Just occasionally, a happy team experiences a magic moment when everything seems to go right. The early months of 1804, aboard HMS Centaur, 74, under Commodore Sir Samuel Hood and Captain Maxwell, in the Leeward Islands of the West Indies, seem to have been one of those moments. In quick succession, a group of young Lieutenants and Midshipmen pulled off two stunning achievements: the taking and fortifying of Diamond Rock off Martinique, and the cutting-out of Le Curieux which joined the Royal Navy as HMS Curieux and went on to play a key role in the Trafalgar campaign the following year. They are stories which cast a light on the independent-minded and entrepreneurial Navy of the time.
