In January 1801, Alan Lewrie is tried for freeing enslaved men from Jamaica and then left on half-pay despite his acquittal. The formation of the League of Armed Neutrality soon makes his experience valuable again, and he receives command of HMS Thermopylae for a winter reconnaissance in the Baltic.
Burdened with Russian noblemen presented as peace envoys, Lewrie suspects that the Foreign Office has concealed the mission’s real purpose. Espionage, ice and uncertain diplomacy carry him toward the British attack on Copenhagen, where Horatio Nelson’s fleet must break the northern coalition at close range.
The Baltic crisis turns maritime law into strategy. Britain depends on access to northern naval stores and fears a coalition capable of restricting trade while protecting neutral shipping from British searches. Lewrie’s reconnaissance therefore sits inside the diplomacy that leads to Copenhagen, where Nelson’s attack is intended to break the League before it can become a more durable threat.
Julian Stockwin
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