Enjoyment of these swashbuckling heroes will likely depend on one's ability to distinguish among sloop, schooner and shallop and to visualize maneuvers such as ""fetching to windward."" Those readers who find the language a lure rather than a deterrent are sure to be impressed by the canny seamanship and bravado of ""the Dunkirk pirate"" Gustavus Conyngham, intrepid Captain Jonathan Haraden and their fellows. And, though one suspects that individual feats may have been embellished by time (""imbedded in local lore"" is how Cook puts it), these men are authentic patriots whose semi-official privateering wreaked havoc on the British supply effort and, in Cook's estimation, changed our history by enriching a whole class of New England shipbuilders and merchants. Seaworthy all round.