This work is set in March 1814. Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho returns to England from several months rigorous patrolling off the North American coast. War with the United States has not yet ended but news of Napoleons defeat & abdication has stunned a navy & a nation bled by years of European conflict. Victory has been the impossible dream & now for Bolitho a vision of the future & a personal peace seems attainable. However an unsympathetic Admiralty dispatches him to Malta. In this appointment a compliment or a malicious ploy to keep Bolitho from the woman he loves & the freedom he craves? He cannot know but the voice of duty speaks more insistently even than the voice of the heart & in this familiar sea where both glory & tragedy have touched his life Bolitho must confront the future the renaissance of a hated tyrant & the fulfilment of destiny.