[Jump Ship to Freedom is] told by young Dan Arabus, whose father had fought in the patriots' army and had become a free man, while Dan and his mother still belonged to Captain Ivers. In an adventurous tale of danger and pursuit, Dan runs away after a frightening sea voyage and is taken under the wing of an elderly Quaker who is en route to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia…. The notes that follow the story draw a careful distinction between fact and fiction, and explain the authors' decision to shape the dialogue and terminology to preserve accuracy and convey a period flavor. The dramatic story is solidly constructed, well-paced save for a rather lengthy description of a storm at sea, and sensitive to the changes in Dan as he begins to understand that a man can be proud, intelligent, and compassionate whether he is rich or poor, black or white; it is, however, inconsistent in the use of plural and singular in "plain talk," the Quaker speech patterns.