I have never kept a diary, and therefore this book, with the exception of a few newspaper extracts and some letters which I found, has been based mainly on a retentive memory.

Preface.

Little is known of the eighteenth and nineteenth century colliers by the present generation, nor of the fierce struggles by the inimitable captains and crews, who successfully kept them afloat when many of them ought to have been scrapped, and romped them from port to port laden and in ballast by sheer pertinacity and ability, bravery and endurance.

Chapter I. Rebels or rovers?.