All the Proud Ships — Charles E. Friend

In the winter of 1776, Captain Patrick Tremayne and Lieutenant Ethan Hale are charged with a seemingly impossible mission: To break the British blockade of the Delaware River, rendezvous with the scant forces of America's Continental Navy and a handful of American privateers, and intercept a Royal Navy convoy arriving from the West Indies with supplies and reinforcements for the British attack on the American capital, Philadelphia. The odds are against them. Their ship, Eagle, is little more than an old merchant ship decorated with a yellow stripe and a few clapped-out cannon. Her crew are inexperienced, her second lieutenant bitter and vengeful, and her supplies insufficient. She's hardly a match for the Royal Navy, the mightiest on the sea. But Eagle is armed with more than guns. She has the level head of Lt. Hale, the fierce loyalty of her men, and above all the sly cunning of Captain Tremayne, with his daring repertoire of strategies: An impromptu rescue of sailors from a British prison hulk; that terror of the seas, a fireship; and a duel on whose outcome Tremayne will stake the future of his mission -- and perhaps the future of the fledgling nation itself. Packed with historical detail, All The Proud Ships is a story of cannon and powder smoke, of courage and loyalty, of ships and the sea. Above all, it is a story of freedom, and what brave men will do to have it.