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Treason's Harbour

Treason's Harbour
Treason's Harbour cover.jpg
First edition cover
Author Patrick O'Brian
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Series Aubrey-Maturin series
Genre Historical novel
Publisher Collins (UK)
Publication date
1983
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback) & Audio Book (Cassette, CD)
Pages 408 paperback edition
ISBN first edition; hardback
OCLC 31989694
LC Class PR6029.O55
Preceded by The Ionian Mission
Followed by The Far Side of the World

Treason's Harbour is the ninth historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by British author Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1983. The story is set during the Napoleonic Wars.

Maturin finds Malta teeming with French spies. One is an unwilling spy, wife of a sailor taken prisoner, who needs Maturin's protection. The new fleet Admiral arrives, sending Aubrey on three missions in the Mediterranean, working with the Turks.

The Surprises wait at Malta as their ship is slowly repaired, after their successful mission on the Ionian coast. Aubrey and Maturin meet Mrs Laura Fielding at music parties she holds. Besides her musical talents, she teaches Italian, waiting on news of her husband, a naval lieutenant who is a prisoner-of-war in France. French intelligence agents use Fielding's plight to manipulate Mrs Fielding into spying for them. Aubrey saves her huge dog Ponto from a fall in the well. This endears Ponto to Aubrey, leading the gossips of Malta to assume he is carrying on an affair with Mrs Fielding. She asks Maturin to pay her attentions, to satisfy the French agents. He lets it appear to the French spies watching her place as if they are conducting an affair, and prepares false materials for her to pass on. Professor Graham is returned to England rapidly when the new Commander of the Mediterranean fleet, Admiral Sir Francis Ives and acting second secretary Andrew Wray, arrive in Malta with their own advisor on Turkish affairs. Once Aubrey gets news that an earlier prize was accepted by the board, he spends money to speed up repairs on Surprise. French spies are active in Malta. Before he leaves, Graham describes Lesueur, a French agent known to him. Unbeknownst to Maturin, Wray meets with Lesueur, receives payments from him and learns what Maturin has done to French spies. Maturin is delighted to receive his diving bell, built on Edmond Halley's design. He and Heneage Dundas test it out from Dundas’s ship. It travels with Maturin on the next mission.

Aubrey is dispatched on a secret mission by the active Admiral Ives, to capture a Turkish galley laden with French silver in the Red Sea. They sail on the Dromedary to Tina, and then walk across the Sinai Peninsula to meet the HEI ship Niobe at Suez. Aubrey takes command of Niobe and sails her down the Red Sea with Turkish troops to intercept the galley. They spot it and give chase. Aubrey notices that the galley is using a drag sail to artificially slow its speed. Realizing the trickery, Aubrey sinks the galley to deny the French its silver. Maturin and Aubrey use the diving bell to retrieve the cargo, learning it is lead not silver, a complete trap. From a fishing boat Aubrey learns that the galley had been in the sea for a month awaiting them. It was to lure them under French cannons on land. They return on Niobe to Suez and offload the disappointed and dismayed Turkish troops. The Surprises retrace their steps across the desert. Bedouin horsemen steal their camel train, so they reach Tina exhausted. Only Aubrey’s chest, with his chelengk award and the dragoman’s papers, is saved by Killick’s diligent effort. They return to Malta on Dromedary.


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