Torture? Or so my husband claimed when I was talking to him as to how Anne was able to follow Captain wentworth(and Admiral croft's)career by reading these lists.

I think its about time we looked at one in detail, so that we can see just what information poor old Anne was able to glean.

Here is the opening page of Steel's Navy List for January 1815.

Here's is the page for Admirals, showing which squardon they were in and the dates of their promotions:no wonder Anne could answer so succinctly about the Admirals career.......

So you can see just how Anne was able to keep tabs on Admiral Croft:

"And who is Admiral Croft?" was Sir Walter's cold suspicious inquiry.

Mr. Shepherd answered for his being of a gentleman's family, and mentioned a place; and Anne, after the little pause which followed, added --

"He is rear admiral of the white. He was in the Trafalgar action, and has been in the East Indies since; he has been stationed there, I believe, several years."
Chapter 3

Here is , probably more importantly for Anne, one of the pages about Captains:

If you look carefully you can see the entry for Frank Austen , Jane's lovely brother: here's a close up of the page for those of us with less than perfect eyesight ;-)

Frank's name is highlighted .

Here is a page from the captured ship list:

and here is one of the Prize Payments made, in pounds shillings and pence(hence the three figures sometimes shown as the amount of the prize money paid to the particular officer etc)

And finally a page of the ships of the navy by name and their officers:

So you can see by carefully preusing these publications and scanning the newspapers month after month and year after year, Anne was able to keep tabs at a distance of the man she loved. Which probably was a sort of torture. And of course personal information was not included . No wonder her heart shot into her mouth when Mrs Croft began to talk about her brother being married.

"It was you, and not your sister, I find, that my brother had the pleasure of being acquainted with, when he was in this country."

Anne hoped she had outlived the age of blushing; but the age of emotion she certainly had not.

"Perhaps you may not have heard that he is married?" added Mrs. Croft.