Daniel Defoe - A General History of the Pyrates

For Defoes interest in English fisheries and his concern for the Dutch intrusions see the Review, I [IX], 114b, 206b; and A General History of Trade (Aug. 1713), pp. 338. Programs for protecting English shipping and policing the Atlantic trade routes were being discussed and had been presented to the government; see the LJ , 16 Nov. 1723.

1. Defoe is alluding to the eleven years of peace since the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), when hostilities ceased between Great Britain, Holland, and the Empire, and France and Spain, bringing to an end the War of the Spanish Succession.
2. See Drydens Plutarchs Lives (1703), III, 48592.
3. The first edition sold for four shillings; the subsequent, enlarged editions for five.
4. John Atkins (16851757), naval surgeon on the Swallow during her cruise against the pirates on the Guinea coast in 1721. He was the register at the trials of Robertss crew at Cape Corso Castle in Feb. 1722, and returned to London on the Weymouth in the spring of 1723. He published A Treatise on the Following Chirurgical Subjects in 1724, and in 1735 A Voyage to Guinea, Brasil, and the West Indies, in which he superficially mentioned those places he had written about earlier in A General History of the Pyrates and directed his readers to his contributions there. Guinea, it might be noted, was considered that portion of the coast of Africa between Cape Verde and Cape Lopez, between 10 and 17 W. longitude, and 5 N. latitude.

Defoe had reported the British attacks on the Spanish Plate Fleet, the Crown Proclamations against piracy, and the disposition of the West Indian fleet earlier in Mercurius Politicus (Sept. 1717), pp. 61826; and had repeated these accounts in The History of the Reign of King George (1719), pp. 89; 1609. All the news was taken from the LG, 17 Sept. 1717. Woodes Rogerss expedition to Providence in the spring of 1718 was reported in all the papers, as was his arrival there and his colonizing activities; see the WJBG , 3 Jan. 1719. The capture of the Greyhound, Capt. Walron, was reported in the WJBG , 30 June 1722; the capture of Matthew Luke in MWJ , 4 Aug. 1722. The exchange of letters between the British and Spanish officials was taken from the DP, 14 July 1721. The latest advices reported by Defoe are in the WJBG , 22 Aug. 1724.

1. The War of the Spanish Succession from 1702 to 1713.
2. See Drydens Plutarch, IV, 3514.
3. Farmaco, a tiny island east of Salamis, off the S. Coast of Megara.
4. On the west coast of Turkey, south of Samos, in the Aegean Sea.
5. See Drydens Plutarch, IV, 10710.
6. See Drydens Plutarch, IV, 11019.
7. The pirate Arouj (14741518). Defoes source is The Turkish History... by Richard Knolles. With a Continuation... By Sir Paul Rycaut, 6th ed. (1687), I, 4289. Barbarouses brother was the equally infamous Kheyr-ed-din.
8. The Assiento was a privileged contract between the King of Spain and certain other powers for furnishing Negro slaves to the Spanish colonies in America. By the Treaty of Utrecht the British Government agreed to furnish annually 4,800 Negroes for a period of thirty years. The contract was renewed in 1748 but cancelled in 1750.