This is book 3 of the "Richard Delancey" series.

This note contains spoilers for the book.

Second-published of the Richard Delancey novels.

By pure luck, Delancey ends up at the Battle of Camperdown. He should be promoted, but he's just filling in, and the captain wants his original first lieutenant to be promoted.

So Delancey is screwed there, but does get given command—of a fireship! Most people didn't realize there were still fireships in commission.

So, then he gets involved in stopping the French from landing arms and some soldiers in Ireland.

And, in accordance with the rule of Chekov's Gun, he eventually encounters a situatuion where he can actually use it as a fireship. I wish we got more information on just how it differed from a regular ship.

I'm getting the feeling that these books jump around a lot, and that Delancey isn't exactly progressing in anything; he learns different, unrelated, things in each book.