1967 unfinished Napoleonic naval fiction, eleventh and last written
and fourth by internal chronology. Hornblower leaves the Hotspur and
proceeds back to Plymouth, but as always complications ensue.
The "Crisis" of the title is Napoleon's possible invasion of
Britain: it's 1805, the French fleet under Villeneuve has escaped into
a Spanish harbour, and invasion is expected at any moment. But first
there's a court-martial to be got through (Hotspur was wrecked the
day after Hornblower turned over command), and the water hoy taking
Hornblower and the other officers to England is intercepted by a
French warship—which of course Hornblower will capture, though even he
can't hold her. Though at least one can see why he feels he has no
option other than to do it.
This is all good rousing stuff, and then things slow down for what
would have been the middle section: Hornblower is sent to the
Admiralty with the papers he captured, and these and his ingenuity
raise the possibility of a deception, a plausible false message to
lure Villeneuve out to a decisive engagement at what the astute reader
will realise is going to be Trafalgar. Well, it's a pleasant conceit
at least, though Villeneuve's actual orders from Napoleon were
entirely in keeping with Napoleon's policies at the time.
At that point the book ends, interrupted by Forester's death, with a
summary based on his notes: a mission of espionage, Hornblower hating
himself for doing it, and ultimately success. Various fans have
attempted to finish it, but I am not enthused.
This is first draft material, of course, but it's decently polished
first draft, and not an unsatisfying conclusion to the sequence of
novels. There remain unread by me various short stories which I'll
review separately (most editions of this book include two of them,
"Hornblower and the Big Decision" and "The Last Encounter").