As a boy of 13 in Boston in 1775 and the brother of an imprisoned Continental soldier, Jeremy Harkins, Nat's existence is made precarious by Tories and the terrorist Liberty Boys. Unable to live an open life Nat leaves his Aunt Abigail and goes off with a friend, Israel Boone, who had sailed with his father, to join in the, off coast privateering. Growing in battle experience and sea wisdom, Nat finds himself within a few months on John Paul Jones' Bonhomme Richard. He goes with Jones to England for the famous battle with the Serapis and to recover Jeremy from a prison hole in France and when they return to Boston the boys have the realization of Jones and the colonies that they have only just begun to fight, Elementary.