The Commodore by Patrick O'Brian

There is thick weather in the English Channel with a rainy north-east wind blowing hard. Ushant is on the starboard bow, and the Scillies on the larboard. So The Commodore by Patrick O'Brian starts with the Surprise coming home from the voyage to the Pacific Coast of South America that was told in the last Patrick O'Brian book, The Wine-Dark Sea. She had been helped by his good friend Captain Heneage Dundas on HMS Berenice, who after a team-building game of cricket on Ascension Island, supplied The Surprise with spars, cordage, and helped fashion a new rudder.

After the usual landside domestic dramas, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are given an assignment to stop slaving along the African Coast. Jack is given command of a small fleet. His flaghsip is the Bellona -

74 gun, 28 thirty-six pounders on the gundeck, 28 eighteen pounders on the upper deck, 2 long twelves and 6 short as chasers, 10 thirty-two-pound carronades, and 4 little carronades on the poop deck.
The Bellona was built at Chatham in 1760 and is 1615 tons,
the gundeck is 168 feet long,
the beam is 46'9",
the depth in the hold is 19'9",
her draught is 22 foot.
The Bellona had fought at Trafalgar.
The Bellona had a crew of 590.

Also in Jack Aubrey's fleet is the Stately, another two-decker with 64 guns,

her sides painted black and the gun-ports blue.
The Stately was launched in 1782 and was on the Brest blockade for years.
She guages 1370 tons.
the gundeck is 159 feet long.
the beam is 44 foot four inches.
she carried 26 twenty-four pounders, 26 eighteen-pounders, 6 nine-pounders and 16 carronades.

As for the rest of Jack Aubrey's fleet, there was the cutter Nimble and the frigate Pyramus - 36 gun, 920 tons, 141 foot long, a beam of 38 foot, and a crew of 259 men. The second frigate was the Aurora - 24 guns, built in 1771, 596 tons, 126 foot long, with a crew of 196. The Camille with 20 guns was only just a rated ship. The Orestes was a brig-rigged sloop. These ships made up the fleet at the beginning of the expedition.

Stephen has to make a dash for London and Jack gives him the Ringle, in which he is sailed to London and out again to Corunna in Spain, and then meets up with Jack again at the Berlings. The fleet then sails to the coast off Africa and thence to Freetown, Sierra Leone. They leave Freetown and head South-East to Philip Island. The fleet works inshore while the Bellona stays off shore from Cape Palmas to the Bight of Benin. They move onto the Ivory Coast, the Gold Coast - Dixcove, Sekondi, Cape Coast Castle, Winneba - the Slave Coast, Whydah, and on to the Bight of Benin. Jack's plan after that is to go due South for the equator and pick up the South-East trade winds. Then back to Freetown.

After leaving Freetown they head for Ireland where they have to find the meeting place of a French Squadron in 42 degrees 20' North, 18 degrees 30' West. They cruise up and down waiting for the french fleet and eventually they find them and chase them into Ireland where a big battle takes place. The next book in the series by Patrick O'Brian is The Yellow Admiral.

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