I think Sharpe's father is Constantine Phipps, 2nd Baron Mulgrave. Could you confirm if this is right? This suggestion is that beside being an actual adventurer, take you out (remove ty) and put me in (pm) and a horse appears (its actually "an horse" grammatically old school English) remove this from this happy person and your left with letters pm his ppy p or MP Phipps? His autobiography seems to fit the gene pool as well.
Ok so either it was Constantine or Henry Phipps. Henry Phipps might be the reason for Sharpe's quick escalation through the army and even his work on Copenhagen would makes more sense from a literary point of view his work on Copenhagen and the bringing of Patrick and Sharp to the same neck of the woods. Constantine would make more sense as the adventurer but Henry makes sense in terms of military acumen. Hit me with it Mr Cornwell.
Please make it Constantine out of the two (I know its too late) the more I read about honesty (Phipps and delaval) he sounds like he's got the integrity etc and the genuine adventurer spirit. I'm sure from army point of view Henry did a lot but his brother seems to have the more exciting an adventure. As you can tell a little excited think i'm on the money with this one. Got to have a master rifleman Justin Tolan save Sharpe's life in a book for this one.
Put me out of my misery please, and sorry if this was solved years ago.God Save Ireland
Justin Tolan
Sorry, all very ingenious, but wrong!