This is the highly readable and entertaining journal of a merchant seaman of the late eighteenth century from his joining the service to becoming master of a vessel. He gives fascinating detail of everyday life on board and ashore, including the characters he meets, his diet and medical treatments. He first crosses the Atlantic to the USA (New York and Philadelphia) shortly after independence, and to the Caribbean.

Everything is here, the hardships he endured, the ports he visited, the cargoes he carried; the wages he drew and paid, the food he ate, the trouble he had with his crews, his observations on winds, currents, seamanship and peccant humanity, during a period when England was almost continuously at war, not with a single nation, but, at times, with four maritime powers at once.

He saw history making in his day, the British evacuation of New York; the foundation of St. John's, New Brunswick; Benjamin Franklin walking the streets of Philadelphia, a gold chain round his neck; Washington, in black velvet, addressing the Senate, and Lord Howe exchanging salutes with Admiral MacBride as the Grand Fleet stood down Channel to drub the French on 'The Glorious First of June.'