The biography of Captain Rupert Black and his incredible iron ship 'The Destroyer', driven by steam, and built in 1798 in Sunderland. Although he was not a qualified engineer, he had the ability to combine the ideas and inventions of others into a whole new concept, and to devise ways of building his ship with the primitive tools and materials of the time. He was an ardent and active Slave Trade Abolitionist and used his ship to capture slave ships and free the slaves, in order to hasten the demise of the Atlantic slave trade. This is a first hand account as recorded by the First Officer, Commander James White as told to my grandfather.