Available as a Free eBook: View or Download
The Ranger is a naval vessel, employed largely as a troopship, carrying men to India and other areas in which the British strove to keep the peace, the Pax Britannica, while the Crusader is being used as an emigrant ship, carrying people looking for a new life in New Zealand. It appears that many emigrants were a pretty useless lot, whom no life anywhere would have suited, and this comes out very clearly towards the end of the book. That was far being the universal rule, and this book shows the pluck and courage under adversity of the better class of emigrant.
Both vessels run into difficult situations, and the story is about how the passengers and crews managed to pull through them. The Crusader fares worst, being a total loss not very far from New Zealand. The survivors work hard to feed themselves and at the same time to build a vessel, the New Crusader, in which they can get themselves to New Zealand. Even on this final leg of the story they run into a problem with hostile natives. At this point the Ranger appears and effects a rescue, so that the better class of emigrants have survived, while the worse class, who had joined with some of the seamen to stage a mutiny, nearly all die.