"During the years 1780-1781 , this nation became bankrupt and was all but exhausted by internal dissensions of long standing and by the desperate battles of a long war in its final stages. Only an out-numbered naval squadron sent by His Most Christian Majesty Louis XVI and the presence in Rhode Island of a little army of French regulars lent forlorn hope to the American patriots. With these turbulent years as background tapestry - climaxed by the surrender at Yorktown of Lord Cornwallis - F. van Wyck Mason traces his tory of three young doctors, their careers, their love-making, and their rough and tumble adventures in the service of a young and struggling country."
One of the three doctors is Peter Burnham, who serves as surgeon on an American privateer