Mr. Midshipman Hornblower

I thank God daily for the good fortune of my birth, for I am certain I would have made a miserable peasant.

Clairvoyant, Hornblower could foresee that in a year's time, the world would hardy remember the incident. In twenty years, it would be entirely forgotten. Yet those headless corpses up there in Muzillac; those shattered redcoats; those Frenchmen caught in the four-pounder's blast of canister -- they were as dead as if it had been a day in which history had been changed.

His self-respect was at its lowest ebb.

Harm began to come to Hornblower from that day forth, despite his obedience to orders and diligent study of his duties, and it stemmed from the arrival in the midshipmen’s berth of John Simpson as senior warrant officer.

July 4th, 1776,” mused Keene, reading Hornblower’s date of birth to himself.