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"In this sequel to THE LOYALIST'S SON, Phillip Fairaday becomes a yankee privateer to attack English shipping inside the Chesapeake Bay. He has little luck at this, however, and the lack of success begins to raise muttterings of mutiny on board the small privateer sloop JAVELIN. When they fall in with the British frigate ROEBUCK, Captain Fairaday runs for shoal water to avoid capture. As night falls the ROEBUCK sends in a cutting out party which successfully captures the JAVELIN. Fairaday escapes capture in the bowels of the ship and sets a powder charge that scuttles JAVELIN. The English are killed in the ensuing melee and the Yankees escape to nearby St. George's Island.
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Eliot Marlborough of the Royal Navy, Fairaday's brother-in-law and former friend, has been assigned aboard the ROEBUCK as second Lieutenant. When the cutting out party fails to return he is sent to investigate. He finds a boatload of dead English sailors and returns to the frigate with the news.
As Fairaday and his men make their way back to their home anchorage tension continues to develop between Fairaday and his first mate Thomas Kemper. This results in a challenge to a duel. While Fairaday arrives at the appointed dueling grouund at the proper time, Kemper fails to show. Instead, a posse from the Virginia Committee of Safety arrives to arrest Fairaday for the murder of one of his crew--a trap laid by Kemper to frame his hated captain. Fairaday escapes custody with the help of his loyal crew and flees aboard his schooner, the TRUST.
Marlborough has been granted command of a small brig, WEASEL, and pursues Fairday in a three day long chase into the Atlantic. In the midst of heavy weather, the WEASEL runs aground and must be abandoned. The TRUST escapes and Marlborough, faced with the disgrace of his lost command, resigns his commission before returning to Halifax and his wife. The book is set up for a final book in the trilogy to follow. "
John Malzone, Resident Scholar
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