1815:William Fielding, first officer of the 'Royal Brunswicker', is returning to his ship after visiting his uncle in the Channel port town of Deal. Fate intervenes and Fielding never reaches his post, instead becoming entangled in a series of adventures aboard the 'Black Watch'. These take him far across the oceans and test him both as a man and a sailor.
This seafaring adventure by William Clark Russell is set in the year of 1815, when Europe was at war, tensions were high and the open seas were a dangerous cauldron of deceit, greed and the forces of nature.