Patrick O'Brian · 1989 · sea

The thirteenth novel, the first of a great five-book voyage round the world, sends Jack, restored to the Navy and given the frigate Diane, on a secret embassy to the East. His task is to carry an envoy to the Malay sultanate of Pulo Prabang and outbid a French mission for a treaty. This route follows the Diane from England by way of Lisbon and the Cape to the South China Sea, where diplomacy triumphs but a typhoon waits to undo it all.

1. 1
   England

   Reinstated on the Navy List, his disgrace wiped away, Jack is given command of the Diane, the very frigate he cut out at Saint Martin's, and a mission of the first importance: to carry the envoy Fox to the Malay states and secure an alliance before the French can. Stephen sails with him, his secret trade as vital as Jack's guns.

2. 2
   Lisbon

   At Lisbon the Diane parts company with the Surprise, which goes on under Tom Pullings, and takes up her own long course for the East. Ahead lie months of blue water, the Atlantic and the Cape and the whole breadth of the Indian Ocean, before the intricate work that waits in the islands.

3. 3
   Cape of Good Hope

   Rounding the Cape of Good Hope, the Diane stands away into the immense reaches of the Indian Ocean, bound for the Malay archipelago. For Stephen the voyage is a feast of natural philosophy; for Jack it is the careful husbanding of his ship for the diplomacy and the danger that lie at its far end.

4. 4
   Pulo Prabang

   At the court of the Sultan of Pulo Prabang, Stephen fights a silent duel of intelligence against the French mission, and by patience and cunning he wins the treaty, even climbing the Thousand Steps to a hidden crater to meet the orangutans at last. But as the Diane sails for home, a great typhoon is gathering.