The Thirteen-Gun Salute
Patrick O'Brian
 Immediately following The Letter of Marque, the narrative picks up with Jack Aubrey getting the Surprise underway for a mission to South America. Upon reaching Lisbon, however, Dr Maturin is intercepted by Sir Joseph Blaine and told that he and Aubrey will be required to first go on a mission to the Sultan of Pulo Prabang, a (fictictious) piratical Malay state in the South China Sea. They are to transport Fox, the envoy who will lead the mission to persuade the Sultan to become an English rather than French ally. The French are being openly assisted by the same English traitors - Wray and Ledward - who were responsible for Aubrey's former disgrace. With the Surprise now commanded by Captain Pullings, they return with Blaine to England where Jack Aubrey is reinstated with his former seniority as a Post-Captain in the Royal Navy by Lord Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty. He is also given command of the recently captured French ship Diane for the mission ahead. Fatefully, the Diane is the very ship Jack Aubrey had just captured from the French and which had secured his reinstatement, along with appointment to Parliament as member from Milport. Captain Aubrey's orders to the Diane are mentioned as occurring in the "fifty-third year" of the reign of King George III, thus fixing the year at around 1813 which, due to the mental illness of the king, was the third year of the Regency. A recurring sub-plot is the hostility between the Regent (later George IV) and his brother, the Duke of Clarence (later William IV), a patient and ally of Stephen Maturin. This hostility was, in part, responsible for the delay in re-instating Captain Aubrey to the Navy List and it was appointment to Parliament that tipped the scales. Stephen's work keeps him undercover as a naturalist as he engages in a political duel for influence at the Sultan's court. Although his activities are to go unknown, they prove to be invaluable in both undermining the French efforts and finally exacting his revenge on his enemies, the French agents, Ledward and Wray. Ledward is caught in bed with Abdul, a boy who is the Sultan's cupbearer and catamite, the Sultan having pederast tendencies, though married and fathering a son by his queen. Abdul is gruesomely executed in a bizarre sanctioned execution via "peppering," in which a bag of pepper is placed over the head. The executioners, often the victim's family, then beat the bag, resulting in inhalation of the pepper and painful asphyxiation. Wray and Ledward are banished from the court for their indiscretions, effectively ending the French mission. Wray tries to change sides in exchange for protection but he and Ledward are later assassinated. Maturin dissects their bodies with a fellow natural philosopher and intelligence agent, the Dutchman van Buren. After a long drunken feast, at which Fox and his retinue behave grossly, the Diane makes for Batavia and to rendezvous with the Surprise off the False Natunas. Fox behaves with increasing arrogance during the return voyage, the success of the treaty having gone to his head. Jack has words with him, Stephen turns against him for his incivility, and the rest of crew of the Diane loathe him. One night the frigate strikes a hidden reef and her captain and crew are shipwrecked on a desert island. Fox and his colleagues decide to sail for Batavia in Dianes pinnace, but are caught in a typhoon and presumed killed. During the same typhoon, the marooned Diane is destroyed but Aubrey's crew are able to begin to build a fair-sized schooner from what remains of the frigate - her starboard bow and hull. The title refers to the honour, a thirteen-gun salute, that is due to Fox as an official envoy and representative of the King.