Amazon.com description: Product Description: In 1809, operating under the orders of the Admiralty's Secret Department, Capt. Nathaniel Drinkwater goes ashore with the dregs of London's dockland. Disguised as a Merchant Marine shipmaster of low character, he has an encounter with a known French agent in a brothel, deliberately advertising the fact that he will shortly be carrying a cargo of military stores to Russia. The scheme is intended to flout Napoleon's Continental System and drive a wedge between the French Emperor and his new ally, Czar Alexander. But the mission is disrupted by tempestuous weather and the loss of the escort, a gun-brig commanded by Drinkwater's friend and protÂŽgÂŽ. And when Drinkwater reaches the British-occupied island of Helgoland, he resolves on an exceptionally bold course of action-one not advised by the Admiralty.