Jane Austen's sailor brothers

Among the numbers of men and women who cheerfully sacrifice the claims of their family in order that they may be free to confer somewhat doubtful benefits on society, it is refr...

Both Francis and Charles Austen were educated for their profession at the Royal Naval Academy, which was established in 1775 at Portsmouth, and was under the supreme direction o...

Francis obtained his Lieutenant’s commission in 1792, serving for a year in the East Indies, and afterwards on the home station. Early promotions were frequent in those days of...

As Lieutenant, Francis Austen had very different experience and surroundings to those of his days as a midshipman. For three years and more he was in various ships on the home s...

It will, perhaps, be as well to recall some of the principal events of the war, during the few years before Francis took up his command of the _Peterel_, in order that his work...

It will be remembered that at the close of 1796 scarcely a British man-of-war was to be seen in the Mediterranean. To estimate the work that St. Vincent and Nelson had since acc...

The truism that absence strengthens more ties than it weakens is clearly demonstrated by the letters of the Austen family. In spite of the difficulty of sending letters, and the...

Francis Austen’s first appointment on his promotion to post rank was to the _Neptune_, as Flag-Captain to Admiral James Gambier. It was not usual for an Admiral to choose as his...

For a little over a year Francis Austen was Flag-Captain in the _Canopus_. This ship, which had been captured from the French at the Battle of the Nile, had originally been call...

The month of September was spent in blockading Cadiz. The _Canopus_, as already stated, was one of the squadron of five told off to keep close in shore and watch the port. So cl...

Service in a frigate would have been more exciting, as well as more profitable, than in a ship of the line. The frigates got the intelligence, and secured most prizes.

During the cruises of the _Canopus_, we have only one letter from Jane Austen with any mention of Frank, and that is before his disappointment of Trafalgar, or his success at St...

On June 20, 1808, on the _St. Albans’_ passage towards England, there is an entry in the log: “Exchanged numbers with the _Raven_ brig. The brig is from off Lisbon. The French h...

Cotton, I put to sea with twenty-nine transports under my convoy, and proceeded with them off Oporto, where I anchored on the evening of the 27th, and remained for twenty-four h...

The first place which Captain Austen describes on this voyage is Port Cornwallis, Prince of Wales Island, or Penang. He writes: “This harbour is formed by Prince of Wales Island...

The time of Captain Austen’s service in the _Elephant_ is divided into three periods. For over a year she was employed with Admiral Young’s fleet in the North Sea, which was sta...

Unfortunately we have not got Frank’s reply to his sister’s letter, but we have her next letter to him dated about two months later, when she was staying with Edward.

In the letter quoted in the last chapter, we hear how Henry let out the secret of Jane’s authorship. She has also something to say to Cassandra about the matter. “Lady Robert Ke...

We have shown, so far as is possible, the influence that the lives of her two sailor brothers had upon the writings of Jane Austen. It now only remains to show how both of them,...