Daniel Defoe

The "Jure Divino" Portrait.

There is no proof that Daniel Defoe wrote "A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates" known as "Johnson's Pirates" because the author was given as a Captain Charles Johnson. If Johnson did exist, nothing is known of him apart from the fact that he is supposedly the author of this work and possibly the writer of a play about a pirate, called Avery. Some historians, though not all, attribute the work to Daniel Defoe on the basis of style and circumstantial evidence.

Defoe was born into a dissenting family some time between 1660 and 1665. He had some notoriety during his lifetime but also remained a shadowy figure. What recorded facts there are have to be supplemented by his own (unreliable) and other's accounts. He originally considered the ministry but chose instead trade which he was never very good at. He married Mary Tuffley in 1684 and received a dowry of £3,700 which he proceeded to squander on speculation that led to his bankruptcy in 1692, with debts of 17,000. Within ten years he had paid off all bar £5,000 but the rest he never cleared and debt was to plague him the rest of his life.

Before this, he is thought to have fought on the losing side at Monmouth's rebellion in 1685, being lucky enough to be with the horse which was swept off the field during the early stages of the battle. He was also lucky that he was not named as a traitor. Not for the first time in his life, he went into hiding - possibly on the continent.

From a Chapbook edition of "Jure Divino"

"Jure Divino" was a 350 page long political poem written by Defoe and set out in twelve books - stick to the pirates.

From 1691 he began to write pamphlets and wrote a long doggerel poem - "The True Born Englishman - in praise of William III. It was among his most popular works although as a poet Defoe is a good businessman and a better prose writer. He got into trouble in 1703 (which led to a second bankruptcy in 1704) when he published a satirical pamphlet - "The Shortest Way With Dissenters" - for which he was pilloried. The reward notice described him as "a middle sized man about forty years old, of a brown complexion, and dark brown-coloured hair, but wears a wig; a hooked nose, a sharp chin, grey eyes and a large mole near his mouth". That and the above portrait are the only clues to his appearance. Not much, but more than we know about the likenesses of some of the pirates he described.

The reason he was pilloried in 1703 was that he was too good at pretending to be what he was not. Defoe, a dissenter, had satirically adopted the tone of a high Tory advocating punishment for those who continued to dissent.

"Tis vain to trifle in this matter. The light foolish handling of them by mulcts, fines, etc., 'tis their glory and advantage. If the gallows instead of the Counter, and the gallies (galleys) instead of fines were the reward for going to a conventicle, to preach or hear, there would not be so many sufferers."

High Tories were favourable to this view but became incensed when they discovered that a "jumped up" little dissenter who was in trade had written it. However, this talent for subterfuge was also considered useful by those in power.

Government Spy

At some point, Defoe was recruited as a spy. This may have been in1695, when he was appointed to the post (possibly a cover) of accountant to commissioner's of the glass duty. Certainly, the Secretary of State, Robert Harley, was instrumental in obtaining his release. In 1706 he was sent up to Scotland as an agent working towards the Act of Union. Defoe's own unreliable testimony to this time was that he was involved in "a special service...in which I had to run as much risk of my life as a grenadier upon a counterscarp".

Harley was dismissed from the government in 1708. Defoe then left his employ and went to work for Godolphin. During this time he edited and wrote the pro-Whig "Review" newspaper. In 1710 Harley returned to office and Defoe went back to working for him again. In 1714 he was imprisoned for libel but continued to produce his newspapers. He was freed on the orders of the Secretary of State, Lord Townsend. He then resumed his spying during the period of the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion.

Caricature - Daniel Defoe and the Devil at Leap-frog

"Make a fair Back Daniel," says the devil. "I do don't I Pinkeman," replies Defoe?. "No you cheating Dog you don't" answers Pinkeman.- joke lost in mists of history.

In 1716, he was employed by the Whig government but wrote for the High Tory "Newsletter". In 1717 he also wrote for the Jacobite "Mist's Journal". Anonymously he wrote and published as many as four newspapers at a time - sometimes as frequently as three times a week. Working at such a speed, Defoe could be repetitive and contradictory. He could write anonymous letters and reviews praising, recommending or reviling himself. Defoe was not a witty writer but he could produce straightforward pamphlets and articles on practically any subject. His journalistic style was, in keeping with the time - a mixture of research, opinion, political expediency. Facts were for shaping to fit the argument. True accounts were embellished to suit some moral, religious or political purpose. So what's so different nowadays?

Writing

Defoe's political writing seems to have come to an end when, in 1718, he was discovered to be writing for both the Tory "Weekly Journal or Secondary Post" and the Whig "Whitehall Evening Post". So, when he was nearly sixty, Defoe decided to try his hand at novels. He then went on to write, as rapidly as ever, "Robinson Crusoe", "The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe", "Moll Flanders", "Roxana" and the "Adventures of Captain Singleton". He also wrote "Journal of the Plague Year" which for centuries was considered an authentic account. In these writings, Defoe continued to use the tricks he had used as a journalist and spy. He would write accounts under false names. "Moll Flanders", for example, is described as an authentic account which came into his hands and which he now presents to the public. He is thought to have written "Robert Drury's Journal" which described Drury's adventures in Madagascar. Drury was a real person but he almostcertainly was no writer.

Defoe's Pyrates

Whether he wrote "Johnson's Pyrates" or not, Defoe certainly had all the right qualities to produce this work. A lifetime in journalism had given him a direct style of communication. He had been a merchant and would have heard of the accounts of pirates. His novels also featured the low life of pirates, prostitutes, thieves and murderers. Defoe was also an able assembler of facts and equally able at distorting them to his own ends. He was assigned, as staff writer for "Applebee's Journal" to cover pirate trials. Often his work took him to the cells of the Newgate and Marshalsea prisons. In addition his sister had married a shipwright and he is thought to have known both Woodes Rogers, governor of the Bahamas and pirate hunter as well as Thomas Bowdrey, who had spent 18 years at sea.

"A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates" was written in two volumes. The first volume appeared in 1724 and dealt with contemporary pirates. The trials of Mary Read and Anne Bonny , for example, took place in 1720. These accounts are surprisingly accurate though not without embellishment. The account of Captain Avery ends with him ratting on his fellow pirates but then being cheated out of his hoard of diamonds by British merchants so that he died a beggar unable to afford the price of his coffin.

The pirates of volume one are - Captains Avery, Martel, Teach (Blackbeard), Stede Bonnet, England, Vane, Rackham (as well as Mary Read and Anne Bonny ) Howel Davis, Bartholomew Roberts, Anstis, Worley, Lowther, Low, Evans, Phillips, Spriggs, Smith, Gow and Roche.

Volume two appeared in 1728. Instead of contemporary accounts, Defoe turned to the pirates of a generation or so earlier. The approach is also different, being intended to use the stories of the iniquities of the pirates to highlight the hypocrisy of English society. Most of the pirates existed but the facts are harder to establish and Defoe invents a great deal to suit his own ends.

The pirates in volume two are - Captains Misson (entirely fictional), Bowen, Kidd, Tew, Halsey, White, Condent, Bellamy, Fly, Howard, Lewis (entirely fictional), Cornelius (entirely fictional), Williams, Burgess, North and Auger.

There is also an account of a mulatto seaman who was kept at Magadoxa, an African kingdom north of Madagascar, for 16 years. Defoe copied this account from the seaman's own manuscript.

Defoe died "of a lethargy" in April 1731, whilst hiding out from his creditors in lodgings in Ropemaker's Alley. He is buried in the old dissenters cemetery in Bunhill Fields, London. He is in good company for John Bunyan and William Blake also lie there.