Acknowledgments

Thank you to Pat Kavanagh and to Martin Fletcher at Headline for getting this into print; to Michael Ann and Martin Tullet for their knowledge of the English Channel and the boat to test it; to Square Sail at Charlestown and the captain and crew of the Earl of Pembroke; to Bill Cran, Brian Lavery and Colin White for the pleasure of working with them on Nelson’s Trafalgar and the knowledge I gained from it; to Cate and Nash Olsen of Much Ado Books in Alfriston for digging out such a wealth of publications, especially the details on smuggling in Sussex, the journals of Helen Maria Williams in the Luxembourg Prison and the love letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay; to my daughter Elesa for helping me with the research into Paris during the Terror; to my father for inspiring me with a lifetime of novels, films and his own stories of the sea; and to the English Arts Council for awarding me one of their literary grants so I could do the job properly.