Nation


The first chapter involves a subplot in which the Gentlemen of Last Resort, a secret society serving the crown, urgently set out for Port Mercia in the Great Southern Pelagic Ocean to seek the next man in the British line of succession: Henry Fanshaw, the unsuspecting governor of England's oceanic territories. Fanshaw's 13-year-old daughter, Ermintrude, is one of the novel's two protaginist. The other protagonist, Mau, is an aboriginal native of the Nation who is first depicted alone at neighbouring Boys' Island, where he has hand-built a canoe to complete his initiation from boyhood into manhood. Ermintrude, meanwhile, is leisurely travelling aboard British a schooner, the Sweet Judy, led by a ruthless Cox, are subdued and set adrift at sea.