Throughout the book the full description of the Honorable (sic) East India Company has been abbreviated to ‘the Company’ as there was only one such important and powerful organisation. In the literature, Richard Wellesley, the Governor General, is occasionally named using his noble title, Lord Mornington. This book uses his family name throughout. The spelling of geographic names on the station proved to be a more difficult challenge as their phonetic translation into English tended to depend on the individual writing the letter. The most common spelling filtered from reading the many documents of the period has been used, as no single example can be deemed the correct one. Many of the place names have changed since the late twentieth century. For example, Bombay is now Mumbai and Canton is now Guangdong. As the book covers a period two hundred years ago, the names common in European parlance at the time have been retained. As Rainier's period of command runs from the French Revolutionary War into the Napoleonic War, in the interests of brevity the phrase ‘French Wars’ has been used.

In the Middle East, modern Bushehr on the coast of Iran is called Bushire. The main entry port at the north end of the Persian Gulf, in what is now Iraq, had two names at the time, Basra and Bussora. The former name has been used, unless in a quotation. Kosire is today known as El-Quseir.