The first HMS Beagle, an 18-gun Royal Navy sloop, was a scout ship. From the autumn of 1804 to the autumn of 1805, this HMS Beagle hunted Spanish galleons loaded with gold, sliver and spices, guarded ships in convoys against the threat of squadrons of Spanish gunboats and intercepted and boarded passing vessels to ensure […]
Hunting the Archangel convoy in 1813 (Long read) Just before midnight on July 19, 1813, at about 71 degrees north latitude, in the Barents Sea, north of Norway’s Cape North, above the Arctic Circle, the midnight sun was low and near the horizon as the United States Navy frigate, USS President, 44 guns, Commodore John Rodgers, set […]
It’s not unusual to discover, while writing a non fiction project, that the most minor of characters deserve their own book and more . This week as part of my own book research I have discovered a forgotten age of fighting sail officer who is likely worth a biography or a novel or even a […]
Be subtle! Be subtle! And use your spies for every kind of business. Sūnzǐ 孙子 (Sun Tzu) The Art of War When nations are in a shooting war, they use spies. When nations are in a trade war, they use spies. On Wednesday, April 2, 2025, US President Donald Trump declared a trade war on […]
While researching the work of my fourth great grandfather , William Pennell, while British consul in Bahia, and his vice consul, his nephew, William Follett, the question is what is the Brazilian side of the story? I did find an academic reference that showed the correspondence between the British Consul and the then government of […]
I have been enthralled by the age of fighting sail since I was a boy when I read the Hornblower series and later Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey–Maturin Maturin_series of novels. I am now working on a nonfiction historical investigation, set during the Georgian era Royal Navy. In a recent online discussion people were complaining how one […]
I’ve just completed five days of research for my Pennell Projects at the British National Archives at Kew. (And a couple of weeks earlier I spent the afternoon at the British Library in London). William Pennell was a diplomat and a spy under diplomatic cover from 1814 to 1832. That meant I had a […]
Topsham on the River Exe, in Devon, is the seaport for the larger city of Exeter. In the past week, I have had the chance to explore one of the towns where my roots are, the Pennells, on one main branch of my father’s side of the family. There were villages in the area of […]