A Master Mariner

This amazing adventure story – a True Story – takes place in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the days of square-rigged ships travelling around the world in conditions far removed from those of sea-borne travel in today’s twenty-first century.  Quite apart from the physical challenges of operating, often poorly equipped, square-rigged ships, sailors of those days had little or no warning of the onset of violent storms, had to make do with rudimentary navigation equipment, were often the target of pirates, and could easily find themselves caught up in disputes between warring nations.


Captain Robert William Eastwick was Born in London in 1772.  His father died soon afterwards, and, despite his mother’s valiant efforts to dissuade him, he was determined to go to sea, and he joined his first ship as an apprentice when he was only twelve years old.


This book vividly relates, in his own words, the series of adventures that he experienced during his life at sea.  For example: in 1793, he was one of only seven, out of a total of sixty-five, who survived a violent shipwreck off the coast of Burmah; six years later, he was captured by a French frigate in the Bay of Bengal, which was itself then forced to surrender to a British frigate after a tremendous battle; in 1807, he was involved with General Whitelock’s expedition to Buenos Ayres; then, in 1810, he was one of only twenty survivors to escape when his ship was wrecked off Dunkirk, when three hundred and sixty passengers and crew perished; later, in 1812, he was captured after a severe action by an American privateer; and, finally, in 1825, his last ship was wrecked off the coast of Holland.


This short synopsis does not, in any way, do justice to the vibrant, colourful and detailed picture painted by Captain Eastwick of his forty years at sea.  He was indeed a truly remarkable individual.