Storm and Conquest - Stephen Taylor

The Indian Ocean, 1809. At stake: Britain''s commercial lifeline to India and naval supremacy. In one fatal season, the natural order of maritime power since Trafalgar was destroyed. Storm and Conquest brings together the terrifying ordeal of men, women and children caught at sea in hurricanes, and those who survived to drive the French from the Eastern seas. All shared a need to prove themselves - to make a career, or a fortune, or a marriage - in places which could be at once magnificent and terrifying.