The first few chapters cover the events while the Europa is on patrol in the Chops of the Channel and the Bay of Biscay.  The British are hostile to the French and to the Dutch, and there are engagements with vessels of these nations.  Thereafter the vessel sails to the West Indies, where one of the problems is to exterminate the pirates infesting those waters.  The book describes, possibly fairly accurately, the life of a midshipman of those days and in those waters.  At one point Dick receives a very serious head-wound, but recovers with good treatment in the Naval Hospital.  On the whole the book has echoes of the immortal works of Captain Marryat, which I am sure our author had studied very carefully.