This account recalls how in 1822, Aaron Smith, a young English seaman, was taken prisoner by a Cuban pirate ship and forced to help the pirates as a navigator and as a member of boarding parties. He witnessed murder and torture and feared for his life. After being befriended by a Cuban girl, he escaped but was arrested in Havana as a pirate and sent back to England in irons. He was put on trial for his life with the prosecution led by the Attorney General. Smith was acquitted and wrote this book in 1824. Aaron Smith's great, great grandson, Robert Redmond has researched how Smith was re-arrested on the insistence of the King of the Netherlands, and how he married his childhood sweetheart. Redmond has contributed an introduction and postscript for this book.