Canada was originally the French colony of New France, which comprised the range of territory as far west as the Mississippi, including the Great Lakes. After the war of independence it was confined to what are now the provinces of Quebec and Ontario—then known as Upper and Lower Canada. At the confederation (1867) it included only these two provinces, with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; and since then it has been extended by purchase (1870), by accession of other provinces (British Columb...

This book starts with our hero as an old man, an Admiral now thrust back into naval service due to the ongoing Russian war. He comes into contact with a new young Midshipman whose Grandfather just happened to be the Admiral's mentor when he started in the service. On the long voyage out, our hero tries to befriend this grandson of his friend by explaining how he survived being a midshipman.The reader is transported back to the French war and all the dangers that surround that period...

This is the next book in the series after Ben Brown and the Right of Passage. In this book, we find our hero returning wounded from the battle of Barque Roads, arriving home on the Hospital Ship, along with the other severely wounded men. He is attended by three of his men, who volunteered to bring him home. Although, suffering from a ghastly head wound and hard of hearing now, he makes a remarkable recovery when he arrives home amongst his family.Unfortunately, most of his family d...

Set in Plymouth in the year of our Lord 1755. A disastrous fire at the Eddystone lighthouse makes the Brown family change their occupation from servicing the lighthouse into working for the Custom and Excise.Around Plymouth Sound, smugglers and revenue men are waging open warfare; with the smugglers winning the battle for getting contraband goods into Plymouth and South East Cornwall. To put it simply, the Browns now become Revenue men and are now spied upon and treated with suspic...

This is the third book in the series and here we see our Hero take part in three desperate sea battles. He still has his friends around him, but now he has acquired another friend in Henri, a Frenchman whom he rescued in book two. This friendship involves him in an adventure with the French Royalists and for a while, he is sailing under a French Royalist Captain.During this adventure, our hero takes on more responsibility, both in his Maritime profession and his social life. The rea...

A Play abridged from the 1809 Ben Brown's Rite of Passage.

This book deals with an ordinary man from the 21st century (Michael), through a fault in the Essentia's admin database, being time exchanged with the soul of a dead naval lieutenant from another century and there is no going back.In our century, Michael is a sarcastic and cheeky individual, but now, every time he opens his mouth he risks being thought a lunatic and confined to bedlam. This new world is dangerous, smelly, violent and as very different values. How can he blend in and ...

Our Play is set in the Elizabethan period, the time of Drake, Frobisher and Grenville. This play follows the account of Richard who is a bitter old man at start of our play. Unfortunately, he has been reduced to poverty, forced by circumstances to return to his family, penniless and definitely resenting it. There he is induced to tell his story and what a story, he was a young man at the time of the Armada and served with Drake. After many adventures, in which he amasses a small fortune on...

It is 1654 and the English civil war is nearly over, both Cromwell and Protestantism are now supreme in England. However, there are one of two pockets of resistance bubbling away in the background. Hence, Oliver Cromwell now looks to a foreign war to distract Englishmen from certain misery and possible rebellion at home. Deviously, he now hatches a superb plan to attack Spain on two fronts, the plan will be labelled the Western Design and this play will examine the Caribbean expedition's p...

The story starts gently enough, with the Brown family going about their normal day, little knowing what the next thirteen days will bring. The family has a history of trade based upon the shipping industry originating on the maternal side. However, on the paternal side; there is a history of sea service within the Revenue and Excise service. The family titular head is away in the American Colonies and has not been heard off for a while, this leaves Mother Brown to run the family business a...

"A novel of the first rank, the kind of monumental work Italo Calvino called ‘encyclopedic’ in the way it sweeps up history into a comprehensible and deeply textured pattern." — The New York Times Book ReviewFearing a death sentence, Octavian and his tutor, Dr. Trefusis, escape through rising tides and pouring rain to find shelter in British-occupied Boston. Sundered from all he knows — the College of Lucidity, the rebel cause — Octavian hopes to find safe...

Beloved for his fanciful and engrossing children’s literature, controversial for his enthusiasm for British imperialism, Rudyard Kipling remains one of the most widely read writers of Victorian and modern English literature. In addition to writing more than two dozen works of fiction, including Kim and The Jungle Book, Kipling was a prolific poet, composing verse in every classical form from the epigram to the ode.Kipling’s most distinctive gift was for ballads an...