In the year 1797, following the great mutinies in the British Navy during the first of the Napoleonic Wars,
the British Merchant ship Rights of Man is halted at sea . The Indomitable, in need of , Billy Budd, into the King's service. Although Billy is a young man without either family or education, Lieutenant Ratcliffe, the impressment officer from the Indomitable, instantly recognizes him as a superior man. And though Billy does not make the same excellent impression among the more experienced sailors of the Indomitable, he is, nevertheless, noticed as a capable sailor by the officers of that vessel