The California Gold Rush left increasing numbers of merchant sailing ships short of crew in San Francisco harbor. Desperate captains resorted to kidnapping drunken men from saloons, gambling emporiums, brothels, even opium dens and forcing them into service on their ships. Many of these ships traversed trade routes across the vast Pacific Ocean; along the western coast of North America to Russian Alaska, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), remote South Pacific archipelagos, and notorious Dutch East Indies and Southeast Asian ports, until eventually arriving in Shanghai, China, thus the kidnapped men were said to be “shanghaied.” One of them, Joshua Cabot, a young man educated in the sciences at Harvard traveled from Boston to San Francisco to open an assay office and mint for a prominent gold company. He was enticed by the promise that upon his eventual return he would have the fortune needed to establish his own scientific laboratory, his all-consuming passion. A year later he experienced a shocking, personal tragedy. He turned to alcohol to help ease the pain and one fateful night found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. He would be pushed to the limits of his endurance and experience adventures few have ever known. It would be his knowledge of science and unexpected friendships that would help him survive. This is the beginning of Joshua Cabot’s epic adventure story.