In November 1863 at the battle of Rangiriri over 180 Maori defenders were taken prisoner, marched up the Great South Road to Otahuhu, from where they were transferred onto the Waitemata Harbour. There they were held captive on the prison ship Marion for nearly eight months, supervised by their bilingual Pakeha Superintendent Titus Angus White, who was also sent to retrieve them after their subsequent escape from Kawau Island. This book is the story of Titus Angus White and the men he ended up supervising as they were imprisoned only 600 metres off the Port of Auckland. It is also the wider story of the invasion of the Waikato and the circumstances that led to the establishment of New Zealand's largest ever floating prison.