Alaric Bond - The Jackass Frigate

Does anyone have any comments on my "quibbles"?

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I have only recently managed to get hold of one of Alaric Bond's books, and as it happened it was the Jackass Frigate, even though I normally try and read series in order.

I enjoyed the story, and found the characters to be more three-dimensional than is often the case in naval fiction. I also was glad that the plot did not involve the protagonist dealing with an evil French spy carried over from previous volumes, a plot device that seems to dominate much of naval fiction, despite the fact that in reality (aside from Sydney Smith and Philippe d'Auvergne) RN officers spent most of their time on the mundane tasks of blockade, convoy defence, cutting-out expeditions and the like.

I do agree with 80 Winters' comments on the unlikelihood of a court-martial sweeping under the rug a suspicion that an officer had killed his superior. I have just finished reading an account of the trial of Bounty "mutineer" Peter Heywood, which reinforces my understanding that the 'senior management' of the navy dealt very severely with anything that smacked of indiscipline or mutiny. Heywood was almost certainly innocent of all the charges against him, and had powerful 'interest', yet he was still convicted and sentenced to hang, albeit with a recommendation for mercy. It is hard to believe that in such an environment the suspected killing of one officer by another would go uninvestigated, as pleasing as this may be to our 21st-century sensibilities about natural justice.

I also have a few nits to pick with the Alaric Bond over his use of language...in an effort to provide the reader with the sense of being inside the relatively closed community of the Georgian navy he has introduced naval slang. However, while "premier" is certainly an appropriate nickname for a first lieutenant, I am pretty sure "First luff" is a twentieth-century RN term, not used in the historical period of the book. Similarly, "bull ship" seems a bit too modern ("pusser ship" might be the appropriate equivalent), and I think the use of the phrase "Check, Check, Check", meaning cease fire, only came in with the introduction of director firing many years later, when standard orders needed to be intelligible when sent over the voice-pipe to gun turrets. I would be interested if Alaric Bond has any evidence of the use of these phrases in the age of sail.

However my major quibble is with the use of the term "nationalist" to denote Irishmen who opposed the British control of Ireland at this time. The word nationalist only came into use at the end of the 19th century, and implies a completely different political situation than existed in late Georgian times. I have no doubt that in the late 18th century, refractory Irishmen would have been called "United Irishmen" after the movement that tried to eject the British in 1798.

These are however minor points; overall I enjoyed the book and look forward to reading more in this series.