X-Nico

4 unusual facts about A Ship of the Line


A Ship of the Line

When Hornblower encounters a squadron of four French ships of the line that have broken through the English blockade of Toulon, he attacks them despite the odds of four to one, and manages to disable or heavily damage all of them.

As a reward for his exploits, he is given command of HMS Sutherland, once the Dutch ship Eendracht, and which is, in Hornblower's estimation, "the ugliest and least desirable two-decker in the Navy List".

HMS Pluto

A fictional HMS Pluto appears as the admiral's flagship in the Horatio Hornblower novel A Ship of the Line.

Ruse of war

In the novel A Ship of the Line, British Captain Horatio Hornblower sails his Dutch-built ship unmolested into a well-defended enemy harbor by flying French colors and hoisting the French recognition signal for the day.



see also

Cyprien Renaudin

On 13 May 1793, he was appointed first officer to the frigate Andromaque, under Jean François Renaudin, on which he sustained a fight against a ship of the line and four Spanish frigates.

Stepan Vasiliyevich Voyevodsky

In 1827–1830 lieutenant Voyevodsky served on Jezekiel, a ship-of-the-line of count Login Geiden's Mediterranean squadron; he participated in the Battle of Navarino in October 1827 and in the naval blockade of the Dardanelles during the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829.