The Grosvenor was a three masted ship, belonging to the East India Trading Company. The ship went underway in March of 1782, under the command of Captain John Coxon. While underway near the Cape, several crew members reported seeing lights, but dismissed them as a weather phenomenon. A while late, another crew member reported seeing land, but everyone dismissed that as well, believing they were on a different course. The reports were correct, brushfires were indeed burning on land that was in their path. The ship ultimately ran aground, with ninety one of the crew and seventeen of the passengers surviving that incident. I will not spoil the book by going into any details about what happened to the survivors of the shipwreck, though I will say they went through it.

I picked this book up at my favorite local used bookstore a while back for a couple of dollars. I would say that this book was certainly worth the price I paid for it. I had never heard of this particular shipwreck, and just grabbed it because it was in the world disaster section. This tragic tale was told in an informative and respectful way, even though it was hundreds of years ago. I appreciated the descriptions of life aboard ships like this, as well as the definitions of certain things. I like a book that teaches me things, and this one did. It was also just over 200 pages, so it didn't take long to get through at all, which is helpful for meeting my reading challenge.