The Reverse of the Medal

Infobox Book
name = The Reverse of the Medal


author = Patrick O'Brian
country = United Kingdom
language = English
cover_artist = Geoff Hunt
series = Aubrey-Maturin series
genre = Historical novel
publisher = Harper Collins (UK)
release_date = 1986
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback) & Audio Book (Cassette, CD)
pages = pages (first edition, hardback) & pages (paperback edition)
isbn = ISBN 0-393-03711-8, (first edition, hardback) & ISBN 0-393-30960-6 (paperback edition UK)
preceded_by = The Far Side of the World
followed_by = The Letter of Marque

"The Reverse of the Medal", (1986) is a historical novel and eleventh in the Aubrey-Maturin series. It was first published by HarperCollins in 1986.

Plot summary

Jack and the Surprises have made their way in a much knocked-about "Surprise" from the South Seas to the West Indies Squadron lying off Bridgetown. Here Jack meets his bastard black son, Samuel Panda, a student Catholic priest. His mother was Sally Mpata for whom Jack, as a youngster on HMS "Resolution", was turned before the mast by his Captain for having stored her secretly in the cable-tiers. Whilst returning to England, the "Surprise" gives chase to the "Spartan", a US privateer, which manages to escape in a squall for Brest. Aubrey — whose financial circumstances remain unsatisfactorily complicated — hears a rumour from a stranger he meets in the Ship Inn that Britain will soon sign a peace with France. The stranger, ostensibly a diplomatic agent named Palmer, indicates to Aubrey how he can make money on the stock exchange by buying stocks sure to go up as soon as the news becomes public. Aubrey makes the transactions as advised, and also gives the advice to his father, the widely-disliked Radical MP General Aubrey, who makes much larger stock transactions and spreads the rumour much farther. The rumour of a peace-treaty gets out, and the stock transactions prove highly profitable — more so to the General and his stock-jobbing friends than to Aubrey. But the peace-rumour proves false, Palmer had no government links (it later emerges that two highly-placed English agents in the service of the French controlled him). The authorities arrest Aubrey, imprison him in the Marshalsea, and subject him to a Guildhall trial for fraud.

Maturin receives two pieces of unwelcome news on his return. A political coup has sidelined his chief of intelligence, Sir Joseph Blaine, thus leaving Maturin in an exposed and dangerous position; and he becomes certain that his and Blaine's suspicions about treachery in high places have concrete substance. He also discovers that his wife, Diana, has left him because of the (false) rumours of his infidelity with a red-head in the Mediterranean, and eloped to Sweden with Jagiello, a mutual friend. On the positive side, he has inherited a vast sum from his Spanish godfather and become a very wealthy man.

Maturin tries everything he can to help Aubrey, using his colleagues in the government and hiring an investigator, but cannot secure enough proof to win an acquittal — Palmer, the key figure, having been murdered and mutilated. Despite Aubrey's touching belief in British justice, his is a political trial given that the Government want to attack General Aubrey and his Radical friends. The court - headed by a Judge and Cabinet Minister, Lord Quinborough, convicts him after a two-day trial, fining him £2,500 and sentencing him to one hour in the pillory. However, this punishment is met with a noise similar to the start of a battle: instead of London crowds lampooning him, hordes of Royal Navy personnel arrive to cheer Aubrey on. But the authorities also strike him off the list, something he regards as a far more devastating punishment than time spent at the pillory.

Maturin utilises a small part of his new-found wealth to buy the old HMS Surprise at auction, and obtains letters of marque and reprisal so she can operate as a private man-of-war. In part he does this because he remains deeply implicated in the intelligence game and would not sail with anyone other than Jack; he also understands that Aubrey's dismissal from the Navy has wounded his friend dreadfully, and that life as a disgraced landsman would probably destroy him. A disgruntled French agent, Duhamel, also makes contact once again with Maturin in London and asks him for assistance in escaping to Quebec. In return, he gives Stephen details of the plot against Aubrey and exposes the British traitors - Wray and Ledward - motivated by profit and by spite against Aubrey.

Characters in "The Reverse of the Medal"

*Jack Aubrey - Captain of HMS "Surprise".
*Stephen Maturin - ship's surgeon, friend to Jack and intelligence officer.
*Sir Joseph Blaine - Stephen's associate in the intelligence service, and confidant.
*Sophie Williams - Jack's wife
*Mrs. Williams - Sophie's mother
*Sir William Pellow - Admiral of the West Indies squadron
*Samuel Panda - Jack Aubrey's bastard black son
*Mr Martin - a Royal Navy parson
*William Mowett
*Padeen Colman
*Joe Plaice - an old Able Seaman on the "Surprise"
*Sir Joseph Blaine
*Mr Palmer - gives Jack false information about purchasing shares
*General Aubrey - a Radical MP and Jack's father
*Andrew and Fanny Wray
*William Babbington - Captain of the "Tartarus"
*Mr Pratt - a private investigator
*Mr Lawrence - Jack's defence lawyer, and a fellow Trinity College man (like Stephen)
*Davies - an Able Seaman on the "Surprise"
*Duhamel - a disillusioned French secret agent
*Heneage Dundas - Captain of the "Eurydice" and a close friend of Jack's; also younger brother of Lord Melville, Head of the Admiralty

hips in "The Reverse of the Medal"

The British:

*HMS "Surprise" (a frigate)
*HMS "Irresistible" (Admiral's Flag; possibly the third rate ship of the line of 74 guns, launched in 1782 and broken up in 1806)
*HMS "Eurydice"

The French:

*"Diane"

The Americans:

*USS "Spartan" (a privateer, approximating a frigate in size)

Allusions/references to actual history, geography and current science

O'Brian bases the story and many of the details of Captain Aubrey's trial on the experiences of Lord Cochrane. In the Great Stock Exchange Fraud of 1814, Lord Cochrane was tried before Lord Ellenborough at the Guildhall and similarly convicted and sentenced to the pillory and fined £1,000.

According to O'Brien's Author's Note, Lord Cochrane and his defendants always passionately maintained that he was "not" guilty and that Lord Ellenborough's conduct of the trial was grossly unfair. Lord Ellenborough and his descendents, however, took the opposite view. The whole affair was described in a long, fully-documented and closely-reasoned book written by Mr Attlay of Lincoln's Inn, and which Patrick O'Brian referred to for documenting the proceedings of Jack Aubrey's trial.

The public reaction to Aubrey's conviction and sentencing in the book is quite similar to those recorded in history.

Literary significance & criticism

Reviews

" [O'Brian's] attention to period speech and detail is uncompromising, and while the cascades of nautical lore can be dizzying, both aficionados and newcomers will be swept up by the richness of Mr. O'Brian's prodigious imagination."—Scott Veale, New York Times Book Review

Editions

*Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull (ISBN 140257827X)

ources, references, external links, quotations

Footnotes