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The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton

Daniel Defoe

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Section 1 of 24
CAPTAIN SINGLETON

WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY EDWARD GARNETT




[Transcriber's Note: In the print copy, the following words and those of
the title page are written in intricate, illuminated calligraphy.]

A TALE WHICH HOLDETH CHILDREN FROM PLAY
AND OLD MEN FROM THE CHIMNEY CORNER

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY





THE LIFE ADVENTURES AND PIRACIES
OF THE FAMOUS CAPTAIN SINGLETON

BY DANIEL DEFOE




PREFACE

That all Defoe's novels, with the exception of "Robinson Crusoe," should
have been covered with the dust of neglect for many generations, is a plain
proof of how much fashions in taste affect the popularity of the British
classics. It is true that three generations or so ago, Defoe's works were
edited by both Sir Walter Scott and Hazlitt, and that this masterly piece
of realism, "Captain Singleton," was reprinted a few years back in "The
Camelot Classics," but it is safe to say that out of every thousand readers
of "Robinson Crusoe" only one or two will have even heard of the "Memoirs
of a Cavalier," "Colonel Jack," "Moll Flanders," or "Captain Singleton." It
is indeed distressing to think that while many scores of thousands of
copies of Lord Lytton's flashy romance, "Paul Clifford," have been devoured
by the public, "Captain Singleton" has remained unread and almost
forgotten. But the explanation is simple. Defoe's plain and homely realism
soon grew to be thought vulgar by people who themselves aspired to be
refined and genteel. The rapid spread of popular education, in the middle
of last century, was responsible for a great many aberrations of taste, and
the works of the two most English of Englishmen, Defoe and Hogarth, were
judged to be hardly fitting for polite society, as we may see from Lamb's
Essay on Hogarth, and from an early edition of Chambers's "Cyclopaedia of
English Literature" (1843), where we are told: "Nor is it needful to show
how elegant and reflective literature, especially, tends to moralise, to
soften, and to adorn the soul and life of man." "Unfortunately the taste or
_circumstances of Defoe led him mostly into low life_, and his characters
are such _as we cannot sympathise with_. The whole arcana of roguery
and villany seems to have been open to him.... It might be thought that the
good taste which led Defoe to write in a style of such pure and
unpretending English, instead of the inflated manner of vulgar writers,
_would have dictated a more careful selection of his subjects_, and
kept him from wandering so frequently into the low and disgusting purlieus
of vice. But this moral and tasteful discrimination seems to have been
wholly wanting," &c. The 'forties were the days when critics still talked
learnedly of the "noble style," &c., "the vulgar," of "sinking" or "rising"
with "the subject," the days when Books of Beauty were in fashion, and
Rembrandt's choice of beggars, wrinkled faces and grey hairs, for his
favourite subjects seemed a low and reprehensible taste in "high art."
Though critics to-day still ingenuously confound an artist's subject with
his treatment of it, and prefer scenes of life to be idealised rather than
realised by writers, we have advanced a little since the days of the poet
Montgomery, and it would be difficult now to find anybody writing so
confidently--"Unfortunately the taste or circumstances of Defoe led him
mostly into low life," however much the critic might believe it. But let us
glance at a few passages in "Captain Singleton," which may show us why
Defoe excels as a realist, and why his descriptions of "low life" are
artistically as perfect as any descriptions of "higher life" in the works
of the English novelists. Take the following description of kidnapping:--

  "The woman pretending to take me up in her arms and kiss me, and
  play with me, draws the girl a good way from the house, till at
  last she makes a fine story to the girl, and bids her go back to
  the maid, and tell her where she was with the child; that a
  gentlewoman had taken a fancy to the child and was kissing it, but
  she should not be frightened, or to that purpose; for they were
  but just there; and so while the girl went, she carried me quite
  away.--Page 2.

Now here, in a single sentence, Defoe catches for us the whole soul and
character of the situation. It _seems_ very simple, but it sums up
marvellously an exact observation and knowledge of the arts of the gipsy
child-stealer, of her cunning flattery and brassy boldness, and we can
see the simple little girl running back to the house to tell the nurse
that a fine lady was kissing the child, and had told her to tell where
they were and she should not be frightened, &c.; and this picture again
calls up the hue and cry after the kidnappers and the fruitless hopes of
the parents. In a word, Defoe has condensed in the eight simple lines of
his little scene all that is essential to its living truth; and let the
young writer note that it is ever the sign of the master to do in three
words, or with three strokes, what the ordinary artist does in thirty.
Defoe's imagination is so extraordinarily comprehensive in picking out
just those little matter-of-fact details that suggest all the other
aspects, and that emphasise the character of the scene or situation,
that he makes us believe in the actuality of whatever he is describing.
So real, so living in every detail is this apocryphal narrative, in
"Captain Singleton," of the crossing of Africa by a body of marooned
sailors from the coast of Mozambique to the Gold Coast, that one would
firmly believe Defoe was committing to writing the verbal narrative of
some adventurer in the flesh, if it were not for certain passages--such
as the description of the impossible desert on page 90, which proves
that Defoe was piecing together his description of an imaginary journey
from the geographical records and travellers' tales of his contemporaries,
aided perhaps by the confused yarns of some sailor friends. How
substantially truthful in spirit and in detail is Defoe's account of
Madagascar is proved by the narrative of Robert Drury's "Captivity in
Madagascar," published in 1729. The natives themselves, as described
intimately by Drury, who lived amongst them for many years, would produce
just such an effect as Defoe describes on rough sailors in their perilous
position. The method by which Defoe compels us to accept improbabilities,
and lulls our critical sense asleep, is well shown in the following
passages:--

  "Thieving, lying, swearing, forswearing, joined to the most
  abominable lewdness, was the stated practice of the ship's crew;
  adding to it, that with the most unsufferable boasts of their own
  courage, they were, generally speaking, the most complete cowards
  that I ever met with."--Page 7.

  "All the seamen in a body came up to the rail of the quarter-deck,
  where the captain was walking with some of his officers, and
  appointing the boatswain to speak for them, he went up, and falling
  on his knees to the captain, begged of him in the humblest manner
  possible, to receive the four men on board again, offering to answer
  for their fidelity, or to have them kept in chains, till they came
  to Lisbon, and there to be delivered up to justice, rather than, as
  they said, to have them left, to be murdered by savages, or devoured
  by wild beasts. It was a great while ere the captain took any notice
  of them, but when he did, he ordered the boatswain to be seized, and
  threatened to bring him to the capstan for speaking for them....
  Upon this severity, one of the seamen, bolder than the rest, but
  still with all possible respect to the captain, besought his honour,
  as he called him, that he would give leave to some more of them to
  go on shore, and die with their companions, or, if possible, to
  assist them to resist the barbarians."--Page 18.

Now the first passage we have quoted about the cowardice, &c., of the
Portuguese crew is not in keeping with the second passage, which shows the
men as "wishing to die with their companions"; but so actual is the scene
of the seamen "in a body coming up to the rail of the quarter-deck," that
we cannot but believe the thing happened so, just as we believe in all the
thousand little details of the imaginary narrative of "Robinson Crusoe."
This feat of the imagination Defoe strengthens in the most artful manner,
by putting in the mouths of his characters various reflections to
substantiate the narrative. For example, in the description, on page 263,
of the savages who lined the perilous channel in a half-moon, where the
European ship lay, we find the afterthoughts are added so naturally, that
they would carry conviction to any judge or jury:--

  "They little thought what service they had done us, and how
  unwittingly, and by the greatest ignorance, they had made
  themselves pilots to us, while we, having not sounded the place,
  might have been lost before we were aware. _It is true we might
  have sounded our new harbour, before we had ventured out; but I
  cannot say for certain, whether we should or not; for I, for my
  part, had not the least suspicion of what our real case was;
  however, I say, perhaps, before we had weighed, we should have
  looked about us a little._"

Turning to the other literary qualities that make Defoe's novels great,
if little read, classics, how delightful are the little satiric touches
that add grave weight to the story. Consider the following: "My good
gipsy mother, for some of her worthy actions, no doubt, happened in
process of time to be hanged, and as this fell out something too soon
for me to be perfected in the strolling trade," &c.(p. 3). Every other
word here is dryly satiric, and the large free callousness and careless
brutality of Defoe's days with regard to the life of criminals is
conveyed in half a sentence. And what an amount of shrewd observation is
summed up in this one saying: "Upon these foundations, William said he
was satisfied we might trust them; for, says William, I would as soon
trust a man whose interest binds him to be just to me, as a man whose
principle binds himself" (p. 227). Extremely subtle is also this remark:
"_Why, says I, did you ever know a pirate repent?_ At this he
started a little and returned, _At the gallows_ I have known
_one_ repent, and I _hope_ thou wilt be the second." The
character of William the Quaker pirate is a masterpiece of shrewd
humour. He is the first Quaker brought into English fiction, and we
know of no other Friend in latter-day fiction to equal him. Defoe in
his inimitable manner has defined surely and deftly the peculiar
characteristics of the sect in this portrait. On three separate occasions
we find William saving unfortunate natives or defenceless prisoners from
the cruel and wicked barbarity of the sailors. At page 183, for example,
the reader will find a most penetrating analysis of the dense stupidity
which so often accompanies man's love of bloodshed. The sketch of the
second lieutenant, who was for "murdering the negroes to make them tell,"
when he could not make them even understand what he wanted, is worthy of
Tolstoy. We have not space here to dwell upon the scores of passages of
similar deep insight which make "Captain Singleton" a most true and vivid
commentary on the life of Defoe's times, but we may call special attention
to the passage on page 189 which describe the sale of the negroes to the
planters; to the description of the awakening of the conscience of Captain
Singleton through terror at the fire-cloud (page 222); and to the
extraordinarily picturesque conversation between William and the captive
Dutchman (page 264). Finally, if the reader wishes to taste Defoe's flavour
in its perfection let him examine carefully those passages in the
concluding twenty pages of the book, wherein Captain Singleton is shown
as awakening to the wickedness of his past life, and the admirable dry
reasoning of William by which the Quaker prevents him from committing
suicide and persuades him to keep his ill-gotten wealth, "with a resolution
to do what right with it we are able; and who knows what opportunity
Providence may put into our hands.... As it is without doubt, our present
business is to go to some place of safety, where we may wait His will."
How admirable is the passage about William's sister, the widow with four
children who kept a little shop in the Minories, and that in which the
penitent ex-pirates are shown us as hesitating in Venice for two years
before they durst venture to England for fear of the gallows.

"Captain Singleton" was published in 1720, a year after "Robinson Crusoe,"
when Defoe was fifty-nine. Twenty years before had seen "The True-Born
Englishman" and "The Shortest Way with the Dissenters"; and we are told
that from "June 1687 to almost the very week of his death in 1731 a stream
of controversial books and pamphlets poured from his pen commenting upon
and marking every important passing event." The fecundity of Defoe as a
journalist alone surpasses that of any great journalist we can name,
William Cobbett not excepted, and we may add that the style of "Captain
Singleton," like that of "Robinson Crusoe," is so perfect that there is not
a single ineffective passage, or indeed a weak sentence, to be found in the
book.

EDWARD GARNETT.




The following is a list of Defoe's works: "New Discovery of Old Intrigue"
(verse), 1691. "Character of Dr. Samuel Annesley" (verse), 1697. "The
Pacificator" (verse), 1700. "True-Born Englishman" (verse), 1701. "The Mock
Mourners" (verse), 1702. "Reformation of Manners" (verse), 1702. "New Test
of Church of England's Loyalty," 1702. "Shortest Way with the Dissenters,"
1702. "Ode to the Athenian Society," 1703. "Enquiry into Acgill's General
Translation," 1703. "More Reformation" (verse), 1703. "Hymn to the
Pillory," 1703. "The Storm" (Tale), 1704. "Layman's Sermon on the Late
Storm," 1704. "The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from
the World in the Moon," 1704. "Elegy on Author of 'True-Born Englishman,'"
1704. "Hymn to Victory," 1704. "Giving Alms no Charity," 1704. "The Dyet of
Poland" (verse), 1705. "Apparition of Mrs. Veal," 1706. "Sermon on the
Filling-up of Dr. Burgess's Meeting-house," 1706. "Jure Divino" (verse),
1706. "Caledonia" (verse), 1706. "History of the Union of Great Britain,"
1709. "Short Enquiry into a Late Duel," 1713. "A General History of Trade,"
1713. "Wars of Charles III.," 1715. "The Family Instruction" (two eds.),
1715. "Hymn to the Mob," 1715. "Memoirs of the Church of Scotland," 1717.
"Life and Death of Count Patkul," 1717. "Memoirs of Duke of Shrewsbury,"
1718. "Memoirs of Daniel Williams," 1718. "The Life and Strange Surprising
Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner," 1719. "The Farther
Adventures of Robinson Crusoe," 1719. "The Dumb Philosopher: or, Great
Britain's Wonder," 1719. "The King of Pirates" (Capt. Avery), 1719. "Life
of Baron de Goertz," 1719. "Life and Adventures of Duncan Campbell," 1720.
"Mr. Campbell's Pacquet," 1720. "Memoirs of a Cavalier," 1720. "Life of
Captain Singleton," 1720. "Serious Reflections during the Life and
Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe," 1720. "The Supernatural
Philosopher; or, The Mysteries of Magick," 1720. Translation of Du
Fresnoy's "Compleat Art of Painting" (verse), 1720. "Moll Flanders," 1722,
"Journal of the Plague Year," 1722. "Due Preparations for the Plague,"
1722. "Life of Cartouche," 1722. "History of Colonel Jacque," 1722.
"Religious Courtship," 1722. "History of Peter the Great," 1723. "The
Highland Rogue" (Rob Roy), 1723. "The Fortunate Mistress" (Roxana), 1724.
"Narrative of Murders at Calais," 1724. "Life of John Sheppard," 1724.
"Robberies, Escapes, &c., of John Sheppard," 1724. "The Great Law of
Subordination; or, The Insolence and Insufferable Behaviour of Servants in
England," 1724. "A Tour through Great Britain," 1724-6. "New Voyage Round
the World," 1725. "Account of Jonathan Wild," 1725. "Account of John Gow,"
1725. "Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business" (on Servants), 1725. "The
Complete English Tradesman," 1725; vol. ii., 1727. "The Friendly Demon,"
1726. "Mere Nature Delineated" (Peter the Wild Boy), 1726. "Political
History of the Devil," 1726. "Essay upon Literature and the Original of
Letters," 1726. "History of Discoveries," 1726-7. "The Protestant
Monastery," 1726. "A System of Magic," 1726. "Parochial Tyranny," 1727.
"Treatise concerning Use and Abuse of Marriage," 1727. "Secrets of
Invisible World Discovered; or, History and Reality of Apparitions," 1727,
1728. "A New Family Instructor," 1728. "Augusta Triumphans," 1728. "Plan of
English Commerce," 1728. "Second Thoughts are Best" (on Street Robberies),
1728. "Street Robberies Considered," 1728. "Humble Proposal to People of
England for Increase of Trade, &c.," 1729. "Preface to R. Dodsley's Poem
'Servitude'" 1729. "Effectual Scheme for Preventing Street Robberies,"
1731.

Besides the above-named publications a large number of further tracts by
Defoe are extant, on matters of Politics and Church.




THE LIFE, ADVENTURES, AND PIRACIES
OF CAPTAIN SINGLETON


As it is usual for great persons, whose lives have been remarkable, and
whose actions deserve recording to posterity, to insist much upon their
originals, give full accounts of their families, and the histories of their
ancestors, so, that I may be methodical, I shall do the same, though I can
look but a very little way into my pedigree, as you will see presently.

If I may believe the woman whom I was taught to call mother, I was a little
boy, of about two years old, very well dressed, had a nursery-maid to
attend me, who took me out on a fine summer's evening into the fields
towards Islington, as she pretended, to give the child some air; a little
girl being with her, of twelve or fourteen years old, that lived in the
neighbourhood. The maid, whether by appointment or otherwise, meets with a
fellow, her sweetheart, as I suppose; he carries her into a public-house,
to give her a pot and a cake; and while they were toying in the house the
girl plays about, with me in her hand, in the garden and at the door,
sometimes in sight, sometimes out of sight, thinking no harm.

At this juncture comes by one of those sort of people who, it seems, made
it their business to spirit away little children. This was a hellish trade
in those days, and chiefly practised where they found little children very
well dressed, or for bigger children, to sell them to the plantations.

The woman, pretending to take me up in her arms and kiss me, and play with
me, draws the girl a good way from the house, till at last she makes a fine
story to the girl, and bids her go back to the maid, and tell her where she
was with the child; that a gentlewoman had taken a fancy to the child, and
was kissing of it, but she should not be frighted, or to that purpose; for
they were but just there; and so, while the girl went, she carries me quite
away.

From this time, it seems, I was disposed of to a beggar woman that wanted a
pretty little child to set out her case; and after that, to a gipsy, under
whose government I continued till I was about six years old. And this
woman, though I was continually dragged about with her from one part of the
country to another, yet never let me want for anything; and I called her
mother; though she told me at last she was not my mother, but that she
bought me for twelve shillings of another woman, who told her how she came
by me, and told her that my name was Bob Singleton, not Robert, but plain
Bob; for it seems they never knew by what name I was christened.

It is in vain to reflect here, what a terrible fright the careless hussy
was in that lost me; what treatment she received from my justly enraged
father and mother, and the horror these must be in at the thoughts of their
child being thus carried away; for as I never knew anything of the matter,
but just what I have related, nor who my father and mother were, so it
would make but a needless digression to talk of it here.

My good gipsy mother, for some of her worthy actions no doubt, happened in
process of time to be hanged; and as this fell out something too soon for
me to be perfected in the strolling trade, the parish where I was left,
which for my life I can't remember, took some care of me, to be sure; for
the first thing I can remember of myself afterwards, was, that I went to a
parish school, and the minister of the parish used to talk to me to be a
good boy; and that, though I was but a poor boy, if I minded my book, and
served God, I might make a good man.

I believe I was frequently removed from one town to another, perhaps as the
parishes disputed my supposed mother's last settlement. Whether I was so
shifted by passes, or otherwise, I know not; but the town where I last was
kept, whatever its name was, must be not far off from the seaside; for a
master of a ship who took a fancy to me, was the first that brought me to a
place not far from Southampton, which I afterwards knew to be Bussleton;
and there I attended the carpenters, and such people as were employed in
building a ship for him; and when it was done, though I was not above
twelve years old, he carried me to sea with him on a voyage to
Newfoundland.

I lived well enough, and pleased my master so well that he called me his
own boy; and I would have called him father, but he would not allow it, for
he had children of his own. I went three or four voyages with him, and grew
a great sturdy boy, when, coming home again from the banks of Newfoundland,
we were taken by an Algerine rover, or man-of-war; which, if my account
stands right, was about the year 1695, for you may be sure I kept no
journal.

I was not much concerned at the disaster, though I saw my master, after
having been wounded by a splinter in the head during the engagement, very
barbarously used by the Turks; I say, I was not much concerned, till, upon
some unlucky thing I said, which, as I remember, was about abusing my
master, they took me and beat me most unmercifully with a flat stick on the
soles of my feet, so that I could neither go or stand for several days
together.

But my good fortune was my friend upon this occasion; for, as they were
sailing away with our ship in tow as a prize, steering for the Straits, and
in sight of the bay of Cadiz, the Turkish rover was attacked by two great
Portuguese men-of-war, and taken and carried into Lisbon.

As I was not much concerned at my captivity, not indeed understanding the
consequences of it, if it had continued, so I was not suitably sensible of
my deliverance; nor, indeed, was it so much a deliverance to me as it would
otherwise have been, for my master, who was the only friend I had in the
world, died at Lisbon of his wounds; and I being then almost reduced to my
primitive state, viz., of starving, had this addition to it, that it was in
a foreign country too, where I knew nobody and could not speak a word of
their language. However, I fared better here than I had reason to expect;
for when all the rest of our men had their liberty to go where they would,
I, that knew not whither to go, stayed in the ship for several days, till
at length one of the lieutenants seeing me, inquired what that young
English dog did there, and why they did not turn him on shore.

I heard him, and partly understood what he meant, though not what he said,
and began then to be in a terrible fright; for I knew not where to get a
bit of bread; when the pilot of the ship, an old seaman, seeing me look
very dull, came to me, and speaking broken English to me, told me I must be
gone. "Whither must I go?" said I. "Where you will," said he, "home to your
own country, if you will." "How must I go thither?" said I. "Why, have you
no friend?" said he. "No," said I, "not in the world, but that dog,"
pointing to the ship's dog (who, having stolen a piece of meat just before,
had brought it close by me, and I had taken it from him, and ate it), "for
he has been a good friend, and brought me my dinner."
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