by Charles Hawes
Philip Marsham goes to sea as an honest sailor in a merchant fishing vessel, which is taken by pirates in the Atlantic. Forced to join them or die, Philip and the crew have a series of misadventures before they are captured by a British naval ship and brought back to England for trial. Of all the pirate crew, only Philip is acquitted of the charges against them.
I had a hard time getting into this book. It was hard to understand, between all of the nautical terminology, occasional dialects, and simply the older turns of phrase the author uses. I also just didn’t find it interesting for the first third of the book. I did get into it for a large portion of the second half, but I found the ending disappointing. Maybe middle-grade boys who like pirates will get more out of it than I did.