Patrick O'Brian · 1999 · sea

The twentieth and last completed novel sends Jack and Stephen on one final great voyage, from England to Chile, to help the young Chilean republic win its independence from Spain. This route follows the Surprise across the Atlantic, around the storms of Cape Horn, and up the Pacific coast to Valparaiso, where, at the very close of the long saga, Jack receives at last the news he has waited a lifetime for: his flag, and the blue at the mizzen of an admiral.

1. 1
   England

   With the war against France over at last, Jack is given a quasi-private mission that suits him well: to take the Surprise to Chile and lend his skill to the Chileans in their struggle for independence from Spain. He and Stephen set out on what will prove their final long voyage together, bound for the far side of the world once more.

2. 2
   Rio de Janeiro

   Crossing the Atlantic, the Surprise touches at Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, the great harbour under its mountains, for water and stores and the small repairs of a long passage. Ahead lies the dreaded turn south, down the length of the Americas toward the storms that guard the bottom of the world.

3. 3
   Cape Horn

   At Cape Horn the Surprise battles once more through the grey mountainous seas and screaming westerlies of the great southern ocean, that hardest of all sea roads. It is a fitting last trial for ship and men, the elements as much an adversary as any enemy frigate, before the long-sought Pacific opens before them.

4. 4
   Valparaiso

   At Valparaiso Jack throws himself into the Chilean cause, training and leading their infant navy against the Spanish along the coast. And there, at the very end of the long road that began in a Minorcan harbour twenty years before, the news reaches him that he has hoisted his flag at last, an admiral of the blue, the crown of a life at sea.