Young Jack Easy, full of his wealthy philosopher father's impractical notions of the rights of man and perfect equality - and failing to find much sympathy for them on land - resolves to join the navy, reasoning that 'although the whole earth has been so nefariously divided among the few, that the waters at least are the property of all.' He soon finds, though, that life in the Royal Navy is not quite the egalitarian ideal that he had expected, and is a good deal more eventful...