A Rare Moment of Total Invention? HMS Jason and Méduse in Surgeon’s Mate
I’m on my umpteenth circumnavigation, listening (Patrick Tull) to the Surgeon’s Mate, specifically the action in Ch 9 where Jack’s Ariel encounters HMS Jason pursuing the French ship Méduse, 74. The whole scene is very exciting and I tried to find more about it online, assuming that (like many of the battles) Jack was simply inserted into a real life encounter.
Well, here’s the thing of it. I couldn’t find any mention of the encounter. Indeed, going further in, I couldn’t find any record for a French ship Méduse being a 74 (the only record of a Méduse being that famous frigate of the great wreck and subsequent painting). Furthermore, the only HMS Jason of the time that I found was a 32-gun frigate, which wouldn’t make sense, because then why would a 74 be running from her.
On top of all this, it is later mentioned that HMS Ajax, 74 finally gets her… yet I find no encounter between Ajax and Méduse, or between Ajax and any 74 in single-ship action around that time.
And to round things off, I can’t seem to find record of a Captain Joseph (Joe) Middleton being a relatively junior ranking Post-Captain at the time of Surgeon’s Mate (roughly 1812-1815).
So I come to this: has O’Brian simply invented two ships, a Captain, and two battles/chases? Or has my late-night surface-level research simply missed the mark? I typically held the belief that most actions in these books were based on historical account… but perhaps this is an exception?
I would be most grateful of any enlightenment any of you could bestow upon me.
EDIT: I only just realised that the post made before mine, by u/stanley604, happens to also be about the Surgeon’s Mate, regarding an nth circumnavigation, this time in audiobook form. What a wonderful coincidence, and a glass of wine with you sir.