We can be somewhat particular in the
Life of this Gentleman, because, by very
great Accident, we have got into our
Hands a French
Manuscript, in which he himself gives a
Detail of his Actions. (Defoe, 383)
Thus begins chapter one in the second volume
of Captain Charles Johnson’s The History of the
Pyrates, which was published in 1728, four
years after the release of his bestselling A General History of
the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates.
Misson, whose first name is never revealed, “was born in Provence, of an
ancient Family.” (Defoe, 383) For obvious reasons, the
Frenchman never divulges his surname. After all, he is a
pirate, which might reflect poorly on his wealthy family.
Having too many siblings to ever hope for a large
inheritance, he decides to make his own fortune with the
use of his sword.
Provence, France (left) and Musketeers in 1663
(right)
[Source: Wikipedia -- superbenjamin & artist
unknown]
Unlike many pirates, Misson was an educated man. “After he
passed his Humanity and Logick, and was a tolerable
Mathematician, at the Age of Fifteen he was sent” to Anjou
to study at the university.1 (Ibid.) He only spent a
year at his studies before returning home. He might have
become a Musketeer of the Guard, but wanted
to see the world; the best way to do that was to choose
“the Sea as a Life which abounds with more Variety, and
would afford him an Opportunity to gratify his Curiosity,
by the Change of Countries.” (Ibid.) At Marseilles he
boarded a ship bound for the Mediterranean – a journey
that “gave him great Insight into the practical Part of Navigation.” (Ibid.) He enjoyed the
voyage so much he decided to learn all he could about
ships and sailing.
[He was] always one
of the first on a Yard Arm, either to Hand or Reef,
and very inquisitive in the different Methods of
working a Ship: His Discourse was turn’d on no other
Subject, and he would often get the Boatswain and
Carpenter to teach him in their Cabins the constituent
Parts of a Ship’s Hull, and how to rig her, which he
generously paid ’em for . . . . (Defoe, 384)
Furling sails, working ropes, and
swabbing deck
(Source: Dover, Nautical Illustrations)
After arriving in Naples, Italy, he secured permission to
tour Rome and the Vatican, where he met Seignior
Caraccioli, a Dominican priest disenchanted with
the immorality of the Catholic Church and the people.
For my Part, I am
quite tir’d of the Farce, and will lay hold on the
first Opportunity to throw off this masquerading
Habit; . . . as I am an Enemy to Restraint, I am
apprehensive I shall never act up to my Character, and
carry thro’ the Hypocrite with Art enough to rise to
any considerable Post in the Church. My Parents did
not consult my Genius, or they would have given me a
Sword instead of a Pair of Beads. (Defoe, 385)
On hearing this, Misson suggested he go to
sea too. Caraccioli accepted, and Misson provided him with
new clothes befitting a lay person. Once they reached
Leghorn, where Misson’s ship was now berthed, he convinced
Captain Fourbin to take on Caraccioli.2 A week after the Victoire resumed
her journey, they encountered Barbary pirates.
[They] fell in with two Sally
Men, the one of
twenty, the other of twenty four Guns; the Victoire had but thirty
mounted, tho’ she had Ports for forty. The Engagement
was long and bloody, for the Sally Men hop’d to carry
the Victoire;
and, on the contrary, Captain Fourbin, so far from
having any Thoughts of being taken, he was resolutely
bent to make Prize of his Enemies, or sink his Ship.
(Ibid.)
A young and inexperienced Spanish renegado captain
attempted to sail close enough to board Victoire, but his
pirate ship was hit “by a Shot betwixt Wind and Water.”
(Ibid.) To keep from sinking, he veered off to repair the
damage. The ship heeled over too far and sank. No one
survived.
Now facing only one enemy, a resolute Captain Fourbin
ordered his men to board the remaining ship, and Misson
and Caraccioli led them. The defrocked priest received a
thigh wound and was taken to the surgeon. Glimpsing one Barbary pirate with a lighted match
go below deck, Misson pursued and slew him just before he
ignited the powder to blow up the ship. Thereafter the
French won the battle, and the few remaining pirates were
sold at auction, as was their ship.
Caraccioli and Misson often discussed religion. Caraccioli
believed in “the Divine Being,” but saw religion as “no
other than human Policy.” (Defoe, 388-389) He also
believed each person “was born free, and had as much Right
to what would support him, as to the Air he respired.”
(Defoe, 389) Rather than a person being born poor, he
argued that the avarice of some people made those who were
weak poor. He believed people should take control of their
own lives and make their own fortunes, rather than letting
fate and others control what happened to them; many aboard
Victoire
supported him in this belief. When an opportunity
presented itself to seize their own destinies, Caraccioli
took advantage of it.
Sailing the Caribbean Sea near Martinique, the Victoire happened
upon an English ship armed with forty guns. In the ensuing
struggle, “the first Broadside killed the Captain, second
Captain, and the three Lieutenants, on board the” the
French ship. (Defoe, 390) The ship’s master wished to
surrender, but Misson assumed command, named Caracccioli
as his second, and fought for “six Glasses, when by some
Accident the” enemy ship exploded. (Ibid.) One English
officer was the lone survivor, but “he died in two days.”
(Ibid.)
With the battle won and Captain Fourbin dead, Caraccioli
proposed two alternatives as to what to do next. His
friend could continue to command Victoire, or they
could return to Martinique and hand over the ship to the
proper authority.
[W]ith the Ship he
had under Foot, and the brave Fellows under Command,
[Misson could] bid Defiance to the Power of Europe . . . and lawfully
make War on all the World, since it wou’d deprive him
of that Liberty to which he had a Right by the Laws of
Nature: That he might in Time, become as great as Alexander was to the Persians; and by
increasing his Forces by his Captures, he would every
Day strengthen the Justice of his Cause, for who has
Power is always in the Right. (Defoe, 391)
The discourse did the trick, and Misson
seized his future. He was elected captain, Caraccioli
became his lieutenant, and the crew chose other officers
to represent them on the council. The next order of
business was to decide where to cruise.
The Captain
proposed the Spanish Coast as the most
probable [course] to afford them rich Prizes . . . .
The Boatswain asked what Colours they should fight
under, and advised Black as most terrifying; but Caraccioli objected, that
they were no Pyrates, but Men who were resolved to
assert that Liberty which God and Nature gave them . .
. . (Defoe, 392)
They knew the rest of the world would
disagree and “brand this generous Crew with the invidious
Name of Pyrates, and think it meritorious, to be
instrumental in their Destruction.” (Defoe, 394)
Self-preservation, rather than “a cruel Disposition”
forced them to declare war on “all European Ships
and Vessels.” (Defoe, 395)
Thereafter,
they evenly divvied up all property and cargo amongst
them. Misson proposed stipulations as to how they would
conduct this war: they needed to live in harmony and they
must treat any captives with compassion. Two hundred able
seamen and thirty-five who were wounded or sick agreed
unanimously. While prowling the Caribbean, they captured
several prey. From an English sloop they took “a couple of
Puncheons of Rum, and a half dozen Hogsheads of Sugar,”
but didn’t harm the crew or steal their belongings.
(Defoe, 396) When the crew of another vessel had the
audacity to board Misson’s ship late at night, his men
quietly captured each boarder, “tumbled [him] down the
Fore-Hatch, where they were received by others, and bound
without Noise, not one of the Privateers killed, few hurt,
and only one Frenchman wounded.” (Ibid.) Misson offered to
return the men to their ship on two conditions. First,
they needed to hand over all the ammunition and small arms
on their vessel. Second, they had to swear not to go
privateering again for six months. The prisoners agreed
and were freed.
After a time, they sought richer hunting grounds and
sailed to Africa where they engaged in a running battle
with a Dutch ship off the Gold Coast. “The Nieuwstadt had
some Gold-Dust on board, to the Value of about 2000 l. Sterling, and
a few Slaves to the Number of seventeen . . . .” (Defoe,
403) Misson gave these slaves clothing from the Dutch
crew’s sea chests and then allowed them to join his crew.
He also permitted others to join him, but never forced
anyone. After capturing a second Dutch ship, Misson now
had ninety captives, so he put them aboard the prize and
allowed them to sail away.
Eventually the company numbered too many for one ship to
hold. Misson acquired a second ship, divided the crew
between the two vessels, and proposed Caraccioli to
captain the consort. Together they sailed round the Cape
of Good Hope. They anchored off Johanna Island and, during
their stay, became involved in a war between two tribes.3 Darts and arrows were no
match against Misson’s guns, and a slaughter ensued.
Allied with Johanna’s queen, Mission and Caraccioli
participated in peace negotiations with the defeated king
of Mwali, a neighboring island. Misson, Caraccioli, and
some of their men dined with this man, but on the way back
to their ship, “they were enclosed by, at least, 100 of
the Mohillians,
who set upon them with the utmost Fury, and, in the first
Flight of Arrows, wounded both the Captains, and killed
four of their Boat’s Crew of eight . . . they, in return,
discharged their Pistols . . . and fell in with their
Cutlasses . . . .” (Defoe, 411) Caraccioli sustained a
severe stab wound to his side, but his attacker “paid for
the Rashness of the Attempt on his Life, one of the Crew
cleaving in his Skull.” (Ibid.) Outnumbered, Misson and
his comrades faced certain death until the discharge of
their weapons alerted the men still on the ships, who
drove off the attackers. Seven of Misson’s men were dead;
two more died from their wounds. Six others were wounded,
including Misson and Caraccioli.
Cape of Good Hope (left) and Cape Point (right)
[Sources: Wikipedia, Zaian & Thomas
Bjorkan]
After six weeks of healing, the pirates returned to the
Indian Ocean to hunt for more prey. They successfully
tangled with a sixty-gun Portuguese ship carrying gold
dust valued at £250,000. Thirty men, two-thirds of them
English, died in the battle and, wounded again, Caraccioli
lost a leg. While he regained his health, Misson added ten
of the Portuguese’s guns to the thirty already mounted on
Victoire. Then
he sailed to Madagascar.
He . . . coasted
along this Island . . . as far as the most northerly
Point, when turning back, he enter’d a Bay to the
Northward of Diego Suares. He run ten
Leagues up this Bay, and on the Larboard-Side found it
afforded a large, and safe, Harbour, with plenty of
fresh Water. He came here to an Anchor, went ashore
and examined into the Nature of the Soil, which he
found rich, the Air wholesome, and the Country level.
. . . this was an excellent Place for an Asylum
[haven] and . . . he determined here to fortify and
raise a small Town, and make Docks for Shipping, that
they might have some Place to call their own; and a
Receptacle, when Age or Wounds had render’d them
incapable of Hardship, where they might enjoy the
Fruits of their Labour, and go to their Graves in
Peace. (Defoe, 415)
The company agreed. “Misson designed his
settlement, which he called Libertalia, and
gave the Name of Liberi
to his People, desiring in that might be drown’d the
distinguished Names of French, English,
Dutch, Africans, &c. (Defoe, 417) The pirates
built two forts on either side of the harbor and mounted
forty guns in them. They also constructed a battery of ten
guns, as well as houses and magazines. Peaceful relations
with a nearby tribe were also forged.
With the founding of Libertalia, Captain Johnson ends his
chapter on Misson, but not his story. This he continues in
the next chapter, which concerns the Rhode Island pirate Thomas Tew, rather than make the
reader read the same information twice. Johnson begins
with an account of how these two pirates met. Returning
from another successful venture, Misson and his men
spotted a sloop.
[W]hen in Gun-Shot,
[the sloop] threw out black Colours, and fired a Gun
to Windward; Misson brought to, fired
another to Leeward, and hoisted out his Boat, which
the Sloop perceiving, lay by for. Misson’s Lieutenant went on
board, and was received very civilly by Captain Tew, who was the
Commander, to whom the Lieutenant gave a short Account
of their Adventures and new Settlement, inviting him
very kindly on board Captain Misson. Tew told him, he could
not consent to go with him till he had the Opinion of
his Men; in the mean while Misson, coming along
Side, hal’d the Sloop, and invited the Captain on
board, desiring his Lieutenant would stay as an
Hostage, if they were in the least jealous of him . .
. . (Defoe, 421)
After this initial meeting, Tew went ashore
where he “was received by Caraccioli and
the rest, with great Civility and Respect, who did not a
little admire his Courage, both in attacking the Prize he
made, and afterwards in giving Chase to Misson.” (Defoe,
424)
At a council meeting on what to do with recently captured
men, Misson favored releasing them. Tew and Caraccioli
feared the released prisoners would divulge what they knew
to authorities and European governments would attack
Libertalia. In answer, Misson successfully swayed the
council to his side by saying, “it was better [to] die
once, than live in continual Apprehensions of Death.”
(Defoe, 425) The prisoners were summoned, and
he told them . . .
that he knew the Consequence of giving them Liberty;
that he expected to be attacked as soon as the Place
of his Retreat was known, and had it in his Hands, by
putting them to Death to avoid the doubtful Fate of
War; but his Humanity would not suffer him to
entertain a Thought so cruel . . . but he required an
Oath of every one, that he should not serve against
him: He then enquired into the Circumstances of every
particular Man, and what they had lost, all which he
return’d [from his own share of the plunder] . . . .
The Prisoners were charm’d with this Mark of
Generosity and Humanity, and wished he might never
meet a Treatment unworthy of that he gave them.
(Defoe, 425)
In the ensuing months, Misson also freed
more slaves, welcomed new prisoners into his community of
pirates, and went cruising. After a bloody battle with
another Portuguese ship, he discovered two men who “had
sworn never to serve against [the pirates].” (Defoe, 430)
They were “clapp’d in Irons, and publickly try’d for their
Perjury . . . and they were condemned to be hanged at the
Point of each Fort; which Execution was performed the next
Morning . . . .” (Defoe, 430-431) A quarrel ensued between
Tew’s men and Misson’s over this punishment – an event
which led Misson to conclude that Libertalia needed laws
and a government so they might live “in Unity among
themselves, who had the whole World for Enemies . . . .”
(Defoe, 432)
[T]hey look’d upon
a Democratical Form, where the People were themselves
the Makers and Judges of their own Laws . . . they
would divide themselves into Companies of ten Men, and
every such Company choose one to assist in the
settling a Form of Government and in making wholesome
Laws for the Good of the whole: That the Treasure and
Cattle they were Masters of should be equally divided,
and such Lands as any particular Man would enclose,
should, for the future, be deem’d his Property, which
no other should lay any Claim to, if not alienated by
a Sale. (Defoe, 433)
Caraccioli suggested they needed one person
to lead them. This leader “should have that of rewarding
brave and virtuous Actions, and of punishing the vicious,
according to the Laws which the State should make . . . .”
(Defoe, 433) He also suggested this Lord Conservator could
do so for only three years, after which either the pirates
must reconfirm him as leader or select someone new. In
this way, the office could never become a hereditary one
like those of the European monarchies. Needless to say,
Captain Misson became the first Lord Conservator, Captain
Tew became Admiral, and Caraccioli was named Secretary of
State.
Other laws were also enacted, and
they decided a congregational meeting would meet once a
year, although the Lord Conservator and his council could
convene such assemblies more often. The council was
composed of the best men, regardless of their nationality
or color. A new language, comprised of elements from all
the languages spoken in Libertalia, was also devised.
As admiral, Tew left on a cruise and, while
ashore visiting former comrades, a storm struck. The sea
was too rough for a boat to pick him up, so he watched
helplessly as his ship was driven ashore and wrecked, with
all souls lost. With no way to return to Libertalia, he
and his friends lit huge fires in hopes of attracting a
passing ship’s attention.
One night, two sloops finally anchored and a boat came
ashore. Among the seven on board was Captain Misson, and
he brought sad news with him.
All their propos’d
Happiness was vanished; for without the least
Provocation given, in the Dead of the Night, the
Natives came down upon them in two great Bodies, and
made a great Slaughter, without Distinction of Age or
Sex, before they could put themselves in a Posture of
Defence; that Caraccioli (who died in the
Action) and he got what Men together they could, to
make a Stand; but finding all Resistance vain against
such Numbers, he made a Shift to secure a considerable
Quantity of rough Diamonds and Bar Gold, and to get on
board the two Sloops with 45 Men. (Defoe, 437)
Tew suggested they sail to America. Misson
thought about going home to France “and privately visiting
his family, if any were alive, and then to retire from the
World.” (Defoe, 438) He no longer wished to found any more
settlements, and what treasure he had saved from the
attack on Libertalia was divided among Tew and the
survivors. Those who wished to go to America left aboard
Tew’s new sloop, while Misson and the few who remained
loyal to him sailed aboard another sloop.
Off Cape Infantes, they were
over-taken with a Storm, in which the unhappy Misson’s Sloop went down,
within a Musquet Shot of Captain Tew, who could give
him no Assistance. (Defoe, 438)
Tew returned to Rhode Island to retire, but was
later enticed to go out on one last voyage. His vessel
“attack’d a Ship belonging to the Great Mogul; in
the Engagement, a Shot carry’d away the Rim of Tew’s Belly, who
held his Bowels with his Hands some small Space; when he
dropp’d, it struck such a Terror in his Men, that they
suffered themselves to be taken, without making
Resistance.” (Defoe, 439)
Thus endeth the intriguing tale of Captain Misson. There’s
just one problem – it’s fiction. Our only source of
information on this pirate and his utopia is Captain Johnson’s A History of the
Pyrates. No historical document or other
evidence exists to prove this man ever lived or that
Libertalia ever existed outside the pages of this book.
With the exception of Misson, every other pirate
highlighted in the two volumes lived and breathed – a fact
that can be proven through other contemporary
documentation.
This doesn’t mean threads of truth aren’t woven into the
story. Captain Johnson “knew what his readers wanted, and
he gave it to them . . . [he] knew that facts in the right
places make a story more believable.” (Little, Golden, 218-219) Which
elements are provable facts? Thomas Tew was a real person.
According to John Dann’s 1696 deposition, Tew commanded
the Amity, a
sloop armed with six guns, and, for a time, he sailed in
consort with Henry Every.4 Adam Baldridge, who once
operated a trading post for pirates on Île Sainte Marie, later testified
that on 11 December 1695, “Amity, having no
Captain, her former Captain Thomas Tew being killed by a
great Shott from a Moors ship” arrived and stayed for
eight days. (Privateering,
180)
Even though Tew existed, he never could have met up with
Misson or visited Liberatalia. The time period in which
the pirate haven might have existed and the point in time
when Tew actually visited Madagascar are separated in time
by a decade. According to one historian of Madagascar,
another reason Tew couldn’t have visited the utopia was
because “no pirate community ever settled in the Bay of
Diego Suarez – the site of Misson’s Libertalia – because,
despite the excellent harbor, the hinterland was too
mountainous and too uninhabited to ensure a steady supply
of provisions for a colony.” (Alam, 274)
Bay of Diego Suarez from Montagne des Français &
physical map of Madagascar showing location of bay
(Sources: Masindrano & Urutseg at Wikipedia)
Although the French manuscript mentioned in the
quotation at the opening of this article never existed,
some pirates did pen firsthand accounts of their
buccaneering days. Most notable among these were Alexandre
Exquemelin’s The
Buccaneers of America and William Dampier’s A
New Voyage around the World.
Pirates did frequent Madagascar; some even settled there,
and traces of their existence remain on the island today.
Its proximity to prime hunting grounds and the lack of a
Western governing presence provided the pirates with the
perfect place to rest and repair their ships when they
weren’t out marauding. Aside from Baldridge’s outpost on
Île Sainte Marie, pirates established other havens such as
James Plantain’s Ranter Bay and Abraham Samuel’s Port Golfphin.5 Among the
pirates who spent time on Madagascar were William Kidd, Henry Every, and Christopher Condent.
Madagascar may have been a pirate haven, but it was never
the utopia that Misson imagined “where they might enjoy
the Fruits of their Labour, and go to their Graves in
Peace.” (Defoe, 415) Rather than dying peacefully and
wealthy, Edward England lived in penury until
he died at Saint Augustine’s Bay in 1720. A 1711 report on
Île Sainte Marie reported that many pirates were “very
poor and despicable, even to the natives.” (Konstam, 113)
Early pirate histories treated Captain Misson as if he
were as real as Stede Bonnet, Howell Davis, or Samuel Bellamy. Philip Gosse’s The
Pirates’ Who’s Who included a nine-page
account of him that ends with a quotation from Lord Byron:
He was the
mildest-manner’d man
That ever scuttled
ship or cut a throat. (218)
Gosse admitted in The
History of Piracy, “How much of the story is
true cannot be known. Every other account of a pirate’s
life written by Johnson is in the main true, but it must
be confessed that no evidence so far has been found to
corroborate his account of the amazing Misson.” (194)
Manuel Schonhorn, who prepared Dover Publication’s edition
of A General
History of the Pyrates in 1972, questions the
authenticity of Mission and Libertalia. He also believes
Captain Johnson was actually Daniel Defoe. Not all historians
believe this is Johnson’s true identity, and some
historians refuse to accept that the chapters on Misson
are pure fiction. Peter Lamborn Wilson disagrees with
Schonhorn’s dismissal of them simply because no
documentary evidence exists to prove their existence. He
suggests other possibilities for this lack of proof.
First, both Misson and the French manuscript “existed, but
contained misinformation about Capt. Tew (perhaps the name
Tew was used to mask someone else), which Defoe
uncritically accepted.” (Wilson, 197) A second alternative
may be that there was a manuscript and events in it were
real, “but Defoe himself invented the episodes concerning
Tew.” (Ibid.) Or perhaps the manuscript, the captain, and
his lieutenant are fictitious, but “some experiment like
Libertatia actually occurred in Madagascar.”6 (Ibid.) He
concludes,
None of these
hypotheses can be proven or disproven on the basis of
the Tew problem. Therefore the Revisionist Debunking
Hypothesis – complete fictionalization – must also remain
unproven. (Ibid.)
Assuming that Defoe was Captain Johnson,
the Misson chapters permitted him the opportunity to
expound on societal ills.
In this group’s
reassertion of that liberty which God and Nature gave
[the pirates of Libertalia], and in its withdrawal
from a corrupt world order to the relative safety of
unexplored Madagascar, Defoe presented his most
radical questioning of the traditional bases of
society. . . . Misson harshly criticizes the trading
in slaves, abhors swearing and drunkenness, and
supports his lieutenant’s condemnation of capital
punishment. (Defoe, xxxviii)
As Edward Fox explained in his doctoral
thesis, “Johnson imbued the pirates with enlightened
principles radically different from, and in stark contrast
to, the implied tyranny of the European ancient régime.”
(Fox, 19) Yet to speak openly against the norm could prove
disastrous for the author. Samuel Diener pointed out that
in a fiction about
people understood to be criminals, whose actions are
explicitly not endorsed, such imaginative play could
be carried out without fear of censorship in an era in
which open discussion of major social reorganization
and reform was fraught with legal danger. The General
History enabled
its author to engage, without fear of criminal
charges, in a kind of social speculation that imagined
a better social order. (Diener, 40-41)
Democracy may have been a key component of
this utopian tale, but Maximillian Novak proposed that
perhaps Defoe “thought that democracy was the ideal form
of government [but] may have regarded it as
impracticable.” (Novak, 347) He also believed Libertalia
was “Defoe’s best expression of political and social ideas
which he admired but considered unworkable.” (Turley, 107)
Once a “fire-breathing radical,” Defoe “had become a hack
by the 1720’s, and a supporter of bourgeois property
values.” (Wilson, 198) Historian Christopher Hill – whose
specialty is the English Revolution and who doesn’t agree
that Captain Misson is pure fiction – says,
This is what makes
the fairness of his description of Libertatia so
remarkable. This would be surprising if he had
invented the whole thing, less so if he had been
listening to old sailors and saw the possibility of
using Libertatia to criticize aspects of capitalist
society which offended him. (Ibid.)
In reading the Misson chapters, anyone
familiar with pirate history is struck by several
“anamolies” – elements that make Misson different from the
majority of pirates during this time period. A case in
point is his intolerance of slavery. While former slaves and blacks did become valuable members
of some pirate crews, slaves were also a commodity and
among the booty that was divvied up or sold.7 For
example, Exquemelin’s account included a list of
compensation maimed buccaneers received:
Right arm = 600 pieces of eight
or six slaves
Left arm = 500
pieces of eight or five slaves
Right leg = 500
pieces of eight or five slaves
Left leg = 400
pieces of eight or four slaves
Eye = 100 pieces
of eight or one slave
Finger = 100
pieces of eight or one slave
Severe internal
injury = 500 pieces of eight or five slaves (71)
When HMS Scarborough
cornered John Martel at St. Croix, the pirate
ordered his men to burn their galley. Forty slaves were on
board at the time. Twenty died, eight were recaptured by
British forces, and the remaining twelve escaped with the
pirates. Among the plunder pirates sold to Gambo’s English
governor were sixteen slaves. Henry Morgan owned 109 slaves when
he died.
Misson overheard his men swearing and drinking like the
Dutch prisoners at one point in the story. This angered
him and he “gave the Dutch Notice,
that the first whom he catch’d either with an Oath in his
Mouth or Liquor in his Head, should be . . . whipped and
pickled, for an Example.” (Defoe, 405) Swearing and
drinking were common practices among pirates. In The Sea Rover’s
Practice, Benerson Little recounted that “[o]ne
group of French filibusters was so drunk that it failed in
twenty attempts to board a Spanish vessel.” (202)
Exquemelin wrote that buccaneers frequently spent their
days in taverns drinking and wenching whenever they had
money to spend.
So where did Johnson get his ideas for Captain Misson and
Liberatalia? Benerson Little suggests several “sources”
for his two primary characters. William Masson led a
mutiny aboard William Kidd’s Blessed William
in 1690. Masson did attack ships in the Indian Ocean; he
also briefly put in at Madagascar. It’s possible he served
as the model for the fictional Misson. Caraccioli may have
been “pirated” from another book, Merry Tales,
written in the 1500s. As for the origins of Libertialia,
Marcus Rediker offers up “The Land of Cockaygne,” a peasant
utopia, and medieval maritime practices as possible
sources from which Johnson borrowed.
Notes:
1. The university was founded in 1246 and
was located in Angers, once the capital of Anjou. Law,
medicine, and theology were taught in this well-known
school that was abolished during the French Revolution.
2. The English commonly referred to
Livorno, Italy as Leghorn. The port is located on the
Ligurian Sea, and the region has been inhabited since the
Neolithic Era.
3. Johanna is known today as Anjouan or
Ndzuwani. It lies between Malawi and Madagascar in the
Mozambique Channel northwest of Madagascar.
4. Edward
Randolph, an agent of the king, wrote that Tew returned
to Rhode Island with £10,000 in gold and silver. For the
voyage, New York Governor Benjamin Fletcher issued Tew’s
privateering commission and described him as “a man of
courage and activity . . . of the greatest sense and
remembrance of what he had seen, of any seaman I had
mett. He was also what they call a very pleasant man.” (Privateering,
174)
5. Samuel
Perkins was visiting his uncle, the master of a ship,
when his uncle forced Samuel to serve as his cabin boy.
The pirates sailed to Madagascar. While many of the crew
returned to sea, Samuel and eleven other pirates
remained at Île Sainte Marie, which he described in his
25 August 1698 deposition: “The Island of St. Maries is
a pritty large Island, well inhabited by black people,
where one Captain Baldridge . . . had built a platforme
of a Fort with 22 Guns, which was destroyed, together
with Captain Glover and the rest of the 177 Pyrats there
. . . by Blacks, who also killed 7 English men and 4
French men . . . . (Privateering,
175) Only Perkins survived the slaughter and remained a
captive until his ransom was paid.
6. Libertatia is
another spelling for Libertalia.
7. Twenty-seven
blacks sailed with Samuel Bellamy, sixty with
Blackbeard, and thirty-two with Olivier Levasseur.
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Pirates and
Privateers
