The series of pocket books provides a very affordable and personal view from seafarers who sailed in an age long past and very different in many ways from the experiences of modern seafarers. This book in the series is unique in several respects, not least that the author was better educated than his shipmatesand able to provide a written account that is vibrant and colourful. This is an extraordinary and valuable book that provides an insight into life under sail on a line-of-battle ship in the US Navy, the author has provided a lively and engaging tale that provides a view of a little-covered period through the eyes of a boy in what was a hard life before the steel steam-powered warship.
Firetrench Reviews

This original work has now been sensitively edited by Vincent McInerney and formatted as an edition within the very successful 'Seafarers' Voices' series from Pen and Sword. This true account includes many fascinating ancedotes and includes the exotic woman the author fell for who turned out to be a German spy. This is an extraordinary and valuable book that provides an insight into life under sail and the transition steam, the experiences of peacetime voyages and the experiences of war near the end of an exciting life at sea.
Firetrench Reviews

A highly readable piece of work. There is much within the 184 pages that will resonate today- the hazards of the sea and the pressures on shipmasters being among them. The oldest account of a deepsea voyage written by the wife of a shipmaster.
Nautilus Telegraph

This is one of those books that has to be read. It covers a complete slice of life in the early Nineteenth Century during the British dash for Empire when the ascendancy of Britain on the world map depended on captains like Samuels, where piracy and famine and war added to the trials of storm and tempest. Samuels has inspired several works of fiction but his own story is hard to beat for excitement. Buy a copy now.
Firetrench

A gripping page-turner that holds the reader as would a well-written novel, and it opens a new view to a neglected period of history...an excellent book
Fire Trench