John Casey, writing in "The Washington Post" wrote that O'Brian covered the "year after Waterloo, so it necessarily deals with a period of deflation, both economic and emotional, for the Royal Navy and its ancillary population of shipwrights, chandlers and seamen on the beach." and that he addressed "this state of affairs succinctly and sharply in the first part of the story." Then the two main characters have their mission to aid Chile, and "Of course Jack and Stephen must sail there, and readers are treated to O'Brian's talent for life on board, incidents and accidents". The narrative is primarily from Aubrey and Maturin, but "occasional glimpses from other perspectives that both give a capsule story -- in this case a sense of a calculated marriage -- and also provide contrast: Jack, for all his faults, is not "capable of a shabby thing.""