This is a story of the extraordinary adventures that befell Joshua Barney during his earliest years at sea, at the time of the Revolutionary war. He shipped as second mate on the brig "Cormorant," to sail from Baltimore to the Mediterranean. The first mate left the ship at Norfolk: the captain died; and Barney, only fifteen years old, was master of the ship and responsible for the safe delivery of her cargo at Nice. Everything in the book is true, though written in the form of fiction.