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The Power and the Glory is the third novel in William C. Hammond’s rousing nautical fiction series. This volume is set in the late 1790s during the Quasi-War with France and offers readers a look at the new American Navy during the Age of Fighting Sail. Following in the wake of his previous novels, A Matter of Honor and For Love of Country, it features the adventures of the seafaring Cutler family of Hingham, Massachusetts, and an ever-expanding cast of characters—some real, some fictional—that includes Lt. Richard Cutler, along with Capt. Thomas Truxtun, Capt. Silas Talbot, and other naval heroes personifying the best of American honor and courage as they confront French pirates off the coast of Nantucket and heavily armed French frigates in the Caribbean.Hammond packs his book with electrifying sea battles and daring challenges to French colonial rule in Haiti and the West Indies. He also offers captivating glimpses into the everyday life of the era, from the bedroom of the Cutler clapboard home in Hingham, to the family’s sugarcane plantation in Barbados, to Admiral Sir Hyde Parker’s flagship in Jamaica. And at the center of all the excitement, passion, and intrigue are two of the finest frigates ever constructed, USS Constellation and her sister ship, USS Constitution. Lauded for his careful research, attention to detail, and thorough knowledge of the ways of the sea, Hammond brings history alive while telling a rollicking good tale.

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How Dark the Night profiles the years 1805 to 1810, picking up where the fourth volume, A Call to Arms, ends. These years leading up to the War of 1812 are devastating ones for the young republic and for the Cutler family. The life-and-death struggle between the forces of Great Britain and France continue in Europe, and the United States is caught in a web of financial and political chaos as President Jefferson and Secretary of State Madison endeavor to keep the woefully unprepared United States out of the imbroglio while at the same time defending the nation’s honor. On the home front, the embargo acts initiated by the government threaten the livelihood of the Cutler family and other New England shipping families as merchant ships rot on their moorings and sailors sit on the beach, penniless. What is far worse to the Cutler family, however, is a grave illness that threatens the life of its most beloved member.Historical figures profiled in How Dark the Night include the infamous pirate Jean Lafitte, Secretary of the Navy Robert Smith, Robert Fulton and his prototype for a submarine, Captain Stephen Decatur, Captain Salusbury Pryce Humphreys RN, and Commodore James Barron. Historical events include the decline of slavery in the West Indies, the stark political differences between the Federalists in New England and the “War Hawk” Republicans in the South and West led by Henry Clay and John Calhoun, and the abuses at sea perpetrated by the Royal Navy against American sailors. Such abominations reach a war footing after the so-called “affair” between the USS Chesapeake and HMS Leopard—as related from the British point of view through the eyes of Seth Cutler, a midshipman serving in Leopard.

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Call To Arms is the fourth novel in the award-winning historical / nautical fiction series from William C. Hammond. Along with the other novels in the Cutler Family Chronicles – most recently For Love of Country and The Power and the Glory – it features the epic saga of the seafaring Cutler family of Hingham, Massachusetts and an ever expanding cast of characters. Among these characters are real historical figures including Capt. Edward Preble, Lt. Stephen Decatur, Lt. Richard Somers, Samuel Coleridge, Bashaw Yusuf Qaramanli, and Adm. Horatio Lord Nelson. Interwoven with these historical characters is a fast-paced and gripping plot that takes the reader from Java in the Dutch East Indies to New England at the start of the nineteenth century, and on to Gibraltar, Tripoli, Malta, Sicily, Alexandria and Cairo. Historic events depicted in the novel have been subjected to intense research and have been vetted by historians.

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For Love of Country is the second novel of the early American republic in the nautical series from William Hammond. Set in the early 1780s in the years following the American Revolution, it features the adventures of the seafaring Cutler family of Hingham, Massachusetts, and the supporting cast from the first novel of the series, A Matter of Honor.Hammond offers an exciting look at life in the young republic, a time when America remained a weak nation with no navy to protect its prosperous merchant fleet from Barbary pirates and European nations intent on crippling its shipping.The novel opens with the capture of the Cutler merchant brig Eagle by Barbary pirates. Young Caleb Cutler and his shipmates are taken as prisoners to Algiers. Richard, his brother, is then sent to North Africa to pay the ransom demanded by the Dey of Algiers to free them. When the dey rejects the offer, Richard must defend his ship and the ransom from attack by Algerian pirates. After repulsing the pirates in a fierce battle at sea , Richard travels to Paris to report to John Paul Jones, his former naval commander, who has been dispatched to serve as America’s emissary to the Barbary States. In Paris, amid the tumult of the French Revolution, Richard engages in a desperate attempt to save his former lover, the beautiful Anne-Marie Helvétian, and her two daughters from the guillotine.The author’s careful historical research and thorough knowledge of sailing and the ways of the sea bring authenticity to the novel without detracting from the entertaining storyline. Hammond’s focus on the American perspective of the Age of Fighting Sail in the years following the American Revolution adds a fresh dimension to historical novels of the period.

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