Patrick O'Brian

When Jack Aubrey makes some bad investments which involve him with the London underworld, he must rely on Stephen Maturin, an intelligence officer on his ship, to get him out of trouble

The Reverse of the Medal (Vol. Book 11) (Aubrey/Maturin Novels)

Gavin

I’ve been digging in to the history behind the books and am fairly boggled. Cochrane is one of these absurd Victorians doing 9 lives in one; Mary Montagu’s cynicism about a cause celebre thrills me weirdly.

Very moving scene with all the old sailors turning out.
‘The judges are thought of as quite great men.’
‘By those who do not know them. And not all judges, either. Think of Coke, who so cowardly attacked the defenceless Raleigh at his trial and who was dismissed when he was chief-justice; think of all the Lord Chancellors who have been turned away in contempt for corruption; think of the vile Judge Jeffries.’
‘God’s my life, Stephen, you are uncommon hard on lawyers. Surely there must be some good ones?’
‘I dare say there are: I dare say there are some men who are immune to the debasing influence, just as there are some men who may walk about among those afflicted with the plague or indeed the present influenza without taking it’

‘You could not truthfully blackguard the law, which is the best law that any nation was ever blessed with,’ said Lawrence, ‘but you might point out that it is administered by human beings. Some of them, indeed, can scarcely claim so high a rank.’

“Stephen stood up to peer out of the window at the evening sky, and now, looking back into the room, he saw Jack in the full north light, sitting as though for his portrait. He seemed broader than before, heavier, profoundly grave of course, and somewhat leonine; but beneath the unmoved gravity Stephen perceived a wound that was hardly affected by the news of the Surprise; and in the hope of easing it to some degree he added, ‘And in the strictest confidence, my dear, I may tell you that our war will not be entirely private either. You know something of my activities; and at intervals of harrying the enemy’s commerce I may have errands of that kind to run.’ Jack took the point; he expressed his pleasure with a polite inclination of his head and the appearance of a smile; and the pain remained unaffected. Stephen continued, ‘This damned spiteful pillory, brother. It is of no essential importance to an innocent man, but it is bound to be unpleasant, like a toothache: I have given you many a draught for the toothache, so I have, and here is one’ – taking a small bottle from his pocket – ‘that will make the pillory pass like little more than a dream: disagreeable, but only faintly disagreeable, and at a distance. I have often used it myself, with great effect.’

‘Thankee, Stephen,’ said Jack, setting the bottle on the mantelshelf. Stephen saw that he had no intention of taking it, and that the underlying pain was quite untouched. For to Jack Aubrey the fact of no longer belonging to the Navy counted more than a thousand pillories, the loss of fortune, loss of rank, and loss of future. It was in a way a loss of being, and to those who knew him well it gave his eyes, his whole face, the strangest look.

The Reverse of the Medal (Vol. Book 11) (Aubrey/Maturin Novels)

Reviews