I'm so glad you mentioned this. It was on my mind throughout the discussions of the first four chapters, when everyone was talking about long engagements, and again in the current chapters, when Louisa and Henrietta are poring through the navy lists and CW is giving them accounts of his success. Anne and Frederick broke up in 1806--had he come back for her after a few years, when he had the Laconia and his first prize money, for instance--she would have been his, no matter what the objections of her family and LR.