Miles Wallingford

Miles Wallingford, romance by Cooper, published in 1844 as a sequel to Afloat and Ashore.

Believing his childhood sweetheart, Lucy Hardinge, loves another man, Miles decides to remain a bachelor, makes a compact with a cousin to will their property to one another, and with his friends Marble and Neb, a black, sets sail in his ship, the Dawn, to Hamburg. Anxious to reach Hamburg to pay off a mortgage on his estate, he is harried when his ship is seized first by the British for carrying French goods, then by the French, and, after a second escape, is wrecked. Taken aboard a British warship, Miles is imprisoned and his friends pressed into service. Escaping to New York, Miles finds his cousin is dead and his estate seized by a distant relative, Daggett, who has Miles jailed for debt. Lucy, though plagued by the problem of her spendthrift brother Rupert, provides bail for Miles. Once freed, Miles dispossesses Daggett and weds Lucy.