[QUOTE=Xema]
Was Jack Aubrey ever emotional in a battle? Ashore, certainly - but in combat he seems the essence of a cool, rational commander.
[/QUOTE]
He was depressed afterwards, particularly when they sank the pursuing Whatchamacallit in a storm and what, 600 people were killed when she broached.
On the other hand when the American frigate was prepared to rake his friend’s ship, one of them remarked, “Oh no, this won’t do”, and his associate struck.
[QUOTE=carnivorousplant]
He was depressed afterwards, particularly when they sank the pursuing Whatchamacallit in a storm and what, 600 people were killed when she broached.
[/QUOTE]
Right - he was often melancholy after a battle. But I can’t think of a case where he was anything but cool and effective during an action.
I believe the ship in question is the Waakzaamheid (which I believe translates as Alertness or Vigilance).
Ramage kicks both their butts and sails off into the sunset having incurred minimal casualties owing to some quick thinking and outrageous luck. At the opening of Ramage and the Saracens his frigate Calypso blunders into two French seventy-fours, but he induces them to collide with each other and then goes on to get on with the actual story. 
You know, I’ve seen the movies, but never read the books and this thread makes me want to read them. TO THE LIBRARY!
[QUOTE=Malacandra]
Ramage kicks both their butts and sails off into the sunset
[/QUOTE]
I was trying to remember his name. The Lord with a throbbing Harry Potter scar and an Italian royal girl friend. I enjoyed those novels too, although I have apparently missed some. There is also Alexander Kent’s Bolitho series (was the guy who came up from being a seaman to an officer?) Dewey Lambkin’s series that began as a naval Flashman, the guy I can find no trace of who wrote three novels about a Captain in the East India Company’s military navy. 
Aubrey had a lot of independant commands and missions and had to sort everything out himself, including all his problems on shore. Hornblower seemed to always have his fairy Godfather Capt. later Adm Pellew* to bail him out.
Hornblower is smart and clever but one lucky bastard. Finally marries Barbara is wealthy as hell, and is made a lord. Aubrey had to scratch for everything he ever got and most times lost it all again. You could feel the sheer joy for the character when he finally got his blue pennant to fly at the mizzen.
How could they fight one on one anyway? In rowboats?
[QUOTE=Mr. Goob]
How could they fight one on one anyway? In rowboats?
[/QUOTE]
Perhaps presentation sabers at dawn, or boiled babies across the table.
Maybe see who can take a Xebec frigate with a sloop most quickly.
[QUOTE=Miss Purl McKnittington]
Stranger, I’m not disagreeing with what you said, but I have to correct one thing. The phrase is “mano a mano,” referring to hand-to-hand combat. “Mono y mono” would be a “monkey and monkey” fight…
[/QUOTE]
And here I thought Mono y Mono was a Paraguayan audio system manufacturer.
Aubrey could certainly drink Hornblower under the table. With Bonden standing by with a wheelbarrow to get him back to his ship.
“Drunk, even by naval standards.”
[QUOTE=Eleanor of Aquitaine]
“Drunk, even by naval standards.”
[/QUOTE]
“Paralytic?”
That’s the Phillip Hazard series by V.A. Stuart. And don’t forget the Nathaniel Drinkwater series by Richard Woodman.
Heh. Had forgotten about Ramage.
[QUOTE=Random]
Heh. Had forgotten about Ramage.
[/QUOTE]
Well, let’s face it. Aubrey and Hornblower are the Kirk and Picard of Napoleonic naval fiction. Ramage and Bolitho are the Sisko and Janeway.
[QUOTE=Rube E. Tewesday]
Ramage and Bolitho are the Sisko and Janeway.
[/QUOTE]
What does that make Alan Lewrie, who went to sea because he was caught humping his cousin?
How about C. Northcote Parkinson’s Captain Delancey (the closest Hornblower Clone there is) or Fox?
Damn it, I’m an Internet pontificator, not an all purpose analogizer!
[QUOTE=Rube E. Tewesday]
Damn it, I’m an Internet pontificator, not an all purpose analogizer!
[/QUOTE]
Marturin channeling McCoy?
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
Read other books, CP – Flying Colors was the last of Forester’s initial Hornblower trilogy.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve got the library under control. Would you suggest chronological order, or as written?
[QUOTE=carnivorousplant]
I’ve got the library under control. Would you suggest chronological order, or as written?
[/QUOTE]
Chronological order, absolutely.