The Mersey Steamship Company, a family business, which was founded on the fortunes of the slave trade have struggled to maintain their share of the fresh fruit trade as the Victorian era draws to a close. James Forwood, a Master Mariner, and his brother Nicholas have headed the business for a number of years and have been keen, like most Victorians, to distance themselves from the historical fact that their forebears made a fortune out of the slave trade before turning to legitimate business means. The story opens with the company facing liquidation and James returning from the Canaries on the expected final voyage to Dartmouth, where the shipping company has a base. A distant cousin, Ross Forwood from Australia, who is on passage to England with the intention of taking a European tour has discovered the fate of the company and is convinced that his mother's flight to the sub-continent many years previously is connected with a family dispute over slave reparations. Whilst Ross is trying to piece together the probable events of his early life his Australian solicitor unearths his mother's records and Ross is able to trace the family's checkered history during the Napoleonic Wars and the slave trade leading up to the formation of the shipping company. Finally, Ross, is poised to take control of the company, but does love result in the wily James not losing absolute control after all.