The Nutmeg of Consolation
| Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian |
| Master and Commander (1970) |
| Post Captain (1972) |
| HMS Surprise (1973) |
| The Mauritius Command (1977) |
| Desolation Island (1978) |
| The Fortune of War (1979) |
| The Surgeon's Mate (1980) |
| The Ionian Mission (1981) |
| Treason's Harbour (1983) |
| The Far Side of the World (1984) |
| The Reverse of the Medal (1986) |
| The Letter of Marque (1988) |
| The Thirteen-Gun Salute (1989) |
| The Nutmeg of Consolation (1991) |
| Clarissa Oakes (1993) |
| (called The Truelove in the USA) |
| The Wine-Dark Sea (1993) |
| The Commodore (1995) |
| The Yellow Admiral (1996) |
| The Hundred Days (1998) |
| Blue at the Mizzen (1999) |
| 21 (2004) |
| (called The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey outside the USA) |
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The Nutmeg of Consolation by Patrick O'Brian (published 1991) is the fourteenth novel in the Aubrey–Maturin series.
<spoilers>
The book opens with Captain Aubrey and his crew shipwrecked on a remote island in the South China Sea after surviving the destruction of HMS Diane in a typhoon. While stranded on the island they fight a ferocious battle against Dyak pirates and are eventually rescued by Chinese traders.
Safely back in Batavia, Sir Thomas Raffles replaces HMS Diana with a Dutch 20 gun ship that Aubrey renames "The Nutmeg of Consolation". Back at sea, Aubrey and the out-gunned Nutmeg engage in battle with a French frigate; at the height of the battle the Nutmeg is joined by the Surprise under the temporary command of Aubrey's old friend Tom Pullings.
Resuming command of the Surprise, Aubrey and Stephen Maturin continue their interrupted journey to New South Wales. On their way to Australia, Maturin rescues two young girls who are the sole survivors of an outbreak of smallpox that has killed the entire population of their small pacific island.
Once in New South Wales the book contains graphic descriptions of the hell-on-earth that was the life in the penal colony under Governor Lachlan Macquarie shortly after the "Rum Rebellion" of the NSW Corps and its coup against Governor Bligh. There are also detailed descriptions of the landscapes and fauna in and around Sydney harbour and Stephen Maturin has an interesting encounter with a male Platypus in the final pages of the book.
Categories: 1991 books