Ramage & the Rebels

Selected Historical Fiction Published by McBooks Press

BY A
LEXANDER
K
ENT

The Complete Midshipman Bolitho

Stand Into Danger

In Gallant Company

Sloop of War

To Glory We Steer

Command a King's Ship

Passage to Mutiny

With All Despatch

Form Line of Battle!

Enemy in Sight!

The Flag Captain

Signal–Close Action!

The Inshore Squadron

A Tradition of Victory

Success to the Brave

Colours Aloft!

Honour This Day

The Only Victor

Beyond the Reef

The Darkening Sea

For My Country's Freedom

Cross of St George

Sword of Honour

Second to None

Relentless Pursuit

Man of War

Heart of Oak

BY P
HILIP
M
CCUTCHAN

Halfhyde at the Bight of Benin

Halfhyde's Island

Halfhyde and the Guns of Arrest

Halfhyde to the Narrows

Halfhyde for the Queen

Halfhyde Ordered South

Halfhyde on Zanatu

BY J
AN
N
EEDLE

A Fine Boy for Killing

The Wicked Trade

The Spithead Nymph

BY J
AMES
L. N
ELSON

The Only Life That

Mattered

BY J
AMES
D
UFFY

Sand of the Arena

The Fight for Rome

BY D
EWEY
L
AMBDIN

The French Admiral

The Gun Ketch

A King's Commander

Jester's Fortune

BY B
ROOS
C
AMPBELL

No Quarter

War of Knives

Peter Wicked

BY D
OUGLAS
W. J
ACOBSON

Night of Flames

BY D
UDLEY
P
OPE

Ramage

Ramage & The Drumbeat

Ramage & The Freebooters

Governor Ramage R.N.

Ramage's Prize

Ramage & The Guillotine

Ramage's Diamond

Ramage's Mutiny

Ramage & The Rebels

The Ramage Touch

Ramage's Signal

Ramage & The Renegades

Ramage's Devil

Ramage's Trial

Ramage's Challenge

Ramage at Trafalgar

Ramage & The Saracens

Ramage & The Dido

BY F
REDERICK
M
ARRYAT

Frank Mildmay or The Naval Officer

Mr Midshipman Easy

Newton Forster or The Merchant Service

BY V.A. S
TUART

Victors and Lords

The Sepoy Mutiny

Massacre at Cawnpore

The Cannons of Lucknow

The Heroic Garrison

The Valiant Sailors

The Brave Captains

Hazard's Command

Hazard of Huntress

Hazard in Circassia

Victory at Sebastopol

Guns to the Far East

Escape from Hell

BY J
ULIAN
S
TOCKWIN

Kydd

Artemis

Seaflower

Mutiny

Quarterdeck

Tenacious

Command

The Admiral's Daughter

BY J
OHN
B
IGGINS

A Sailor of Austria

The Emperor's Coloured Coat

The Two-Headed Eagle

Tomorrow the World

BY A
LEXANDER
F
ULLERTON

Storm Force to Narvik

Last Lift from Crete

All the Drowning Seas

A Share of Honour

The Torch Bearers

The Gatecrashers

BY C.N. P
ARKINSON

The Guernseyman

Devil to Pay

The Fireship

So Near So Far

Dead Reckoning

The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower

BY D
OUGLAS
R
EEMAN

The Horizon

Dust on the Sea

Knife Edge

Twelve Seconds to Live

The White Guns

A Prayer for the Ship

For Valour

BY D
AVID
D
ONACHIE

The Devil's Own Luck

The Dying Trade

A Hanging Matter

An Element of Chance

The Scent of Betrayal

A Game of Bones

On a Making Tide

Tested by Fate

Breaking the Line

Published by McBooks Press 2001

Copyright © 1978 by Dudley Pope

First published in the United Kingdom in 1979 by The Alison Press/Martin Secker & Warburg Limited

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher. Requests for such permissions should be addressed to McBooks Press, Inc., ID Booth Building, 520 North Meadow St., Ithaca, NY 14850.

Cover painting by Paul Wright.

The paperback edition of this title was cataloged as: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pope, Dudley.

Ramage and the rebels / by Dudley Pope.

p. cm.—(Lord Ramage novels ; #9)

ISBN 0-935526-91-9 (alk. paper)

1. Ramage, Nicholas (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Great Britain. Royal Navy—Officers—Fiction. 3. Ship captains—Fiction.

4. Privateering—Fiction. 4. Great Britain—History, Naval—19th century—Fiction. 5. Curaçao—Fiction. I. Title

PR6066.O5 R28 2001

823'.914—dc21

01-030317

The e-books versions of this title have the following ISBNs: Kindle 978-1-59013-528-0, ePub 978-1-59013-529-7, and PDF 978-1-59013-530-3

www.mcbooks.com

For Joy, Douglas and Katie who also love the Islands

“I
T'S NOT exactly making war, sir,” Ramage said, putting as much disapproval in his voice as he dared. “It seems to me to be half-way between poaching and game-keeping. I've never understood why we allow it ourselves.”

“It dam' well isn't war,” the Admiral said angrily, “it's cold-blooded murder, and these orders—” he tapped the sealed packet on the highly polished table in front of him—”tell you to put a stop to it all. These privateers are no better than pirates. Oh yes, they may have parchment commissions covered with big seals and signed by the king of this or the queen of that, but the fact is they're privateering just for plunder.”

He tapped the packet again. “I say in here and I repeat it now, Ramage: any privateer you find, French, Spanish or Dutch, whose captain can't produce a regular commission, then we'll take him before the Admiralty Court and charge him with piracy, and he'll hang from a gibbet along the Palisades. So search well and warn each captain before you take him off his ship—I don't want any of ‘em claiming afterwards they had no time to collect their papers. Commission, certificate of registry, charter party, muster list, log—everything. And witnesses—I want witnesses. The privateer's mate and at least two of your officers. Seal up in a packet all the papers you're given and make the privateer captain sign his name beside the seal.”

“Yes, sir,” said Ramage patiently.

“Yes sir, yes sir,” the Admiral repeated angrily, “but just make sure you understand, Ramage: if one of these damned pirates escapes judgement in court because of some technicality that can be attributed to an omission by you, then I'll bring you to trial too, for negligence!”

“Yes, sir,” Ramage said deliberately, and he saw a copy of the latest
London Gazette
tucked under a pile of papers on one side of the table. The now “Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's Ships and Vessels upon the Jamaica Station” was not going to give his newest and most junior captain the satisfaction of knowing that he had just read half a page about him in the
Gazette,
detailing his latest exploits on the Leeward Islands Station, nearly a thousand miles to the eastward, at the windward end of the Caribbean. Yet William Foxe-Foote, Vice-Admiral of the Blue, one of the Members of Parliament for Bristol (it was said that bribing the voters to get the seat had cost him more than seventy-five thousand pounds), was by reputation one of the most sly flag officers in the Navy List. It was also said (and looking at the pink and perspiring face with its tiny eyes and bulbous nose, Ramage had no trouble believing it) that he had badgered the First Lord of the Admiralty into giving him the Jamaica Station—the richest in the service for prize-money—so that he could recoup his purse after the Bristol election. Seventy-five thousand pounds a Foote—perhaps the Admiralty realized a fathom of him in London could prove too expensive and agreed to send him out to Jamaica.

“What do you find so funny?” the Admiral demanded.

“I was thinking of the shock these privateersmen are going to get, sir,” Ramage said, finding it easy to lie gracefully to a man who was so clearly a politician first and an admiral second, two roles which he combined to further his main ambition, which was to get rich. Ramage recalled some lampoon to the effect that the nation's taxpayers were lucky that there was only one Foote in Old Palace Yard, a neat reference to the space in front of the Houses of Parliament.