On 11 August 1821, HMS Doris left Falmouth for Brazil. In command was Captain Thomas Graham, his mission to safeguard that exotic but unreliable coast. He was accompanied by his wife Maria. From the outset she kept a journal. Storms, earthquakes, intrepid horseback journeys, illness, revolution and death were to feature alongside her vivid and careful record of what was a highly critical period for Brazil and Chile as they reached the point of winning independence from the colonial rule of Portugal and Spain. She met the principals in this drama as well as patriotic Brazilian banditti, slatternly Portuguese gentlewomen and English expatriates. The Captain's Wife is a personal and historical record and a picturesque evocation of two uniquely beautiful countries of the New World ten years before Darwin's arrival on the Beagle.