A biography of James Fitzjames, captain of HMS Erebus and third in command on Franklin's 1845 expedition to find the North West passage. The author established that Fitzjames was the illegitimate son of a diplomat, Sir James Gambier, and was brought up by the Reverend Robert Conningham. Fitzjames joined the Royal Navy in 1825, served on the Euphrates expedition from 1834-37, fought in the Egyptian-Ottoman War (1839-40) as a gunnery lieutenant and then in the First Opium War before joining the Franklin expedition on which he died in 1848. The author draws on Fitzjames's personal letters and journals as well as official naval records.