The story starts gently enough, with the Brown family going about their normal day, little knowing what the next thirteen days will bring. The family has a history of trade based upon the shipping industry originating on the maternal side. However, on the paternal side; there is a history of sea service within the Revenue and Excise service. The family titular head is away in the American Colonies and has not been heard off for a while, this leaves Mother Brown to run the family business and keep their position in society. There is a paternal Grandfather who is the Commander of the Watchful, (a revenue cutter) but he is in his sixties and this eyesight is failing. Then there is the grandson (Billy) and the grand-daughter (Polly), Billy is at an age where he must reluctantly follow his domineering Mother's advice and join the mercantile side of the family, (much to his annoyance), but he still complies. Whilst Polly is a wayward independent young lady, who has just reached an age where she starts to stand up to her Mother. It turns out after many trials and tribulations that the trading side of the business does not suit Master Brown, especially after American spies hide combustibles and gunpowder under his very nose, secreted amongst the many goods waiting to be shipped. Then, when it is discovered, the traitors want it back. Needless to say, after this, Mother thinks William will be far safer at sea with his grandfather as a Midshipman on his ship. How wrong can she be?
About the Author: William Bertram has for the last forty years researched Britain's late 18th and early 19th century Royal Navy; he specialised in the design and performance of wooden warships. Now attending Plymouth University for his degree in Maritime History and Marine Technology, he pursued this specialty further. His dissertation on the sailing qualities of 19th century warships was rapidly accepted and broadcast on Television and Radio as well as being published in the New Scientist and in journals all around the world. During his time at University, he satisfied his academic curiosity and his need to eat, by becoming a guide at Plymouth Naval Base Museum and a receptionist at Fort Bovisand. The next years were fulfilling as a teacher, but retirement threatened and so William returned to his major academic love, maritime history, luckily he was in a city steeped in the past glories of her relationship with the sea. It was at this point in William's history that he decided to write books based on the history of Plymouth and its seafaring people. Resolving to write a mixture of factual and fiction books that progress through several generations of the same family, he centred his rags to riches stories around the Brown family. Using factual evidence, he interwove the characters around Plymouth's 18th century history and streets. This clearly involved many long days of research and fact-finding, however, eventually he wrote his first novel and swiftly followed it with two more in rapid succession. Nevertheless, all three books which William wrote are based on an 18th century Plymouthian family who are clearly fictional, however, this can never be said of the novel's background, here William has meticulously used old maps, drawings and records to build up an historic environment for his characters to exist in. He has even taken photographs of the streets and places mentioned in the stories and these are to be found on his web site, (www.agesofplymouth.co.uk).