The East Indiaman

Percival Merewether Series, Book 1

By: Ellis K. Meacham

Narrated by: Steven Crossley

The Naval Service of the Honorable East India Company, popularly known as the Bombay Marine, operated in romantic areas in perilous times. From the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea, from Calcutta to Canton, the Company ships were famous for their speed and daring. The "Bombay Buccaneers" who sailed them were the stuff of legend.

For Percival Merewether, 1806 would be a year to remember. For in January of that year he was promoted from First Lieutenant to become the junior Captain in the Company's Service and given the command of his first ship - the Rapid.

Armed with 10 nine-pounders, the Rapid was a match for any pirate ship that crossed its bows, and in it Captain Merewether was to spend as action-packed and eventful a first year as any ambitious young seafarer could have wished.

Merewether had quick wits and daring to match his ambition. And with mutinies, diplomatic intrigues, and skirmishes with the French to occupy him, he soon found that he needed both qualities as never before.

©1968 Ellis K. Meacham (P)2017 Tantor

A Rousing Tale

This is a story about the British East India Company and its navy referred to as the Bombay Marine. Our protagonist is Percival Merewether, who just received his promotion to Captain and obtained his first command. His ship is the HEICS Rapid, an East India Warship, with ten, nine pounders. The ship had been a slaver prior to being acquired by the East India Company and was a fast ship. The year is 1806, the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815). The East India Company maintained its own army and navy to protect its company interest and trade routes.

I enjoy reading about sailing ships in the Napoleonic era. It is delightful to read about the East India Company for a change. It seems most stories are about the Royal British Navy. The book is well written and researched. The characters are interesting and the plot is straight forward. The story is full of action with lots of pirates and French warships. Looking forward to the next book in the series. Ellis K. Meacham (1913-1994) was an American attorney and judge, who wrote Napoleonic era nautical adventures.

The book is fourteen and a half hours long. Steven Crossley does a good job narrating the book. Crossley is an actor and award-winning audiobook narrator.

Swashbuckling done brilliantly!

Crossly is my favorite narrator. Known to me from the Shardlake Series. This was a wonderful listen. Great story and character development. I must have more!

Great 19th century age of sail series

This book takes place in my favorite time frame for historic fiction. Much in the vein of Alexander Kent Bolitho novels, it is set in the 19th century during the Napoleonic wars but not from a British navel prospective but from the British East India's private navy called the Bombay Marine. If you like the Hornblower, Bolitho and Aubrey novels and series this is a must listen. Additionally, this series has with more action than most of the aforementioned novels and has a faster pace. Sadly there are only three novels in this series but all three are over 14 hours each. This is a gem of a series don't pass it up.

Very Well Done.

Very well done, and the genre every aspect of the telling is written and narrated so well. Highly recommended

Excellent 1st installment of trilogy

I'm an avid reader of historical fiction and nonfiction of the period and jenre, late 1700 thru mid 18th century Seafaring. This was my first, by author, definitely not my last.

Hornblower in the East Indies!

I didn’t know the British East India Company had a navy! I’m a big fan of the many novels and series written about the Royal Navy in the napoleonic wars. That being said, finding a novel about the Bombay Marine (The naval arm of the British East India Company) during this period was a refreshing change. Ellis Meacham wrote this novel in 1968 (the first of three in this series) and I suppose he was inspired/influenced by the Hornblower novels of C. S. Forester written during the 50’s and 60’s. Whatever his inspiration, Mr. Meacham writes a very entertaining novel. It is actually three or four sequential novellas following Merewether’s adventures as he sails from England to Calcutta; rescues a Company diplomat and his family from pirates; captures a French privateer; helps to quell a sepoy mutiny; destroys a band of Mindanao pirates; and negotiates the release of Company ships being held in Canton. The details of handling, navigating, and maneuvering a three-masted sailing ship seem to be spot-on. The action is pretty much nonstop and the descriptions of sea battles are exciting to listen to. The only downside is the narration by Steven Crossley. Half the fun of listening to an audiobook is the ability of the narrator to master the accents necessary to give life to the characters. At a minimum, reading this novel requires the narrator to use accents for British, Irish, cockney, French, Scots, Hindu, Dutch, Portuguese, and Chinese-speaking characters. Sadly, besides his native British, the best Mr. Crossley can manage is a weak Scottish accent. He distinguishes the voices of most of the characters by simply raising or lowering the pitch of his voice. It was very distracting to me and really diminished my listening pleasure. Narration not withstanding, I will definitely be listening to the other two books in this series!

Better than Hornblower.

Merriweather is far more interesting than Hornblower. likeable too. I very much enjoyed this journey.

Believable

Credible story - no interminable details of ship handling - believable characters - Very believable action - I very much want to see more books in this adventure