James Fenimore Cooper

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Miles Wallingford returns to Clawbonny to find family talk of marriage, social distinctions and his unconfessed love for Lucy Hardinge amid the Mertons’ and Hardinge household’s intrigues.
Grace, crushed by Rupert’s fickleness and slipping into religious melancholy and frailty, prompts Miles to summon physicians and embark the household on a restorative sloop excursion.
At sea the Dawn endures a violent gale and Moses Marble reappears; later, on the river, Miles’s crew rescues the drowning Andrew Drewett after a perilous boom-incident, while gossip and questions of inheritance complicate loyalties.

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John Effingham admits that Paul (formerly Powis/Blunt/Assheton) is his son, explains his earlier marriage under an assumed name to Mildred Warrender and the consequent concealments, and formalizes Paul’s inheritance. Eve and Paul are married in a double ceremony (Grace to Sir George Templemore), local gossip and comic personages murmur but the family settles affairs and prepares for travel; minor plots (Annette’s engagement to Aristabulus Bragg, household arrangements) are quietly resolved.

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While navigating a narrow inlet the packet Montauk repelled Arab attacks, suffered casualties, effected sail-and-rigging repairs, and buried the dead before clearing the coast. Off New York the British corvette Foam boarded her, identified the fugitive Henry Sandon (a large defaulter) and detained Paul Powis; Sandon was handed to British custody and later committed suicide. The passage closes with the ship entering New York amid passenger debates on national character, law, and personal relations.

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Mulford is rescued from a desert rock by Rose (with Jack Tier's help), he and Rose are married at the Dry Tortugas, and the U.S. sloop Poughkeepsie under Captain Mull moves to intercept the smuggler brig Swash.
Spike’s salvage of a wreck to recover doubloons devolves into wreckage, superstition, mutiny and atrocity—he causes and commits deadly betrayals in the yawl, is wounded and captured by Poughkeepsie’s men, and dies remorseful in the Key West hospital.
Afterward Mulford gains the navy’s confidence, the recovered doubloons are awarded to Jack (revealed as Spike’s abandoned wife, Mary Swash), and Rose and Harry depart to Charleston to begin their married life.

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Captain Miles Wallingford is arrested over a mortgage debt after losing his ship and the forced sale of Clawbonny; he resists a coercive compromise while Lucy Hardinge, her father and acquaintances obtain bail and offer funds or surety.
Their lawyer, Richard Harrison, produces John Wallingford’s will forgiving the debt and naming Miles residuary heir, leading to annulment of the sale, restitution of Clawbonny and settlement with Daggett.
Miles marries Lucy, they restore and manage Clawbonny, retain loyal servants (Neb, Chloe), Moses Marble dies at sea, and the narrator reflects on sustained domestic happiness amid social change and gradual manumission.

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At the pass of St. Bernard travellers are interrogated over Jacques Colis's murder; a cache of jewels hidden on Maso's dog seems to incriminate him. A furious identity dispute follows as Maso first claims to be the Doge's lost son while Balthazar's account and the child's talisman and effects ultimately identify Sigismund as the Doge's heir; Maso then admits another parentage and vanishes over the precipice. The case closes with Sigismund legally acknowledged and married, Balthazar exonerated, and Pippo (and Conrad) later confessing to Colis's death.

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The cutter and frigate re-embark and, after a hard engagement with a superior British force, escape through shoals — Captain Munson, the master Boltrope, and Colonel Howard die, while Griffith and Barnstable repel the enemy and marry Cecilia and Katherine at the colonel’s dying behest. Afterwards Barnstable rises in naval fame, Manual returns to the army and later dies, Borroughcliffe also perishes, the chaplain reforms, and the mysterious Pilot (Gray) slips away—his exact rank and motives never fully revealed though crucial to their deliverance.

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The Red Rover, a suave and dangerous freebooter in disguise, courts and deceives naval officers, shelters Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude, and provokes a deadly clash with the King's cruiser, in which Wilder (Henry Ark) is accused of treachery and nearly executed.
After a fierce boarding and a lightning squall the Rover solemnly spares some captives, frees most of his crew with a hoard of gold, and ultimately scuttles the Dolphin.
Years later the repentant Rover returns dying, reveals family ties to the de Laceys, seeks forgiveness, and dies reconciled.

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Roswell Gardiner leads a small party in an extreme polar night to rescue the survivors of a wreck, revives some by fire and stimulants, salvages materials, rebuilds the Sea Lion and at last forces her through the melting ice to open water.
On returning, the miserly Deacon Pratt dies clutching the recovered pirate hoard; Roswell marries Mary, distributes the doubloons to the bereaved, refits the schooner to recover remaining cargo, and settles into a prosperous, devout life as a miller.

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Harvey Birch, posing as a loyalist peddler, conducts clandestine work—guiding fugitives, evading patrols, and witnessing partisan brutality—while secretly serving the American cause. He refuses monetary reward, accepts a private certificate from his commanding officer, and is posthumously identified as Washington’s "Spy of the Neutral Ground" when that paper is found on his body at Niagara.

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Captain Ludlow’s cruiser Coquette, though aided by the smuggler called the “Skimmer of the Seas,” suffers heavy loss in repelling a French boarding; a grenade sets the ship afire, the master Trysail dies, and survivors are forced onto a raft assembled from floating spars.
Eudora’s true parentage is disclosed, the Skimmer rescues the fugitives and absconds with Eudora aboard his brigantine Water‑Witch, while Ludlow marries Alida and the Skimmer thereafter disappears.

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Raoul Yvard, a dashing French privateer, is ardently loved by Ghita but rejected because her devout faith forbids marriage to an unbeliever. Commanding the lugger Le Feu-Follet, Raoul is wrecked on the Sirens' islets, fiercely repels English boats but is mortally wounded in the assault while Ghita tends him; he dies and receives a Christian burial. In the aftermath the victors reap promotion and prizes (notably Clinch and others), Ithuel returns later to America prospering, and Ghita retires to a convent to pray for Raoul's soul.