A narration of a young Royal Navy officer's naval career at sea a few centuries ago. His adventures in this book span the ending months of the American War of Independence and the subsequent British entry into the early period of the new war ravaging Europe.

In the early Peninsular Period of the Napoleonic Wars, Captain John Phillips of the frigate HMS Resolve has captured an enemy privateer off the coast of Portugal. Having already sent those of his crew capable of navigating back with previous prizes, he finds himself scraping the bottom of the barrel. With nobody else left to take command of the captured brig, he puts his own son in charge. Midshipman Phillips has sailed with his father on several cruises and seems capable enough to bring the prize to the nearby port of Lisbon. Therefore, young Tim Phillips is given the temporary rank of...

HMS Courageous, an eighteen pounder, 36 gun frigate, would soon be leaving Portsmouth for duty with the Channel Fleet. Ostensibly, she has come in to port to take aboard some experimental 36 pounder carronades, but the main reason was to determine how some secret documents captured from French sources were exposed to public scrutiny. Captain John Phillips, commanding the frigate, will take her out to re-join the fleet blockading French naval forces in their ports. While on this duty, he is seriously wounded and there is a question whether he can remain in service as an active-duty officer....

Captain Timothy Phillips, back from America has returned to his home for some much needed rest. While there, a young woman he meets at a dance, develops an unwanted attraction for him. Spurned, she incites a young officer to challenge him to a duel. Surviving the duel, he returns to his ship and is ordered to return to American waters, where he is to locate sources of shipbuilding materials and naval stores to send home, where they will be utilized in refurbishing old ships and building new ones. Succeeding in his mission, he returns home in command of a new ship. He is sent to join Admiral...

A veteran of a previous war becomes caught up in a new one as storm clouds gather over the Pacific. When war is thrust upon him, our veteran finds himself involuntarily inducted into the US Marine Corps, involved in the bloody fighting on Guadalcanal.

Returning from a mission to Brazil, Captain Tim Phillips returns to London to find a former paramour waiting on the quay. Very pregnant with his child, the couple marry, but his new wife soon dies from the ravages of childbed fever. The war has ended with the abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte and Phillips retires to his country estate. Becoming bored with the tranquil life, he does not object when he is called to command an expedition to South America. As he is about to sail, it is learned that Bonaparte has escaped from exile on Elba and the war is back on again. Phillips sails on to...

In the preceding book, 'A Road to St. Lo', Will Harding fought his way across France. Now he finds himself near the border of Hitler's Germany. In early 1945, Harding and his men must increase their efforts to penetrate the enemy bastions.

A Royal Navy Midshipman of the late eighteenth century has been prematurely commissioned as Lieutenant by the efforts of his father, a prominent member of the House of Lords. Further political machinations have secured a command for this new officer. It is now up to the new Lieutenant Charles Mullins to make a success of his new command on his own.