Summary for The Nutmeg of Consolation

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A chapter by chapter look at The Nutmeg of Consolation

CHAPTER 1

Cricket on desert island, Dianes against Marines - Stephen hunting for meat - birds' nest swallows, not true swallows - kills babirussa - turtle - St Famine's Day close on - Stephen feverish, declaims on inhumanity of physicians - Kesegaran and Dyak pirates - gunpowder lost - negotiations for message to Batavia - Stephen suspicious.

CHAPTER 2

Dyaks attack, Kesegaran killed - battle - boats burned - proa sunk, all Dyaks lost - dead and wounded - St Famine's Day arrives - Stephen shoots babirussa, finds Chinese children - Li Po brings his junk.

CHAPTER 3

Officers amazed by junk - pirate repulsed - Wan Da - Cornélie ready for sea, short of stores - Stephen bribes Wan Da to hold back on gunpowder - brings news of treaty etc to Raffles - Stephen's new bank has broke - Raffles offers Gelijkheid/Nutmeg - Mr Sowerby offensive - Raffles warns Stephen of Australian bigotry and ill-nature - Jack falls in love with ship and names her Nutmeg.

CHAPTER 4

Raffles helps corrupt dockyard - Mr Sowerby makes amends with horrible plant - Raffles offers sloop as consort, Stephen declines - Adams, old Lively, shipped as clerk - Oakes and Miller as ratings - Jack recounts his own foremast experience - Nutmeg puts to sea, foul winds - Killick and Grimshaw discuss Martin and the Date Line - divisions - Oakes and Miller promoted again, with Conway - Jack fears he has missed Cornélie.

CHAPTER 5

Cracking on - Alkmaar, with news of Cornélie, watering and now stocked with powder - Stephen reflects on his poverty, and on moral advantage in marriage - Nutmeg disguised, Jack explains his plan - Cornélie sighted as planned, but not deceived - short action, Nutmeg leads away in chase.

CHAPTER 6

Chase, difficulty of maintaining deception - Stephen cross at loss of interesting cadaver - dinner in gunroom, nature of sloops - tide unexpectedly strong, Jack's plan fails - Stephen looks forward to platypuses - Cornélie steals a march - Surprise sighted with three consorts - chase in reverse - Cornélie founders.

CHAPTER 7

Jack writes to Sophia - letter brought by Tom Pullings from Sam Panda - dinner, Goffin ungracious - story of polar bears - Jack rejoins Surprise in full rig - sickbay, Jack offended by smell - Stephen and Martin exchange news in mizzen-top - Jack protests against age of Surprise, and buys her from Stephen - scurvy.

CHAPTER 8

Sweeting's Island, call for antiscorbutics - everybody dead of smallpox - Sarah and Emily given to Jemmy Ducks - begin to learn English - Stephen thinks of Padeen, now in New South Wales - Tromp passes, can't stop - rats eat Stephen's coca leaves - no more coca, rats run amok - Jack warns officers of Rum Corps in Botany Bay - Jack ill, Stephen and Tom Pullings call at Government House - Botany Bay squalid as ever - offensive guests at dinner, the Pope, Ireland, merino sheep, Banks - Captain Lowe strikes Stephen and pays for it.

CHAPTER 9

John Paulton, Martin's old friend - Surprise's Sethians and others ask Stephen to find news of their convict friends - Jack angry with him, all officials disobliging - letter from Blaine, Stephen's fortune safe - he visits Governor's wife to find home for Sarah and Emily - Riley's hotel, boomerang - visit to Paulton, novels - Clarissa, not by Richardson? - dismalness of Woolloo-Woolloo - advice on corrupting clerks - Stephen approaches Adams - Paulton dines in Surprise, invites Jack and Stephen to Woolloo-Woolloo - water-moles - girls presented, left at orphanage - Jemmy Ducks in tears - news of convicts - Padeen in hospital - Dr Redfern - Martin brings Paulton's novel - girls run back to Surprise and go aloft - deal with Paulton over Padeen - Stephen buys horses from Riley - Dr Redfern takes him to Padeen - Stephen proposes inland tour.

CHAPTER 10

Stephen and Martin botanizing in dreary plains - morose Aboriginal guide - return to Surprise, army have invaded ship - Stephen visits Governor's wife again - meets Irish cousin who warns him of hostile United Irishmen - he will take the girls to Mrs Broad - he hints of Jack MP's enormous influence - Stephen and Martin back in bush, lost in pursuit of lyre-bird - lost again, but they find Woolloo-Woolloo - Padeen in better condition - boomerang demonstration - Waverley from Madras in harbour - news of Stephen's daughter - dinner in Surprise, Stephen spreads more disinformation about Jack's huge political importance - quarrel over Padeen - Stephen and Martin return to Woolloo-Woolloo by boat - water-moles or platypuses - Stephen stung by poisoned spur - taken back with Padeen to Surprise.