankey's yard with 20 year old wood , green timber with the sap still in it, , fixed together in a slipshod manner with not enough copper and overmasted so that when the wind blows hard, the planks and futtocks spread and move about. It seems that Spanish and French ships are made to a much better quality than the English naval ships. Jack Aubrey's orders were to sail to The Mediterranean to join the British Naval blockade off Toulon commanded by Admiral Thornton. Jack sails from Portsmouth and is to put into Plymouth where he is to find the rest of the crew, some 300 hands or so. Unfortunately for Jack there is no prize money in a ship of the line on Blockade. In Plymouth they rehang the topmast and end up with a complement of 613 men with 32 pounder cannons.

Off Groix lighthouse, in France, they find the Jemmapes, a French ship but she takes off too fast for them and evades their chase. Jack Aubrey sails for Gibralter, then off to Port Mahon in Minorca, where they stand off the port and do not enter because the prevailing winds make it difficult to get out again. They then sailed to join the British Naval blockade off Toulon. After they have reported in and taken their station Stephen Maturin goes into Barcelona with the Dryad, a slab-sided sloop captained by William Babbington, Jack Aubrey's former midshipman.

When Stephen comes back, they have orders to go to Medina with the Dryad. Today, the medina is part of the city Tunis in Tunisia. The port of Tunis is La Goulette and translates to what Patrick O'Brian calls Goletta. In this port there are two French ships - a seventy-four and a thirty-six gun frigate. The French will not fire on them so they sail for Cape Mero and Barka or Barca which is the city of Merj or al Marj in Libya. When they return Jack has to take Stephen into the Aigouille in the Languedoc region of France, near to the village of Mandiargues. Jack's next job is to take over the Surprise and to go to Valetta in Malta and thence to meet with Babbington in the Dryad in the Ionian Sea where they have to negotiate with the beys in their power struggles. After Valetta, they stop in at Mesentoron where they negotiate with the Turkish leader there. The next ruler they have to deal with meets them in the Turkish Ships the Torgud and the Kitabi. The Torgud was a frigate and built like a European ship probably in France or Venice. They press on past Cape Stavro and into Kutali Bay.

On their way from Kutali , they have Cape Doro on their starboard beam with Phanari straight ahead. They intercept the Turkish ships and engage them in battle and Jack Aubrey once again is victorious and takes them as prizes. The Ionian Mission by Patrick O'Brian is a wonderfully rambling book and evokes the sea and the history of the 19th Century British Navy and the lifestyle. It is like a time machine where we can go back and peep into the lives of these sailing ship workers and see what it was like.

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