These are the memoirs of a naval officer who served right through the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, from 1793 to 1814. He saw action in the West Indies, in the Channel and off Africa. He fought at Trafalgar, aboard HMS Tonnant, and was wounded. In 1812 his ship ran aground off Boulogne and he remained a prisoner of the French until the end of the war in 1814. The fascinating stories include how the incriminating papers of an American privateer were recovered from the belly of the shark that had swallowed them.