This is a story that is based on fact in that it is about the author's great-grandparents, Douglas and Laure Wales and their first meeting in l840 on the three-masted barque, "Orient" that was owned by her great-grandfather. The story is also fictional in that the author has created other characters and has, of necessity, imagined their conversations and their reasons for embarking on the voyage in "Orient." Douglas Wales was also conveying 250 government-assisted emigrants to Australia, and his care of these passengers earned him praise in Parliament due to the fact that he ensured that he...