Sailor

This is the first of a series of historical naval stories based around the life and carear of an orphan.Several of the facts are true, but not neccessarily in the time scale of the novel.

Sailor

Synopsis

Jamie Johnson, the son of a fisherman is orphaned when his entire family are drowned. Taken in charge by the local vicar, he is apprenticed to a trading Master, who runs a small brig.

Jamie is infatuated by the owner’s daughter Annabel, but there is no hope of a liaison as they are of different classes of society.

Jamie is a good sailor and soon progresses. The Bosun, an old friend of Jamie’s late grandfather teaches him the arts of seamanship.

George Meacher the first mate befriends him and teaches him ships business and navigation.

However, Jamie falls foul of the owner’s nephew Thomas Brolin who is senior apprentice. Brolin plans to inherit the Stag Fortune by marrying Annabel.

Things come to a head, when Captain Stag invests in a new vessel promotes James to be the first mate.

Captain Stag plans a trip to China, and he makes Thomas Brolin his new First mate. However when Brolin sees Annabel taking an interest in James, he hires a local highwayman to murder him. However, the thief only robs Jamie and sells him to the press gang.

As Jamie is being rowed out to his ship the Aurora with the other pressed men; one of them stumbles knocking a Midshipman over board. Without thinking Jamie dives in and saves him.

The Aurora is sent to the Med and during the trip Jamie saves the ship from disaster. After chasing a small brigantine, Aurora is caught in a sand storm. Next day the brigantine is seen with a jury rig. On closer inspection Jamie realises she hasn’t enough men on deck for a ship of her size to have put up a jury rig and gives early warning. In the ensuing fight, several men are killed and he is promoted.

Aurora is ordered back to England with despatches; where she is immediately sent to the French coast with new orders for the blockading fleet.

Aurora captures a small trading brig. The prize is sent to England with Hepplethwaite as Captain and Jamie as his First Officer.

During the return passage, they are hit by a severe storm. The ship is in mortal danger of foundering on a lea shore, and the crew, believing they are lost, prepare to abandon ship.

During a flash of lightening, Jamie recognizes the shoreline as Cullercoats Bay, the place he was born. He pleads with Hepplethwaite not to abandon the ship as he is sure he can take her safely through the rocks.

This he does and is hailed a hero by the fisher folk and gentry alike. For his bravery and fortitude, he is rewarded with a double share of the prize money, and thanked personally by the Duke of Northumberland for saving his favourite nephew life.

He meets Tiffy Gordon, the Bosun off his old ship the Maria who brings him up to date on events at home.

Mr. Stag is missing presumed dead, and Thomas Brolin is ruining the Company. The ships are now underfed and running short handed, and known locally as hell ships and cannot keep their crews.

Brolin is also robbing the Stag Estate and running up large gambling debts and trying to force Annabel into a marriage so he can steal her inheritance. Thomas is angry at the thought of Annabel married to a bully like Brolin, and vows to be her champion.

When Brolin hears Jamie has returned he is in fear for his life and immediately gets the local magistrate to arrest him on a charge of theft

and James is thrown in Jail. Annabel rides to Deleval Hall and pleads James innocence. When Hepplethwaite meets Annabel he tells Annabel how

James was robbed and pressed into service. Annabel immediately asks Hepplethwaite to help her prove his innocence. He agrees to ask the Duke to intercede on Jame’s behalf.

When Hepplethwaite checks Jamie’s story of being pressed illegally, he find the Highwayman who attacked him received a full pardon for all his past crimes if he agreed to take the Kings Shilling and has been in the Duke of Northumberland’s Regiment as a Colonel of cavalry. The man admits to the crime adding he was hired by Brolin to murder James, but showed mercy by selling him to the press instead.

When James confronts Brolin with his accusation, Brolin challenges him to a duel. With Hepplethwaite as his second, they meet and in the fight James kills Brolin and but is severely wounded himself. He is tended by Annabel, who admits her fault in spurning his advances and she tells him of the debts that Brolin has run up and that she must sell the Maria in order to cover them.

Using his share of the prize money and borrowing the remainder from Hepplethwaite, James buys the Marie and marries Annabel. Thus starting his own Company and the beginnings of his own fortune and the founding of his own dynasty.