The films are based on the books of C.S. Forester, a series that many young boys of another generation looked forward to with glee. The books follow the adventures of a talented, daring young man as he moves up through the ranks of the British Navy at the turn of the 19th century. But however great a man he once was, Sawyer is mentally unfit to command the ship. Hornblower and his friends realize that every man's life aboard is endangered by the captain's recklessness. As the complicated story unfolds in flashbacks, the relationships among the men under duress evolve in likely, yet heroic fashion.
Nothing is as simple as the first boyish installment of the story proposes.
Amid injustice and madness, integrity, honor, and nobility blossom. No one is merely what he seems in this story. But always for the good of the ship. Horatio understands the way the system works now. He appreciates that he could be hanged for mutiny.