The Yellow Admiral

Plot summary

Aubrey, captain of HMS Bellona in the Brest blockade after his squadron was dispersed, is home at Woolcombe, the Aubrey family estate, on parliamentary leave. Three law suits from owners of slave ships captured on his mission along the West African coast tie up his funds. His wife Sophia rents out Ashgrove Cottage, their marital home. Maturin returns from Spain with his wife Diana and their household, moving into an empty wing of Woolcombe. Maturin's vast wealth is tied up in Spain, where authorities are displeased at his activities in Peru, a Spanish colony. On land, Aubrey opposes the enclosing of the common, Simmons Lea, which has been proposed in the House by his neighbour, Captain Griffiths. Aubrey has powers as lord of the manor, which he uses when the bill is called for its third reading. The admiral on the Brest blockade is uncle to Griffiths, and he encouraged the enclosure. Admiral Stranraer calls Aubrey back aboard, hoping to prevent Aubrey's appearance at the meeting of the Parliamentary committee. Aubrey is watching a boxing match between Barret Bonden and Evans, Griffith's gamekeeper, when the orders arrive from the admiral. Diana intercepts them, sending Mrs Oakes to tell Aubrey to proceed directly to Parliament from the match. Aubrey does not see the orders until he reaches home. Lord Stranraer is displeased; he sends HMS Bellona to the inshore blockading-squadron, a more difficult task. Aboard the flagship, Maturin receives letters for his covert mission in France. The Admiral tries unsuccessfully to use Maturin to change Aubrey's mind.

At the dark of the moon in heavy fog, Aubrey puts Maturin ashore in France to meet the Catalan agent, Inigo Bernard. Apparently at the same time, two French ships slip through the blockading squadron in the sector that HMS Bellona patrols. The Admiral rebukes Aubrey, who accepts no blame, and returns Bellona to the offshore squadron. Aubrey receives a letter from Sophie, in which she accuses him of adultery and announces her intention of leaving him, having read letters sent him from Canada by Miss Amanda Smith. Aubrey is spoiling for a fight. During manoeuvres in foggy weather the Bellona spots a French privateer chasing a merchantman. She signals to the fleet, and proceeds to take Les Deux Frères, which proves a rich prize, having captured two Guinea coast merchant ships. A storm batters the Bellona, so Aubrey takes the ship for repair in Cawsand Bay. Aubrey goes to Woolcombe to ask Sophie for forgiveness, but she rebuffs him. Aubrey sends his tender Ringle to report Bellona's condition to the Admiral. The Admiral then sends Ringle to retrieve Maturin from France. Once Bellona is repaired, Aubrey rejoins the blockading squadron, learning that Ringle has taken Maturin to England. In London, Maturin tells Sir Joseph Blaine about a plot by a Spanish intelligence officer to burgle Blaine’s house. With the assistance of Mr Pratt, they capture the Spanish agent red-handed. Maturin updates Sir Joseph on the readiness of Chile for independence. They devise a scheme for an expedition led by Aubrey on the Surprise. The negative reports from Lord Stranrear with the war winding down put Aubrey in the position of being promoted to rear admiral without a squadron, known informally as being admiral of the yellow, as there is no yellow squadron; Aubrey considers this the worst career fate, so he makes a plan to avoid it. Maturin learns his fortune is again available to him. In a gesture to his shipmates, Maturin buys new clothes.

Maturin goes to Woolcombe, where Diana tells him of the issue between Sophie and Jack. She and Clarissa have enlightened Sophie as to the possibility of enjoying sex, even suggesting that she have her own affair. Sophie writes a letter of reconciliation to her husband, which Maturin carries aboard. The letter makes Aubrey ebullient. Admiral Stranraer requests Maturin's medical advice, as he is bedbound; Maturin suggests use of medicines unfamiliar to the flagship's surgeon, to good effect. The Bellona finds the inner squadron fighting two French ships of the line. Upon seeing the Bellona and Grampus, the French ships retreat. For months, the Bellona sweeps the bay, blockading Brest. Maturin tells Aubrey of his plan for Chile, to which Aubrey agrees. The Queen Charlotte comes to visit the inner squadron, with a stores ship to replenish food. The Admiral thanks Maturin for his treatment. The Admiral informs his captains of the progress in the war on land, where Napoleon is making errors.

The peace is announced; Napoleon is exiled to Elba. The crew of the Bellona are paid off and the ship goes into ordinary storage. Aubrey and Maturin read newspapers to learn world events while they were blockading Brest, adjusting to peace. They agree to a plan with the three men from the Chilean independence movement. Aubrey requests suspension from the Navy List, and is put on loan to the hydrographic office. Maturin finances the fitting-out of the Surprise, which takes until February 1815. They sail to Madeira with their families aboard. After a brief time on the island, their families will take the packet home. Instead, Lord Keith, commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, sends orders to Aubrey reinstating him because Napoleon has escaped from Elba. Aubrey takes command of the Royal Navy ships in the harbour of Madeira to blockade the Straits of Gibraltar.

Characters

See also Recurring characters in the Aubrey–Maturin series

Series chronology

This novel references actual events with accurate historical detail, like all in this series. In respect to the internal chronology of the series, it is the first to line up with historical years, as the first six novels did. Then follow eleven novels beginning with The Surgeon's Mate that might take five or six years to happen but are all pegged to an extended 1812. As Patrick O'Brian says it, consider an 1812a and 1812b, in the introduction to The Far Side of the World, the tenth novel in this series. The events of The Yellow Admiral again match up with the historical events of the Napoleonic wars.

Reviews

The Telegraph called The Yellow Admiral "an interim novel" with the best bits in the relations between Aubrey and his wife:

O'Brian has done good shore scenes in the past, though usually animated by Maturin's intelligence work. Aubrey's battle to preserve his local common from inclosure by a scheming neighbour is pedestrian in comparison. And the characters become flat: Diana, Maturin's wife, is reduced to a caricature of a "dem fine spirited woman"; even the exchanges between Stephen and Jack have little of their old zest.

Things revive on-board ship: the death of a midshipman has the authentic O'Brian tang of shocking maritime violence mingled with tenderness. The best bits are the relations between Jack and his wife, Sophie, who discovers proof of his infidelity: she is a good, kind woman whose virtue has a certain ungenerous narrowness.

In a similar vein, while reviewing a later book in the series, John Casey writing in the Washington Post said: "Among O'Brian's fans there was some disquiet when The Yellow Admiral came out. It seemed more diffuse than the earlier installments."

By contrast, Kirkus Reviews finds that this another excellent adventure for oceanic literature's oddest couple:

The 18th voyage for Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, stormy-petrel protagonists of O'Brian's utterly addictive series on life in the service of His Britannic Majesty's navy during the Napoleonic Wars (The Commodore, 1995, etc.). Having returned from a distasteful mission in West African waters, where he commanded a squadron with orders to suppress the slave trade, Aubrey is fending off a welter of lawsuits filed by aggrieved ship-owners whose vessels he seized. Abandoned by his superiors, the aging ex-captain fears he may be passed over for promotion or, worse yet, yellowed (elevated and then retired on half pay). Obliged to play country squire, the cash-strapped Aubrey (a Tory MP) makes new enemies when (as lord of the manor) he opposes enclosure of a common abutting his Dorset estate. Finally sent back to sea with his steadfast shipmate Maturin, the polymath physician who doubles as a spy for the Admiralty, the embattled mariner encounters even tougher going. Assigned to wearisome blockade duty off of Brest, he captures a French privateer laden with treasure but is charged with leaving his assigned station. Aubrey is further dispirited by a letter from his usually complaisant wife who accuses him of adultery with a Canadian lass whose billets doux he has unwisely left about the house. Meantime, the Corsican usurper suffers a crushing defeat at Leipzig, and in anticipation of peace the Royal Navy launches the Georgian era's equivalent of a downsizing campaign. Back in England after a successful intelligence-gathering sojourn on the Continent, Maturin arranges for his old friend to assume a training command in rebellious Chile's fledgling navy. As the two sail off for South America, however, word reaches them that Napoleon has escaped from Elba and Aubrey is to head a task force patrolling the Straits of Gibraltar. Another excellent adventure, complete with period-piece arcana, for oceanic literature's oddest and arguably most appealing couple.

Terry Teachout writing in the New York Times said he felt "vaguely disappointed by the last three or four installments of the Aubrey-Maturin chronicle, . . . but that The Yellow Admiral, while somewhat predictable, is nonetheless full of life." Viewing the series as a whole, Teachout has two views: "(the novels) are by a long shot the best things of their kind, so much better than the competition that comparisons long ago ceased to be relevant: they are uniquely excellent, and deserve the widest possible audience." On the other hand, he says, "Fine as they are, these books are of their kind: brilliant entertainments, rich in implication and almost certainly of permanent interest, yet not quite up to the mark set by Austen and Trollope."

Publishers Weekly finds splendid storytelling from a true master:

As befits a popular and enduring fictional hero, Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy is besieged on all sides in the 18th installment of O'Brian's splendid 19th-century historical adventure series (The Commodore, etc.). Jack is fighting expensive, possibly ruinous, legal battles with slavers, as well as with rich landowners trying to enclose common lands around his family estate. He must also deal with a Navy superior with a financial interest in the enclosure, who is trying to wreck Jack's career. (If a captain becomes an admiral without a command he is ""in the cant phrase... yellowed""). Jack, on blockade duty off Brittany, frets that the impending peace will indeed yellow him; and he's also in for some rough marital weather with his wife, Sophie. Meanwhile, the series' other hero, Irish-Catalan physician Stephen Maturin, who's Jack's best friend, connects in ""the dark of the moon"" with Chilean independence leaders who may hire Jack to head their own young navy. O'Brian is at the top of his elegant form here. He offers a wealth of sly humor (Navy officers' talk is ""really not fit for mixed company because of its profoundly nautical character""), some splendid set pieces (a bare-knuckle boxing match, lively sea actions), characters who are palpably real and, as always, lapidary prose. This is splendid storytelling from a true master.

John Balzar writing in the Los Angeles Times says that ″Essential to the gift he (O'Brian) gives is authenticity″:

. . . that most improbably wonderful series of grown-up literary-historical flights of escapism. Here, in the year 1814, The Yellow Admiral refers not to a cowardice in battle but to an admiral without ships to command. No use dwelling on the plot, though. The no-longer secret is that plots of O'Brian's tales are like grapes to wine: pretty much essential, but not by themselves sublime. Virtuosity proves itself when a sip of the story actuates the senses and stirs cravings that become habits, no matter where you find yourself being taken.

Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post feels that O'Brian is taking his readers for granted:

All of this is carried forth in O'Brian's characteristically wry, understated fashion, a style that has much to do with his popularity. The reader unfamiliar with his work is likely to complain that the understatement is so extreme, half the time it's almost impossible to figure out what's going on. But The Yellow Admiral seems to have been written for cultists rather than to bring new readers aboard.

Allusion to real events and persons in history

The Royal Navy had a system of rising through the ranks once a man made Post Captain. As he moved up the list of seniority, if he lived, he would become a Rear Admiral, with a squadron to command. As the Royal Navy grew with the long wars against Napoleon, a break in that practice left some post captains as retired, instead of promoted, or promoted but without a squadron in the Blue, White or Red, hence a yellow admiral. This is what Aubrey feared, taking that as an insult to his life in the Royal Navy with a long record of successes in battles.

Napoleon was losing and winning battles on the ground in 1813 and early 1814, but his western flank was weak, and Wellington's army had crossed Portugal and Spain, in April taken Toulouse on its way to Paris. Napoleon agreed to exile on the isle of Elba in April 1814, as its emperor. He slipped off the island about ten months later on 26 February 1815, landing on the coast of France a few days later. He was met by the Fifth Regiment of France south of Grenoble on 7 March 1815; they chose to join forces with him as he marched to Paris.

Publication history