Dewey Lambdin: The King`s Commission

There was a real Muskogean/Scots student who left his studies in Charleston and went back to aid his people in 1779, one Alexander McGillivray, on whom I based my character. Unfortunately, he backed the Spanish under Governor Galvez and kept his people out of the Revolution, though he hoped for much the same settlements and agreements as my fictional McGilliveray did. The problem was that no matter which horse they backed, the Indians would lose their bet, for no one was prepared to live in harmony with them.

Captain Horatio Nelson's encounter at Turk's Island took place pretty much as described. Nelson was repulsed and forced to sail away with his tail between his legs. This event has rarely, if ever, been mentioned by any of his biographers. Contemporary accounts such as Schomberg's Naval Chronology and Beatson's Naval And Military Memoirs give the impression that Captain King of Resistance was senior officer present and never mention Nelson at all! And Nelson must not have been very proud of it, for even his Sketches of My Life, published before he died at Trafalgar in 1805, failed to make note of it. Why Captain King deputed himself to a lower-ranking upstart has never been explained. Perhaps Nelson cowed him by dint of over-powering personality and the urge for action.

Nelson was indeed lucky he kept his commission. He rushed in rashly, throwing 167 sailors and Marines with no field artillery against 530-550 troops and talented naval gunners, with artillery, and antiship batteries heavier than anything his frigates mounted-the 18th Century equivalent of a reinforced battalion.

It was recorded by Midshipman Prince William Henry that Adml. Sir Samuel Hood tore a rather large strip of hide off Nelson's backside in private for not reporting to the fleet first, for assuming a position of "acting commodore" which he had no right to, and, finally, for failing to retake the island. Perhaps mollified by the fact that Nelson hadn't suffered any major casualties, and had known when to fold his tents and quit, Hood didn't break his career, as he had other officers' who hacked him off. The famous Nelson luck was acting overtime.

The Jemmy (James) Trevenen mentioned just before the conference aboard Albemarle was first officer of Resistance. He wrote his sister Betsy later that the whole affair was a "… ridiculous expedition, undertaken by a young man merely from the hope of seeing his name in the papers, ill-depicted at the first, carried on without a plan afterward, attempted to be carried into execution rashly… and hastily abandoned for the… reason that it ought not to have been undertaken at all."

Trevenen was another of Captain Cook's officers from the Voyages of Discovery. Like King, he was a real tarry-handed tarpaulin man of no mean skill as a seaman and navigator, but was forced to work his way up through the Royal Navy slowly, while people like Nelson (and Alan Lewrie) seem to lead charmed lives of "interest" and quick advancement. He was a bit miffed that Resistance had captured two French warships off Turk's Island (which started the whole thing) and no one, least of all himself, benefited from their capture in promotion or command. And since the war ended weeks later, their value in prize-money wasn't a tenth of what it would have been earlier, so one can understand his frustrations.

Captain, later Admiral Lord Nelson, never had a scintilla of luck on land. He came close in Nicaragua, but the expedition failed due to sickness among the troops and a lack of drive on the part of the Army. Nelson lost an eye and an arm on land, or so close to it as to make no difference. And he was always a little touchy when it came to criticism. According to Clenell Wilkinson's biography, Nelson was vain, open to flattery, and liable to over-react when his actions were questioned. No wonder he never mentioned the Turk's Island defeat in his putative autobiography.

So, there we are, then. Through no fault of his own, and by a series of fortunate flukes, our young hero is now master and commander into a small brig of war, but the war is over. What shall his future be? Shall he take heed of past warnings and behave himself for a change? Shall he stay up to windward of nubile young ladies with well-armed daddies; eschew the charms of "willing widows"; stay sober and industrious and make the most of his career opportunities in the Navy?

Perhaps Shrike will pay off and he will finally get a chance to go home and live the sort of life he's been looking forward to. Or will Soft Rabbit and a young master Lewrie pop up? And just where do William Pitt and Belinda figure into this?

I'm afraid you'll simply have to wait to find out, as do I when dealing with an impetuous fellow. Wherever Alan Lewrie shows up, though, we all know that nothing will ever be the same.