Light, swift and daring, frigates were the  cruisers of Nelson’s navy, commanded by bold, courageous officers, ranging the oceans of the world lone or in packs, seeking the enemy – and usually finding him. Although much of the swashbuckling spirit of these courageous sea adventures has been captured in fiction, the story of the frigates of 1793-1815 has rarely been told as a continuous historical narrative. Author James Henderson has also brought to life the contemporary social, political, and naval scene providing the background without which it would be impossible to fully understand these exciting naval engagements. His writing is vivid – he has the reader walking the quarterdeck with the first lieutenant or muzzle-loading in the smoky gun deck of a 44 – and his descriptions of frigate and naval technicalities are so lucid they make it easy for the reader to assess such famous encounters as that between the HMS Shannon and the USS Chesapeake, which was captured by boarding after fifteen furious minutes. The Frigates ranks among the outstanding works of naval history: it will appeal to both the general reader and the historian because of the painstaking research on which it is based and also for its brilliant evocation of the exploits of the most daring men and their ships at the high noon of the Royal Navy.