Under the Black Flag Read online

  Pirates based in the Mediterranean were called corsairs. The most famous were those of the Barbary Coast, who operated from Algiers, Tunis, Salé, and other ports along the northern shores of Africa, and they were authorized by the rulers of the Muslim countries to attack the ships of Christian countries. Less well known were the corsairs of Malta. They were sent out to loot shipping by the Knights of St. John, a military order created during the Crusades to fight the Muslim infidels on behalf of the Christian nations. As far as the captains and crews of the merchant ships sailing the Mediterranean were concerned, all the corsairs were pirates. Occasionally one of the European nations would send a squadron of warships to combat the corsair menace, but it was not till Algiers was bombarded by the guns of a massive allied fleet in 1816 that the corsairs ceased to be a serious threat to shipping.

  Buccaneers were pirates who operated in the Caribbean and around the coast of South America during the seventeenth century. Nowadays the term is used very loosely to include lawless adventurers who preyed on any ships which fell into their hands, as well as men like Henry Morgan who made war on the Spanish with a commission from the English Governor of Jamaica. The original buccaneers were hunters in the woods and valleys of Hispaniola, the mountainous Caribbean island which is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic. They were mostly French, and they lived off the herds of cattle and pigs which had been introduced by the first Spanish settlers. They cooked and dried strips of meat over open stoves or barbecues in the fashion of the Arawak Indians, and it was the French word for this process, boucaner (meaning to smoke-dry, or cure), which gave these wild and uncouth men their name. They dressed in leather hides and, with their butchers’ knives and bloodstained appearance, looked and smelled like men from a slaughterhouse.

  During the 1620s, the huntsmen drifted from the inner regions of Hispaniola to the north coast and particularly to the offshore island of Tortuga, which became a base for piratical attacks on passing merchant ships and Spanish galleons heading home with treasure from Mexico and Peru. At first there was little organization among the buccaneers, but they soon developed a loose confederation which became known as the Brethren of the Coast. At intervals they came together for a combined raid on a major target, the most famous being the attack on Panama in 1671 which was led by Henry Morgan and resulted in the sacking and burning of the Spanish city.

  Many of the pirate captains were formidable characters, and some of the events which took place during the great age of piracy were as dramatic as any fiction. If it were not for the details contained in the logbooks of the naval officers concerned, it would be hard to believe the story of Blackbeard and his final stand among the shallows on the coast of Carolina. Scarcely less spectacular was the battle between the pirate ships of Bartholomew Roberts and the British warship HMS Swallow, which was fought on the other side of the Atlantic. The engagement began in a rising gale off Africa, with rain sweeping across the stormy seas. As the seamen struggled to load and fire their guns on the pitching decks of their ships, a tropical storm unleashed its full force and thunder and lightning filled the air. The battle was to prove a turning point in the war against the pirates.

  Trial documents, naval logbooks, reports from colonial governors, and the depositions of captured pirates and their victims are the principal sources of information for the great age of piracy. The other source, which has been much plundered by writers and film directors, is a remarkable book published within two or three years of many of the events described within its pages. It is entitled A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, and its author was Captain Charles Johnson. The first edition was published on May 14, 1724, and was so popular that other editions followed in rapid succession. Johnson took most of his information from the transcripts of pirate trials and from the reports in contemporary newspapers such as the London Gazette and the Daily Post. The vivid detail of places and conversations suggests that he also interviewed seamen and former pirates. He shows a familiarity with the use of seaman’s language which indicates that he may have been a sea captain, although his name could be the nom de plume of a professional writer or journalist.

  In 1932 the American scholar John Robert Moore announced at a literary meeting that the real author of the General History of the Pirates (as it is usually known) was none other than Daniel Defoe.3 He devoted several years to proving his theory and published his conclusions at length in Defoe in the Pillory and Other Studies. Moore’s arguments were persuasive. He showed that the style of the language used and the frequent inclusion of moral reflections was typical of Defoe, and pointed out that Defoe was clearly fascinated by pirates: the year after publishing Robinson Crusoe, Defoe had written Captain Singleton, a work of fiction presented as the true autobiography of a pirate. He had also published a biography of Captain Avery entitled The King of the Pirates, and an account of the Scottish pirate John Gow.

  Professor Moore’s reputation as the foremost Defoe scholar of his generation persuaded most of the libraries of the world to recatalog the General History of the Pirates under the name of Defoe. But in 1988 two academics, P. N. Furbank and W. R. Owens, demolished Moore’s theory in their book The Canonisation of Daniel Defoe. They showed that there was not a single piece of documentary evidence to link Defoe with the General History of the Pirates, and pointed out that there were too many discrepancies between the stories in the book and the other works on pirates attributed to Defoe. So convincing are their arguments that there seems no alternative but to abandon the attractive theory that Defoe wrote the General History of the Pirates and to return the authorship of the work to the mysterious Captain Johnson. Whatever the identity of the author, the book has had a far-reaching effect on the popular view of pirates. It is the prime source for the lives of many pirates of what is often called the Golden Age of Piracy. It publicized a generation of villains, and gave an almost mythical status to men like Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, who subsequently became the subject of ballads and plays.

  As the threat of piracy receded and attacks on merchant shipping in the Caribbean and along the American seaboard became few and far between, the public perception of pirates underwent a change. Instead of being regarded as common murderers and robbers they began to acquire the status of romantic outlaws. This image was given a major boost with the publication of an epic poem by Lord Byron in the early years of the nineteenth century. It was entitled The Corsair and described the adventures of Conrad, a proud and tyrannical pirate leader. With his pale and gloomy countenance and his air of doom, the corsair combined the vices of a Gothic villain with the ideals of the noble outlaw. Byron tells how Conrad rescues a lovely slave girl from the harem of the Turkish Pacha. She brings him a dagger so that he may kill his enemy the Pacha while he is sleeping. Conrad decides against such a cowardly act, whereupon the slave girl murders the Pacha herself. They escape to Conrad’s pirate island. There Conrad learns that Medora, the love of his life, is dead from grief in the mistaken belief that he has been killed. Conrad is in despair. He sails away and is never heard of again.

  Byron had visited the Mediterranean during an extended grand tour, and he based Conrad and his crew on the corsairs who operated around the Greek islands and the Turkish coast at that time. He had already achieved fame with the publication of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and the public was eager for more. When The Corsair was published in February 1814 it took London by storm. John Murray, the publisher, told Byron that he could not recollect any work which had excited such a ferment. “I sold on the day of publication—a thing perfectly unprecedented—10,000 copies; and I suppose thirty people, who were purchasers (strangers) called to tell the people in the shop how much they had been delighted and satisfied.”4 In the following month, seven more editions were printed. Apart from becoming a best-seller in England, Byron’s poem had a considerable following on the Continent. Among the many works inspired by its piratical theme were Verdi’s opera Il Corsaro of 1848 and the overture Le Corsaire
by Berlioz.

  Fictional works about pirates blossomed during the nineteenth century. Walter Scott wrote a historical novel, The Pirate, based on the life of a notorious Scottish pirate called John Gow. Captain Marryat published an adventure story which was also called The Pirate, and R. M. Ballantyne included pirates in Coral Island, the most enduring of his many stories for boys. But it was Robert Louis Stevenson who was to bring the distant world of pirates to life with a slim volume about a sea cook, a treasure map, and a schooner called the Hispaniola.

  Robert Louis Stevenson was thirty years old when he began writing Treasure Island. It was his first success as a novelist, and although Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Master of Ballantrae are considered finer works by many critics, it is the book with which his name is indelibly associated. The first fifteen chapters were written at Braemar among the Scottish mountains in August and September 1881.1 The late summer weather was atrocious, and Stevenson and his family huddled around the fire in Miss Mcgregor’s cottage while the wind howled down the Dee valley and the rain beat on the windows. There were five of them staying there: Stevenson’s parents, his American wife, Fanny, and her twelve-year-old son, Lloyd Osbourne, who was Stevenson’s stepson. To pass the time, Lloyd painted pictures with a shilling box of watercolors. One afternoon Stevenson joined him and drew a map of an island. He was soon adding names to the various hills and inlets. Lloyd later wrote, “I shall never forget the thrill of Skeleton Island, Spyglass Hill, nor the heart-stirring climax of the three red crosses! And the greater climax still when he wrote down the words ‘Treasure Island’ at the top right-hand corner! And he seemed to know so much about it too—the pirates, the buried treasure, the man who had been marooned on the island.”2 In an essay which he wrote in the last year of his life, Stevenson revealed how the future character of the book began to appear to him as he studied the map. It was to be all about buccaneers, and a mutiny, and a fine old Squire called Trelawney, and a sea cook with one leg, and a sea song with the chorus “Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum.”

  Within three days he had written three chapters, and as he wrote each chapter he read it out to the family, who, apart from Fanny, were delighted with the results and added their own suggestions. Lloyd insisted that there should be no women in the story. Stevenson’s father devised the contents of Billy Bones’ sea chest, and suggested the scene where Jim Hawkins hides in the apple barrel. During the course of the next two weeks Stevenson had a visit from Dr. Alexander Japp, who was equally enthusiastic and took the early chapters along to the editor of Young Folks magazine. He agreed to publish the story in weekly installments, but after fifteen chapters Stevenson abruptly ran out of inspiration and could write no more. The holiday in Scotland came to an end, and he moved south to Weybridge, where he corrected the proofs of the early chapters and despaired at what still remained to be done. Stevenson was the victim all his life of a chronic bronchial condition which racked him with coughing fits and hemorrhages. These frequently threatened his life and led to constant travels in search of a healing climate. He had not been well in Scotland, and it was therefore planned that he should pass the winter with Fanny and Lloyd at Davos in Switzerland. They traveled there in October, and the change of scene worked wonders. “Arrived at my destination, down I sat one morning to the unfinished tale; and behold! it flowed from me like small talk; and in a second tide of delighted industry, and again at a rate of a chapter a day, I finished Treasure Island.”3

  When it was first published in weekly installments in Young Folks magazine (from October 1881 to January 1882), it failed to attract any attention, or indeed to sell any additional copies, but when published separately as a book in 1883, it soon proved popular. The Prime Minister, Gladstone, was reported to have stayed up till two in the morning in order to finish it, and it was widely praised by literary critics and by other writers. Henry James thought it a delightful story, “all as perfect as a well-played boy’s game,”4 and Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, “I think Robert Lewis Stevenson shows more genius in a page than Scott in a volume.”5 G. K. Chesterton particularly admired Stevenson’s evocative style: “The very words carry the sound and the significance. It is as if they were cut out with cutlasses; as was that unforgettable chip or wedge that was hacked by the blade of Billy Bones out of the wooden sign of the ‘Admiral Benbow.’ ”6

  Treasure Island was intended as a book for boys, and has an immediate appeal as an exciting adventure story; but like Robinson Crusoe and Alice in Wonderland, it has been enjoyed by adults as much as by children. The subtle observation of character, the vivid imagery of the language, and the disturbing undercurrents running beneath the surface of the story have fascinated readers and provoked endless study of the text. The story was adapted for the stage, and every year in London and elsewhere well-known actors and less well known parrots are auditioned for productions. There have been at least five films based on the story. In 1920 a silent version featured a woman (Shirley Mason) playing the part of Jim Hawkins. The 1934 version had Jackie Cooper cast as Jim and Wallace Beery as Long John Silver. In 1950 the Walt Disney corporation sponsored a lavish production with Bobby Driscoll as Jim and Robert Newton giving a definitive performance as Long John Silver. Orson Welles played the same part in the 1971 version, and in 1990 Charlton Heston played Silver and his son played a somewhat older than usual Jim Hawkins.

  Thanks to Stevenson’s illuminating letters and essays, we know a great deal about the various sources which inspired him during the writing of the book, as well as the models for some of the principal characters. The catalyst was the treasure map, but he also drew on his memories of the works of Daniel Defoe, Edgar Allan Poe, and Washington Irving. He took the Dead Man’s Chest from At Last by Charles Kingsley, and admitted his debt to “the great Captain Johnson’s History of the Notorious Pirates.” Interestingly, he was scathing about Captain Marryat’s The Pirate, which he thought was an arid and feeble production.

  The dominating personality in Treasure Island is, of course, Long John Silver. He is better known than any of the real pirates of history and, together with Captain Hook, has come to represent many people’s image of a pirate. He is tall and powerful and has a wily character which alternates between jovial good humor and utter ruthlessness in the pursuit of gold. His left leg was cut off after he had been hit by a broadside when serving as quartermaster of Captain Flint’s ship off Malabar. He does not have a wooden leg but carries a crutch, “which he managed with great dexterity, hopping around on it like a bird.” In Captain Johnson’s General History of the Pirates there is a memorable description of “a fellow with a terrible pair of whiskers, and a wooden leg, being stuck around with pistols, like the man in the Almanack with darts, comes swearing and vapouring upon the quarter-deck.”7 It is possible that Stevenson had this figure in the back of his mind when he came up with Long John Silver, but he always said that his sea cook was based on his friend W. E. Henley, a writer and poet who made a considerable impression on everyone who met him. Lloyd Osbourne described him as “a great, glowing, massive-shouldered fellow with a big red beard and a crutch; jovial, astoundingly clever, and with a laugh that rolled out like music. Never was there such another as William Ernest Henley; he had an unimaginable fire and vitality; he swept one off one’s feet.”8

  Henley was the son of a Gloucester bookseller and contracted tubercular arthritis as a boy, which crippled him and led to his having one foot amputated. He traveled to Edinburgh to see the eminent Professor Lister about his condition, and while in the Scottish capital he was introduced to Stevenson. Henley had little talent as a writer, but he became a forceful and independent editor of several magazines and anthologies. In a letter to Henley from Switzerland shortly after completing Treasure Island, Stevenson wrote, “I will now make a confession. It was the sight of your maimed strength and masterfulness that begot John Silver in Treasure Island. Of course he is not in any other quality or feature the least like you; but the idea of the maimed man, ruling and dreaded by t
he sound, was entirely taken from you.”9 Stevenson later expanded on this and explained that his aim had been to take an admired friend and to deprive him of his finer qualities, leaving him with nothing but his strength and his geniality, and to try and express these traits in the person of a rough seaman.

  What is so striking about Treasure Island in terms of piracy is that the characters and the maritime details are totally convincing. Unlike Captain Marryat, who must have met a few pirates but could only produce stage characters in his book, Stevenson had never come across any pirates in his life, and yet he was able to create a cast of vicious and murderous men and to conjure up an authentic atmosphere of double-dealing and casual violence. The murder of Tom Morgan by Long John Silver is carried out with a practiced ease which leaves Jim Hawkins fainting with horror. Jim’s confrontation with the evil Israel Hands is the stuff of nightmares. Equally effective are the descriptions of the Hispaniola at sea, rolling steadily before the trade winds and “dipping her bowsprit now and then with a whiff of spray.” In 1890 W. B. Yeats told Stevenson that Treasure Island was the only book in which his seafaring grandfather had ever taken any pleasure, and it is easy to see why. Not only does Stevenson use seaman’s language with conviction, but he also understands the finer points of sailing and ship handling. This can be explained by his upbringing. His father and his grandfather were both distinguished lighthouse engineers and frequently voyaged around the Scottish coasts and islands on tours of inspection. It was originally intended that Stevenson should follow in their footsteps, and he did spend three years training as an engineer, sometimes passing the summer vacations cruising in the yachts of the Lighthouse Commission. In June 1869 he accompanied his father in the yacht Pharos on a visit to the Orkney Islands, and in 1870 inspected lighthouses on the Pentland Firth and in the Hebrides. Although he abandoned plans for a career in the lighthouse service, he continued to travel extensively, frequently by sea. In the summer of 1874 he voyaged around the Inner Hebrides in the yacht Heron with two friends, and in 1876 he traveled by canoe through the rivers and canals of northern France (later to be written up in An Inland Voyage). Two years before writing Treasure Island he made a return voyage across the Atlantic, though not in vessels in any way resembling the schooner Hispaniola: the outward journey from the Clyde was in the passenger ship Devonia and the return voyage was in the Royal Mail liner City of Chester. Several years later, when he had become an established writer, he voyaged extensively among the Pacific islands.