The names Black Joke and Fair Rosamond are well-known to historians, artists and ship modelers interested in the British Navy's campaign against the slave trade. These were a brig and a schooner built in Baltimore, MD in the 1820s, employed in the slave trade (as Henriquetta and Dos Amigos respectively), captured by the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron and conscripted into the Navy as slave chasers. By telling the story of the Fair Rosamond as a sort of biography of the ship, Ryall covers numerous aspects of the slave trade as well as issues, successes and failures of the Royal Navy's campaign to eliminate it. The story begins with a narration from the point of view of a fictional character, a boy named Tom Corker, who works on the ship during her construction at Fells Point in Baltimore. When she is launched he signs on as a cabin boy and is with the ship as she picks up trade goods in Rhode Island and sails to the Gallinas River in western Africa to purchase a load of slaves from Pedro Blanco, an infamous slave merchant. While the crew is modifying the ship to accommodate four hundred human beings Tom comes down with malaria. He is left with Don Pedro, and recovers under the care of Pedro's wives. During his recovery he develops an interest in a girl named Isatou of mixed African-English parentage, but Blanco stops the relationship by having Tom accompany a group of Blanco's men to purchase slaves from Arab traders in the interior of Sierra Leone. When his ship returns he rejoins the crew and is on board when she is captured by the Black Joke. He and several other members of the crew are given a choice: join the Royal Navy or be marooned in Africa. They join, the ship is renamed Fair Rosamond, and they all participate in the anti-slavery campaign. There are numerous sea chases, and in one case the little Baltimore schooner captures two heavily-armed slave brigs after a breathtaking day-long pursuit up the Bonny River. The story ends with the burning of the Black Joke and the departure of the Rosamond for England.