[2] In addition to Shakespeare's play, the collaborators consulted recent accounts of actual explorations, including those of William Strachey and John Nicholl.
The King's Company staged the play to beat the competition: William Davenant's and John Dryden's adaptation, The Tempest, or The Enchanted Island, would premier on 7 November the same year.
Albert, a French pirate, is the captain; he is accompanied by a heterogeneous group of compatriots, including Lamur, a "usuring Merchant," Franville, "a vain-glorious gallant," and Morillat, "a shallow-brain'd Gentleman."
The ship struggles to reach a nearby island; the crew toss overboard cargo, belongings, even treasure, in an attempt to lighten the load.
Two Portuguese castaways, Sebastian and his nephew Nicusa, have long suffered privation on this barren rocky island; they watch as the ship endures the storm, and they see the survivors make their way to the beach.
Their conversation reveals that they were victims of a pirate attack, which divided them from another Portuguese ship that carried Sebastian's wife and other members of their family.
There is abundant material concerning this privation, perhaps intended as comedy; at one point, Lamure, Franville and Morillat (brawling, cowardly, greedy, selfish, etc.
Along with the reunion of Sebastian and Rosilla, Raimond and Clarinda form a couple, which helps to palliate the resentments of the two groups, French and Portuguese; and Albert and Aminta are free to marry as well.
Along with Fletcher's The Island Princess, The Sea Voyage has attracted the attention of some late twentieth century critics and scholars as part of the literature of colonialism and anti-colonialism.