num_pages: 324
description: June 1808, somewhere west of Nicaragua-a site suitable for spectacular sea battles. The Admiralty has ordered Captain Horatio Hornblower, now in command of the thirty-six-gun HMS Lydia, to form an alliance against the Spanish colonial government with an insane Spanish landowner; to find a water route across the Central American isthmus; and "to take, sink, burn or destroy" the fifty-gun Spanish ship of the line Natividad or face court-martial. A daunting enough set of orders-even if the happily married captain were not woefully distracted by the passenger he is obliged to take on in Panama: Lady Barbara Wellesley.
language: English
title: Beat to Quarters
titlecomplete: Beat to Quarters
characters: Horatio Hornblower
genres: Maritime, Historical, Historical Fiction, Literature, Military Fiction, Classics, War, British Literature, Adventure, Fiction
ratings_count: 11193
series: Hornblower Saga: Chronological Order, Hornblower Saga: Publication Order
publisher: Back Bay Books