"Cosmic Encounter" (1980) by A. E. van Vogt

In 1704 the English nobleman-turned-pirate Nathan Fletcher is en route to a planned assault on a British merchant ship in the Caribbean when one of the men spots a very strange unidentified object falling from the sky on the horizon. This turns out to be a disabled spaceship from the 83rd Century that sends one of theirs, in the form of a 14-year-old-boy, onto the pirate ship with the mission to get their engine repaired back in industrial England. Fletcher is an almost-likable rebel against the Tories back home who have done him out of his heritage, and has gone over to the other side, so to speak, although remaining a patriot at heart – which is why he decides to warn the English court of Queen Anne that his ship has also encountered a gigantic flying machine (another spaceship, this time from the 25th Century) that’s on its way to menace the world in general and England in particular.

An interesting, well-written and original blend of historical and science-fiction themes.

(70,000 words)

An e-book of this "sci-fi historical" novel [1] is available for downloading below.

Cosmic Encounter (e-book)