Edsall's seafaring adventures began at age 18 when he was inveigled into joining a mysterious voyage in 1806 that turned out to be the filibustering expedition to Venezuela of General Francisco de Miranda.
This was one of the first attempts to liberate one of the Spanish colonies of South America, and was partially financed and supported by two Americans, Colonel William S. Smith and Samuel G. Ogden.
The initial effort ended disastrously for Edsall when two ships were captured off shore of Ocumare de la Costa by a Spanish warship.
Edsall and four other American sailors applied for discharge when this news reached their ship in the Baltic, but on the return to England, they were shipwrecked on the coast of Sweden.
As the war wound down, Edsall was transferred to the first American ship of the line, the Independence, when it sailed from Boston harbor in 1815 to Tripoli under Commodore William Bainbridge to help enforce the suppression of the Barbary pirates.
Edsall finally had his fill of sailing around 1816 and found work butchering in Catskill, where he lived for 15 years and married, before narrating the events of this book.