The year is 1798. The war between England and revolutionary France has reached a bloody stalemate, with England in the ascendancy at sea and France unchallenged on the Continent, thanks in large part to an unorthodox twenty-eight-year-old general named Napoleon Bonaparte. But the French, secretly amassing a powerful fleet, mean to break the impasse. When rumors of the French preparations leak, the Admiralty dispatches a squadron of seven ships–among them the Louisa–under the command of Rear Admiral Horatio Nelson to investigate. Blindsided by a storm of ferocious intensity, the ships scatter across the seas. After the storm subsides, the damaged frigates limp back to the rendezvous point. But there is no sign of Nelson’s flagship, Vanguard, nor of two other ships of the line. Edgemont fears that the pugnacious rear admiral has pressed on with the mission.