The unfinished book stops at the point where Hornblower is persuaded to attempt the mission himself. He was in prison awaiting execution for fraud and agrees to assist in exchange for a reprieve. The Reverent Doctor Claudius - a disgraced clergyman and expert forger - is recruited to create the false letter from Napoleon. This plan has been made possible because the papers captured by Hornblower include a routine letter from Napoleon, whose form can be copied. These will command Villeneuve to take his fleet out of their safe harbour of Ferrol and so bring about a decisive engagement with Admiral Nelson. He proposes sending agents to Spain, posing as messengers, to deliver false orders from Napoleon Bonaparte to Villeneuve. Hornblower presents a daring plan to the first and second secretaries to the Admiralty - William Marsden and John Barrow. He arrives at the same time as the disappointing news that the French fleet under Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve has escaped into Ferrol, Spain after an indecisive engagement. Back in England, he travels to the Admiralty with the documents.
During the battle, Hornblower finds important papers in the French captain's cabin. On the way, they are pursued by a French brig, which they board and disable. Hotspur ran aground and was lost the day after Hornblower turned over command.įollowing the court martial, the Hotspur's officers, now without a ship, travel back to England with Hornblower in a supply ship. As he travels back to England for his next assignment (and his promised elevation to post rank), he is asked to participate in the court martial of Hotspur's new captain. Hornblower has just finished his tour blockading Brest in command of the Royal Navy sloop Hotspur. It was the eleventh and last book of the series to be published, but it is fourth in chronological sequence. There is a one-page summary of the last several chapters of the book found on the final page, taken from notes left behind from the author.
It forms part of the Horatio Hornblower series, and as a result of Forester's death in 1966, it was left unfinished. Hornblower and the Crisis is a 1967 historical novel by C.
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