With the Flag in the Channel; Or, The Adventures of Captain Gustavus Conyngham

Philadelphia, 1777. The colonies are bleeding, and the Continental Navy can barely hold its head above water. But in the back rooms of coffeehouses and merchant offices, a different war is being fought with letters of marque and borrowed courage. Enter Captain Gustavus Conyngham, an Irish-born American seaman whose name alone makes British merchants reach for their ledgers in terror. Recruited for a desperate mission to strike at British shipping lanes, Conyngham becomes a thorn in the Empire's side, transforming from a simple captain into a wanted man whose capture would mean the gallows. James Barnes writes with the breathless energy of a boy telling his father a story, filling every harbor fog and midnight encounter with the genuine danger of a war where the line between hero and pirate blurred entirely. The novel follows Conyngham's rise through daring raids that thumbed their nose at the world's greatest naval power, set against the desperate gamble of a young nation refusing to drown.