This volume contains Q's fictionalised accounts of :-
- The 1527 wreck of the, Portuguese treasure ship, Saint Andrew and the seizure of its cargo by local gentry.
- The first ruler, First White Rajah, of Sarawak who retired to Burraton on Dartmoor.
- Westcountry folk who became pirates including Harry Glasby
who became an accidental pirate on account of his seizure due to both his musical and navigational skills.

The volume concludes with Sabine Baring-Gould's authoritative account of the life of the First White Rajah, Sir James Brooke, and a description of the life of the unfortunate and reluctant pirate Harry Glasby.

Now surpassed in fame by his daughter's best friend, Daphne Du Maurier, Arthur Quiller-Couch was the pre-eminent Cornish writer of Victorian and Edwardian times and founder of the School of English Literature at Cambridge University.

He is of particular interest since his fiction was very often informed by factual events now passed from
memory.