All the Proud Ships: A Novel of the American Revolution - Softcover

Friend, Charles E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1564741648 ISBN 13: 9781564741646

Publisher: Daniel & Daniel Pub, 1996

Synopsis

This is the original edition of "All The Proud Ships."  Now out of print, it has been replaced by the second edition, which is available in both paperback and Kindle versions.

About this title

From the Author

This is the story of the Continental Navy warship "Eagle" and of the men who command her, Lieutenant Ethan Hale and Captain Patrick Tremayne.  Although the story is fictional, the ship "Eagle" is closely modeled on two real Continental Navy ships, the "Bon Homme Richard," a former French merchant ship captained by the famous John Paul Jones, and the frigate "Warren."  As the author notes:  "[T]he Continental Navy Ship Eagle that is featured in this story is closely patterned after the real-life ship Bon Homme Richard, the vessel from whose deck Captain John Paul Jones issued his immortal words "I have not yet begun to fight."  Like Bon Homme Richard, Eagle is a former merchant ship, an old "East Indiaman" refitted as a naval warship, and like Bon Homme Richard, Eagle is armed with a "mixed bag" of cannon, 9-pounders, 12-pounders, and 18-pounders. ... Another Continental ship upon whose history I have drawn in creating Eagle was Warren, one of the 13 frigates authorized by Congress in 1775.  Built in Rhode Island and launched in 1776, Warren was armed with thirty-four cannon, these also being 9-, 12-, and 18-pounders, the same calibers that I have attributed to Eagle."  Thus armed, "Eagle" is sailed "into harm's way" by Hale and Tremayne in pursuit of a British convoy carrying vital reinforcements to the British garrisons in America in the year 1776.

From the Back Cover

In the winter of 1776,  Captain Patrick Tremayne and Lieutenant Ethan Hale are charged with a seemingly impossible mission:  To break the British blockade of the Delaware River, rendezvous with the scant forces of America's Continental Navy and a handful of American privateers, and intercept a Royal Navy convoy arriving from the West Indies with supplies and reinforcements for the coming British attack on the American capital, Philadelphia.
The odds are against them.  Their ship, Eagle, is little more than an old merchant ship decorated with a yellow stripe and a few clapped-out cannon.  Her crew are inexperienced, her second lieutenant bitter and vengeful, and her supplies insufficient.  She's hardly a match for the Royal Navy, the mightiest on the sea.
But Eagle is armed with more than guns.  She has the level head of Lieutenant Hale, the fierce loyalty of her men, and above all the sly cunning of Captain Tremayne, with his daring repertoire of strategies:  An impromptu rescue of sailors from a British prison hulk; that terror of the seas, a fireship; and a duel on whose outcome Tremayne will stake the future of his mission--and perhaps the future of the fledgling nation itself.
Packed with historical detail, All The Proud Ships is a story of cannon and powder smoke, of courage and sacrifice, of ships and the sea.  Above all, it is a story of freedom, and what brave men will do to have it.
 

Edition details

• Publisher: Daniel & Daniel Pub
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1564741648
• ISBN 13: 9781564741646
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 325