This dramatic romance consists of two acts, with an interval of five years between them. The time and action of the first part, the scene of which is placed in the south of Ireland, are comprised in something less than three days; that of the second, the scenes of which are laid in New York Bay and on its adjacent shores, embraces a somewhat longer space of time, the two comprising the most prominent crises of the hero's life – one giving the coloring to the whole of his subsequent career, which in the other is brought to its close.

Joseph Holt Ingraham (1809-1860) was an American author. Ingraham was born in Portland, Maine. He spent several years at sea, then worked as a teacher of languages in Mississippi. Under the pen-name F. Clinton Barrington he wrote stories for popular publications like Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion. Ingraham wrote a series of three epistolary novels on biblical themes: The Pillar of Fire, The Throne of David and The Prince of the House of David. The first of these was supposed to illustrate the beginning of Hebraic power, the second its culmination and the last its decadence.