Of Captain Mission and His Crew | Page 3

a disillusioned "lewd" priest was in harmony
with the traditional English belief in the dangers of Italy.[5] That
Carracioli should combine the rebellion against organized religion with
the revolt against monarchy is indicative of Defoe's keen apprehension
of the future course of history.
Considered as a short novel, the history "Of Captain Misson and his
Crew" reveals many of the same techniques which Defoe used in his
longer works. To gain a sense of verisimilitude the narrator pretends to
be working from a manuscript, a device which Defoe also employed in
his Memoirs of a Cavalier. As in Colonel Jack real historical figures
and events from the War of the Spanish Succession are woven into the
adventures of the Victoire. Captain Misson and his crew sink the
Winchelsea, an English ship lost in the West Indies at the end of
August, 1707, and they barely escape from Admiral Wager's fleet
which fought a famous battle there in 1708. Even the name of Misson's
ship, the _Victoire_; was undoubtedly familiar to Defoe as the vessel
commanded by the famous French corsair, Cornil Saus.[6] So
convincing is Defoe that although his hero is shown meeting a real
freebooter, Captain Tew, ten years after Tew's death, Misson is still
included in the histories of piracy.[7]
Also typical of Defoe's fiction is the relationship between Captain
Misson, the leader, and his intellectual mentor, Carracioli. Colonel Jack
and his tutor, Moll Flanders and her Governess and particularly,
Captain Singleton and William Walters form similar groups. Just as
William Walters, a Quaker, reminds Captain Singleton and the crew
that their business is not fighting but making money, so Carracioli
addresses lengthy speeches to the crew, converting everyone on the
Victoire to democracy and deism. Misson's Libertalia takes root in
Madagascar, where Singleton wanted to establish a colony, while both
Carracioli and Walters adapt the secular aspects of their religion to
piracy. But whereas Walters eventually converts Singleton into an
honest Christian, Carracioli leads Misson into piracy.
In the history "Of Captain Misson and his Crew," Defoe decided to

pursue the same method of third person narrative as in his brief
biographies of real pirates. The result is that he merely provides a
sketch of political theories rather than a study of human beings. Of
course there are good reasons for this. Defoe was more interested in
dramatizing proletarian utopian ideals than in developing the inner
workings of Misson's mind. The novelette is unified by its epic theme,
not by its study of character or its episodic plot.
Although Defoe toyed with radical notions throughout The History of
the Pyrates, he had little faith in their practicality. Libertalia must be
understood as Defoe's best expression of political and social ideals
which he admired but considered unworkable. The continuation of
Misson's career in the section "Of Captain Tew" depicts the decline and
fall of the utopia and the hero's tragic death as a disillusioned idealist.
This, however, is another story, a story which suggested that private
property was necessary, equality impossible and slavery a useful
expedient for colonization. It was a far more comforting message for
the Augustan Age, but it could not silence the tocsins of the French
Revolution which sound throughout the speeches of Misson and
Carracioli.
Maximillian E. Novak University of Michigan

Bibliographical Note
The text of "Of Captain Misson and His Crew" has been reproduced
from the Henry E. Huntington Library's first edition copy of the second
volume of A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most
Notorious Pyrates which appeared under the title The History of the
Pyrates.
Notes to the Introduction
[Footnote 1: Daniel Defoe, A Review of the Affairs of France, ed. A. W.
Secord (New York, 1938), IV, 424a.]
[Footnote 2: _The Anatomy of Exchange--Alley_ (London, 1719), p.
8.]
[Footnote 3: A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the
Most Notorious Pyrates (London, 1728), II, 220.]
[Footnote 4: See Cesare Beccaria, An Essay on Crimes and
Punishments (Stanford, 1953), pp. 97-99.]
[Footnote 5: In the previous year Defoe had written that "it was the

most dangerous thing in the World for a young Gentleman, sober and
virtuous, to venture into Italy, till he was thoroughly grounded in
Principle, ... for that nothing was more ordinary, than for such either to
be seduc'd, by the Subtlety of the Clergy, to embrace a false Religion,
or by the Artifice of a worse Enemy, to give up all Religion, and sink
into Scepticism and Deism, or, perhaps, Atheism." A New Family
Instructor (London, 1727), p. 17.]
[Footnote 6: See Ruth Bourne, _Queen Anne's Navy in the West
Indies_ (New Haven, 1939), pp. 63, 169-172; and Manuscripts of the
House of Lords, New Series (London, 1921), VII, 117-119.]
[Footnote 7: See Philip Gosse, The History of Piracy (New York, 1934),