Allusions/references To Other Works
The plot of the novel is very closely based upon a real campaign carried out by the Royal Navy in 1810 under Commodore Josias Rowley. O'Brian notes this in the preface. The island was formally captured on 3 December 1810.
The story contains numerous allusions to the ideas and thinking of others. At one point Aubrey is recorded "adding, not without pride, Ex Africa surgit semper aliquid novo, – novi, eh?" ("Always something new coming out of Africa".) This is the popular version of a quotation from Pliny the Elder, "unde etiam vulgare Graeciae dictum semper aliquid novi Africam adferre" – "Whence the common saying among the Greeks, 'Africa always offers something new'."
Later Maturin quotes the Earl of Rochester, "Every man would be a coward if he durst" (which he would have seen in Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets.)
Throughout there are allusions and quotes from Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll and Horace.
Read more about this topic: The Mauritius Command
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