The Victory
Authors: Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Tags: #Aristocracy (Social Class) - England, #Historical Fiction, #Family, #Fantasy, #Great Britain - History - 19th century, #General, #Romance, #Napoleonic Wars; 1800-1815, #Sagas, #Great Britain, #Historical, #Fiction, #Domestic fiction, #Morland family (Fictitious characters)
A Warner Book
First published in Great Britain in 1989 by
Macdonald & Co (Publishers) Ltd
This edition published by Futura in 1989
Reprinted 1989, 1990
Reprinted by Warner Books in 1993, 1994,
2000
Copyright © Cynthia Harrod-Eagles 1989
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters in this publication are fictitious
and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means without the prior
permission in writing of the publisher, nor be
otherwise circulated in any form of binding or
cover other than that in which it is published and
without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
ISBN 0 7515 0649 4
Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
Warner Books
A Division of
Little, Brown and Company (UK)
Brettenham House
Lancaster Place
London WC2E 7EN
To Lesley, Cathy, and Sid,
without whose support many a book
would be started, but few finished.
In anticipation of the question I know I shall be asked, the
plague that breaks out in Manchester in this book is cholera.
There really was an epidemic of cholera in Manchester in
1796, and another in 1832, but the outbreak of 1806 is my
invention.
Regarding the battle of Trafalgar, all the ships I mention
really did take part, except for the
Nemesis,
the
Cetus,
and
the
Furieux,
which I invented for my purposes. There also
really was a King's ship
York,
and she really did sail into
oblivion on Boxing Day 1803. I hope the Royal Navy will
forgive me for giving her a new captain for the occasion; and
also for the truly dreadful things I did to the poor
Africa,
before handing her over to the real Captain Digby in time for
the battle.
My grateful thanks are due to Steve Howick, and all the
other officers of the Senior Service whom I consulted at
Portsmouth and Greenwich, for their courtesy in taking my enquiries seriously, and their patience in answering them so
fully.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Edward Baines
History of the Cotton Manufacture of
Great Britain
R. Bayne-Powell
The English Child in the Eighteenth
Century
Geoffrey Bennett
The Battle of Trafalgar
*
Memoirs of Lady Bess borough
G.D.H. Cole &
R. Postgate
The Common People 1746-1946
*
Letters of Cuthbert, Viscount
Collingwood
John Ferriar
Proceedings of the Board of Health
in Manchester 1805
Christopher Hibbert
George IV Prince of Wales
E.J. Hobsbawm
Industry and Empire
William
Howitt
The Rural Life of England
William
Jesse
Life of Beau Brummell
Michael Lewis
England's Sea Officers
Rene Maine
Trafalgar
J.H. Plumb
The First Four Georges
R.E. Prothero
English Farming Past and Present
E.S. Turner
The Court of St James
J.S. Watson
The Reign of George III
R.K. Webb
Modern England
*
Memoirs of Harriette Wilson
*
Diary and Correspondence of
William Windham
*
Contemporary sources
BOOK ONE
The Dolphin
Baby, baby, naughty baby,
Hush, you squalling thing, I say;
Hush your squalling, or
it
may be,
Bonaparte may pass this way.
Baby, baby, he's a giant,
Tall and black as Rouen steeple;