'In The Emigrant Ship Mr. Russell has taken a hint from the history of Pitcairn Island. He has introduced us to a vessel filled with women voyaging to Australia, some for the purpose of finding situations and others in the hope of securing husbands. This vessel, through a strange fatality, is left without a navigator. In the meantime, the crew of twelve men, having chosen twelve of the women as partners, decide to settle on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific and start a colony. The hero of the story, Charles Morgan, has already gone through several adventures when the vessel of which he is second mate falls in with the emigrant ship. The sailors of the latter, by a clever ruse, make a prisoner of him. Then they force him to navigate their ship to the South Sea Island which they have chosen. The hero decides that it is his duty to carry the ship and her cargo of emigrants to their destination, which is Sydney....The hero of Mr. Russell's novel, having to take a ship full of women over some thousands of miles of ocean, after leaving the settlers on their island, decides that it would be unwise to ship a crew of South Sea islanders. He therefore sets to work long before reaching the island to train thirty of the brightest and strongest of the women to pull and haul, lay aloft, reef topsails, and steer. The result is that the ship is carried safely into Sydney Harbor by this remarkable crew. The hero becomes captain, and marries the best girl of the lot.' 'Recent Fiction', New York Times (31 December 1893): 19.
