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Thames Stairs
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Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
Born on 4 July 1776, Hornblower joins the Royal Navy in January 1794, initially as a midshipman aboard HMS Justinian. His aptitude quickly leads to his transfer to the frigate HMS Indefatigable (1784) under Captain Sir Edward Pellew. A series of exploits lead to his promotion to lieutenant in 1797. He is captured and imprisoned in Spain for almost two years during which time he learns the local languages.

"The Hand of Destiny"
As the junior lieutenant aboard HMS Marguerite, Hornblower is caught between her brutal captain and the mutinous crew.

"Hornblower and the Widow McCool"
The Irish rebel McCool is captured and returned aboard his previous ship, HMS Renown, where Hornblower is serving as the junior lieutenant under Captain Sawyer. He is put in charge of the prisoner until a trial and hanging take place.

Lieutenant Hornblower
HMS Renown is joined by Lieutenant Bush just prior to sailing for the West Indies. Captain Sawyer's paranoia threatens the efficiency of the ship and the lives of his lieutenants, particularly Hornblower, until he is incapacitated by falling down a hatchway. First Lieutenant Buckland assumes command but it's Hornblower's initiative that saves the ship and he's promoted commander.

Discrepancies
Forester provides two different brief summaries of Hornblower's career. The first was in the first chapter of The Happy Return, which was the first Hornblower novel written. The second occurs midway through The Commodore, when Czar Alexander asks him to describe his career. The two accounts are incompatible. The first account would have made Hornblower about five years older than the second. The second account is more nearly compatible with the rest of Hornblower's career, but it omits the time he spent as a commander in Hornblower and the Hotspur. There are other discrepancies as well; in one account of his defeat of a Spanish frigate in the Mediterranean, he distinguished himself as lieutenant and in another he is a post-captain with less than three years' seniority. In The Happy Return, Bush is serving with Hornblower for the first time, but other books in the series set earlier in his career completely disregard that.

Parkinson's biography
C. Northcote Parkinson wrote a fictional biography of Hornblower with the encouragement of C. S. Forester's widow, detailing his career as well as personal information. It corrects or elucidates some questionable points in the novels, and includes a confession that Hornblower kicked Captain Sawyer down the hatchway of the Renown. It adds subsequent careers of Lord Hornblower's relatives, ending with the present Viscount Hornblower's emigration to South Africa in the late 1960s. According to Parkinson, Hornblower in later life became a director of P&O, Governor of Malta (1829–1831), Commander in Chief at Chatham (1832–1835), a viscount (in 1850), and Admiral of the Fleet, dying at the age of 80 on 12 January 1857.

This biography has confused some readers, who have taken it as a factual work. Parkinson includes in Horatio's family tree a number of real-life Hornblowers. They include:
 * Jonathan Hornblower senior and Jonathan Hornblower junior, noted engineers who designed and worked with steam engines in Cornish mines in the late 18th century
 * Josiah Hornblower, an engineer who moved to America and became Speaker of the New England Assembly
 * Jabez Carter Hornblower, son of Jonathan junior and another engineer.