Though the Colony of Massachusetts convicted Thomas Pound of piracy, he was no pirate but a loyal servant of Sir Edmund Andros and the deposed Catholic king James II. This is the thread of fact to guide the reader through the labyrinthine maze of colonial politics. This matter take up chapters 1-2 of the book, while the later two chapters are devoted to Pound's family and genealogy, subjects that no one has written about before. Given the fact that Pound's nautical adventures took place in the vicinity of Nantucket, it is no surprise that Herman Melville figures largely in these pages.
