This is a rags-to-riches story set in the turmoil of the eighteenth century, when the only way for ordinary folk to advance was to fight.

Simon Pearce, born in poverty on the Isles of Scilly in Cornwall, England, takes his family on a swashbuckling journey that begins with the worst peacetime shipwreck in Royal Naval history, on 22nd October 1707, when five ships were lost on the Isles of Scilly. He was brought up into a family of smugglers, but a twist of fate enables him to rise to the captaincy of a privateer.

He marries the stunningly beautiful Isabella de Mendoza from the Portuguese island of Madeira. They have four children, and after twenty years trading with America, he moves his family to an estate on the Potomac River near the site of the future capital, Washington DC.

Simon finds himself on the side of the American rebels during the American War of Independence, becoming a commander with impeccable credentials, in the fledgling American Revolutionary Navy.

After opening up trade links with China, the growing family dynasty founds the first pharmaceuticals company in the United States, and the story culminates with Simon's grandsons fighting at the Battle of the Nile.