In which Lt. Ramage speaks with Lord Nelson and smugglers alike, takes passage for "Boney's" France, is astounded and becomes a shipwright, employs a thief, speaks to a policman of knives and sealing wax, and joins the French army! One suspects that Liberty - Equality - Fraternity meant only the liberty to reduce your brother citizens into equal misery. Of course, the British Navy's blockade also had something to do with the desperate state of the French economy revealed here (and rarely depicted in other seafaring series).If you like stories of the Napoleonic era you'll enjoy this close up view of the French Terror into which idealists descended, but if your desire is only battle at sea this volume will disappoint. As far as I know this is the only nautical novel that brings its naval hero so far and long into enemy France (perhaps Pope is fulfilling the promise of C.S. Forester's "Hornblower During The Crisis" left unfinished by Forester's death before HH gets ashore).