trading

The Civil War is tearing apart the North American United States. The Union Fleet blocked the Confederate seacoast, interrupting all sea trade, and European merchants suffer big losses from this. One of Glasgow’s trading houses is building a high-speed ship capable of breaking through the blockade and bringing unheard of profits. But on board the ship, not only those seeking benefits will set sail.

John and Ezra Girdlestone, father and son, run a British merchant company trading to the African coast with several sailing ships, all dangerously ill-maintained. Their small office is in London, their business is quite personally run, and the firm and its owners are well respected in the City by the 1870s. John Girdlestone is deeply and ostentatiously religious, to the cynical amazement of his son....