Harvey Haislip

Written with in the same swashbuckling adventure style as Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian or the Hortatio Hornblower series by C.S. Forester, this book is set during the end of the American Revolution. An American sailor has many adventures – epic sea battles, daring escapes, first loves, smuggling sugar, and dangerous enemies – before finding himself in the Comte de Grasse fleet as this brave French sailor heads for the Chesapeake Bay and the last great battle of the Revolution. Haislip maintains historical accuracy while dragging us from one narrow escape to the next.
I enjoyed seeing the war from the point of few of the French navy who blockade the Bay and forced the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. Haislip, being a naval man, has an excellent grasp of how ships work at sea and his depictions of the actual sailing is exceptionally detailed – if a bit tedious at times. His characterizations are a bit flat and stereotypical, but enjoyable –and let’s be honest – we aren’t reading this because it’s high literature. It’s an adventure novel, and it is a fine example of one. Worth reading. Would be excellent for a summer day on the beach, with a cold drink and the blue water at your feet.… (meer)

The final volume of Harvey Haislip's Midshipman Tommy Potter trilogy, Sea Road to Yorktown (Doubleday, 1960), carries young Potter through 1782. As the (fictional) years slip by, Haislip's conceit that an American midshipman would remain on a privateer (even if both Potter and his ship, Princess, become attached to Admiral de Grasse's fleet) begins to wear thin. Much of the action is ashore and, while there are some wonderful feats of seamanship, we are not treated to any real naval battles -- either fleet or single ship actions. (The Princess stays in Chesapeake Bay while de Grasse sails off to fight the Battle of the Capes and the book ends just before the Battle of the Saintes.) Most of the book is set in the Caribbean and the endpaper maps in the first edition are well done and add interest -- true as well for Sailor Named Jones, but there are no maps in the middle volume. I am disappointed that Sea Road to Yorktown does not sustain the high level of can't-put-it-down narrative I enjoyed in the first two books. Still, it's not bad and if you've read the first two, you'll want to read this one as well.… (meer)

The Prize Master (Doubleday, 1959) is the second in Harvey Hailsip's Midshipman Tommy Potter trilogy of naval adventure. The first book, Seaman Named Jones, is a fictionalized account of John Paul Jones daring cruises against England in 1778 and 1779. In The Prize master, Midshipman Potter parts company with John Paul Jones, allowing Haislip to shrug off the need for strict historicity and move into true historic naval fiction. Potter, while executing a commission for Benjamin Franklin and trying to aid Jones, finds himself willy-nilly serving, along with the faithful Reilly, aboard an American-flagged privateer hunting in the English Channel. Potter's real challenge begins when he is given command of a prize to sail back to France.

Haislip offers a rousing adventure with a surprising resolution. There is plenty of action, even if it is set in the rough and tumble culture of a privateer, rather than the disciplined world of most naval fiction. The book has a long passage "aboard" the Royal Navy as well. Haislip does as well with this as with American craft. It was hard to put this one down.… (meer)

I just finished the first book of the Tommy Potter series, Sailor Named Jones (Doubleday, 1957). More fictionalized history than historical fiction, this novel is the story of John Paul Jones' two famous cruises through British waters in 1778 and 1779. Haislip was a retired Captain (USN) and his passion for the service and the sea is evident. The descriptions of ship handling and actions are compelling. Unfortunately, Jones spent all too much time ashore wrangling with the fickle French and the American commissioners, especially the odious Arthur Lee, and the novel remains faithful to this history as well. Haislip handles this about as well as a writer can, but the reader comes to share Jones' frustration with being ashore. Haislip, while remaining a clear partisan of Jones, doesn't sugarcoat Jones' dark side. His immense ego and almost boundless ambition are clearly presented, though the author finds them tolerable in someone of Jones' ability and audacity. Tommy Potter appears on the quai at Brest, having left his American family in Paris and volunteers as a midshipman. He supports Jones with unswerving loyalty and a fierce sense of duty through the tribulations ashore, finally coming of age during the cruise of the Bonhomme Richard and the fabled battle with HMS Serapis.

It has been years since I read The Pilot and I don't remember enough to compare Cooper's treatment of JP Jones to Hailsip's. A pity, since Cooper's book stands, quite rightly in my recollection, as the novel against which all other fictional treatments of John Paul Jones must be measured. I'll try to re-read it sometime soon...… (meer)