Romance, Conrad and Ford. The name says it. I admire and respect the writing of Ford Madox Ford and greatly admire and respect that of Conrad, but this collaboration is not a success. It recounts the adventures of a Regency youth from the lower reaches of the British nobility in the rough and tumble world of the Caribbean, complete with pirates, romance, and courageous Spanish damsels, and several last-minute escapes, the clichés of romantic adventure fictions. There are a few passages of Conrad’s wonderful evocative descriptions. I note that slavery was the basis of the Caribbean economy at this time and the hero is for a time the boss of a slave plantation, but it is never a moral issue, which seems odd from the author of the bitter and effective criticism of colonial exploitation of blacks in The Heart of Darkness. Even Jane Austin knew better.