General Aubrey

General Aubrey is Jack Aubrey's father, and Member of Parliament and a senior officer of the Army.

Early Life and First Marriage
His early life is largely unknown, but he is assumed to have had money as he is in the Army, (one of the few ways to get a commision in the Army was to buy one). At some point early in Jack's childhood, Jack's mother dies.

Second Marriage
The General remarries after Jack's mother dies, and eventually provides Jack with a half brother, Philip. The woman he married was young, and had been very well known to the young men in the town. When Jack was still in his twenties they had an affair, and many years later learns that she and his father had gotten married. While Jack harbors no feelings for her, the fact of their affair makes their personal interactions awkward.

Downfall and Death
The General and his Radical stock-jobbing associates buy heavily into volatile government stocks that Aubrey unwittingly recommends to them, causing Jack Aubrey to be tried for stock fraud and briefly stripped of his rank in the Navy. The General attempts to flee the country to avoid being arrested; his body is later discovered dead in a ditch.

Politics
General Aubrey is a Member of Parliament for the "rotten borough" of Millport, and it is in that role as an M.P. that he has embarrassed his son on numerous occasions with his vehement, loquaciously enthusiastic politics, which swing all the way from extreme right wing Tory to extreme left wing Radical, but always in opposition to the Government of the day. As such, he is widely disliked by all of polite society. Consequently, on the few occasions when the General does lobby the Admiralty on Jack's behalf, the misguided attempts usually backfire.

Relationship with Jack
The General, as he is generally referred to, figures large in his son's life but, in fact, they rarely meet face-to-face.