Plot
Ramage's ship, HMS Triton, is performing guard duty to a merchant convoy travelling from Britain to Jamaica. An otherwise routine assignment is complicated by his being under the orders of Rear Admiral Goddard, his family's sworn enemy. The convoy is menaced by French and Spanish attackers, and hit by a hurricane. Ramage pulls through, only to be court-martialed under Goddard's trumped-up charges.
A side-plot occurs when Triton is wrecked on a remote island, Isla Culebra. Ramage discovers that the Spanish garrison is searching for lost pirate treasure, having failed to puzzle out a clue left by the pirate in the form of a short poem. Successfully taking the Spanish forces prisoner, Ramage turns his wits to solving the puzzle and eventually triumphs through a combination of clear thinking and good fortune, recovering a large quantity of gold and precious stones which he delivers to the British authorities on leaving the island. It is his short spell as the senior ranking officer of either side on the island that gives the book its title, though in fact Ramage never attempts to exercise any civil authority over the island.
Peter Puget was an officer in the Royal Navy, best known for his exploration of Puget Sound, which is named for him.
Admiral Sir William Cornwallis, was a Royal Navy officer. He was the brother of Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, British commander at the siege of Yorktown. Cornwallis took part in a number of decisive battles including the siege of Louisbourg in 1758, when he was 14, and the Battle of the Saintes but is best known as a friend of Lord Nelson and as the commander-in-chief of the Channel Fleet during the Napoleonic Wars. He is depicted in the Horatio Hornblower novel, Hornblower and the Hotspur.
Hornblower in the West Indies, or alternately Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies, is one of the novels in the series that C. S. Forester wrote about fictional Royal Navy officer Horatio Hornblower.
HMS York was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 24 March 1796. She served briefly in the West Indies where she captured numerous small vessels. She was wrecked in 1804.
Admiral Sir George Montagu was a Royal Navy officer, the second son of Admiral John Montagu, and the brother of Captain James Montagu and Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Montagu.
Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley, 1st Baronet was a senior and highly experienced British Royal Navy officer of the eighteenth century, who served with distinction at numerous actions of the Seven Years' War, American Revolutionary War and French Revolutionary Wars. In his youth he was renowned as an efficient and able frigate officer and in later life became a highly respected squadron commander in the Channel Fleet. It was during the latter service when he was awarded his baronetcy after losing a leg at the Glorious First of June, aged 60.
Sir William Whetstone was an officer of the Royal Navy in the later 17th and early eighteenth century. He eventually rose to the rank of rear admiral, having spent his career serving with several distinguished figures.
HMS Kent was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was ordered from Deptford Dockyard on 10 May 1743 and was built by Joseph Allin the younger to the 1741 proposals of the 1719 Establishment, and was launched on 10 May 1746. Her first commander was Thomas Fox, who had previously commanded HMS Newcastle.
The Atlantic campaign of 1806 was a complicated series of manoeuvres and counter-manoeuvres conducted by squadrons of the French Navy and the British Royal Navy across the Atlantic Ocean during the spring and summer of 1806, as part of the Napoleonic Wars. The campaign followed directly from the Trafalgar campaign of the year before, in which the French Mediterranean fleet had crossed the Atlantic, returned to Europe and joined with the Spanish fleet. On 21 October 1805, this combined force was destroyed by a British fleet under Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar, although the campaign did not end until the Battle of Cape Ortegal on 4 November 1805. Believing that the French Navy would not be capable of organised resistance at sea during the winter, the First Lord of the Admiralty Lord Barham withdrew the British blockade squadrons to harbour. Barham had miscalculated – the French Atlantic fleet, based at Brest, had not been involved in the Trafalgar campaign and was therefore at full strength. Taking advantage of the reduction in the British forces off the port, Napoleon ordered two heavy squadrons to sea, under instructions to raid British trade routes while avoiding contact with equivalent Royal Navy forces.
Sir Francis Wheler was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the Nine Years' War.
Admiral Sir Richard Lee KCB KTS was a prominent officer of the British Royal Navy who served in the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. His early career was marked by his participation in a number of important battles during the American war, during the French Revolutionary Wars he spent an unremarkable period of time in the Caribbean, but during the Napoleonic Wars he was again prominent, participating heavily in a number of important engagements.
Ramage and the Freebooters, is an historical novel by Dudley Pope, set during the French Revolutionary Wars. It is the third of the Ramage novels, following on from Ramage and the Drumbeat.
Rear-Admiral James Walker CB, CvTE was an officer of the Royal Navy. He served during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
The action of 7 April 1800 was a minor naval engagement fought between a British squadron blockading the Spanish naval base of Cádiz and a convoy of 13 Spanish merchant vessels escorted by three frigates, bound for the Spanish colonies in the Americas. The blockade squadron consisted of the ships of the line HMS Leviathan and HMS Swiftsure and the frigate HMS Emerald, commanded by Rear-Admiral John Thomas Duckworth on Leviathan. The Spanish convoy sailed from Cádiz on 3 April 1800 and encountered Duckworth's squadron two days later. The Spanish attempted to escape; Emerald succeeded in capturing one ship early on 6 April. The British captured a brig the following morning and the British squadron divided in pursuit of the remainder.
Arthur Forrest was a Royal Navy officer and planter who saw service during the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War, rising to the rank of captain and the post of commodore. He also owned 3,000 acres of sugar plantations, and a considerable number of slaves, in the Colony of Jamaica.
HMS Galgo was a Jamaican privateer that the Spanish Navy captured in 1797 and named Galgo Inglés, and that the British captured in November 1799. In her brief career she detained, took, or destroyed a number of small prizes before October 1800, when she foundered, with the loss of most of her crew and passengers.
The Battle of the Levant Convoy was a naval engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars fought on 7 October 1795. During the battle, a powerful French squadron surprised a valuable British convoy from the Levant off Cape St Vincent on the coast of Portugal. The convoy was weakly defended, and although the small escort squadron tried to drive the French back, they were outmatched. In the ensuing action one of the British ships of the line and almost the entire convoy was overrun and captured. The French commander, Commodore Joseph de Richery, then retired to the neutral Spanish port of Cádiz, where he came under blockade.
Admiral Thomas Le Marchant Gosselin was a British naval officer of the 18th and 19th centuries who received the patronage of senior officers such as Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood and William Cornwallis. Gosselin joined the Royal Navy in 1778 and as a junior officer had extensive service in the American Revolution, including participating in the Battle of the Saintes in April 1782. Promoted to commander in April 1793, Gosselin took part in the Glorious First of June as commander of HMS Kingfisher. He was promoted to post-captain in July 1795 and took command of a variety of ships including most notably HMS Syren, HMS Latona, and HMS Audacious. Gosselin frequently served on blockade duties in the English Channel and on convoy duties to and from the West Indies.
Ramage's Signal, is an historical novel by Dudley Pope, set during the French Revolutionary Wars. It is the eleventh of the Ramage novels, following on from The Ramage Touch.
HMS Renegade was a schooner built in the United States in 1820, or possibly even earlier. She had been the pirate ship Zaragozana operating out of Havana that the British Royal Navy captured on 31 March 1823, and took into service. The Navy sold HMS Renegade in January 1826.
