ABSTRACT

Fluellen Crabtree, cobbler of Chipping Sodbury and former master mariner one night in 1753 stealthily regained his breeches, girded on his sword and bade a silent farewell to the now submisive subsiding form of Mary, his wife. Fluellen’s need to depart arose from that pre-science which was the curse of all the Crabtrees. For he knew that in two and a half short years the Seven Years War would erupt and that England would need all her seamen.