title: Blue at the Mizzen: Aubrey-Maturin Series Book 20
author:  Patrick O'Brian 
description: "The book contains the usual splendid blend of nautical detail and political intrigue, savage battles and naturalists' musing, all ratified by O'Brian's seemingly effortless ability to deploy the vocabulary and idioms of the time." --<i>New Yorker</i>
zlib_text: BLUE AT THE MIZZEN
  
  Aubrey - Maturin Series
  
    
  
  BOOK TWENTY
  
    
  
  by
  
  Patrick O'Brian
  
  
  
  
  
  > In addition to twenty volumes in the highly respected Aubrey/Maturin series,
  > Patrick O'Brian's many novels include Testimonies, The Golden Ocean, and The
  > Unknown Shore. O'Brian has also written acclaimed biographies of Pablo
  > Picasso and Sir Joseph Banks and has translated many works from the French,
  > among them the novels and memoirs of Simone de Beuvoir and Jean Lacouture's
  > biography of Charles de Gaulle. He lives in the South of France.
  
  > I dedicate this book, donum indignum, to the Provost and to all those many
  > people who were so kind to me while I was writing it in Trinity College,
  > Dublin
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER ONE
  
  The Surprise, lying well out in the channel with Gibraltar half a mile away on
  her starboard quarter, lying at a single anchor with her head to the
  freshening north-west breeze, piped all hands at four bells in the afternoon
  watch; and at the cheerful sound her tender Ringle