Captain Blood

by SABATINI, RAFAEL

  During Peter Blood’s trial for high treason, Sabatini explores another important thematic concept: that the practice of law can be easily corrupted by those who are willing to subvert justice for the sake of political expediency. His depiction of the ailing Judge Jeffreys in Chapter III, “The Lord Chief Justice,” is intended to suggest that, as Jeffrey’s body is diseased, his application of the law is equally diseased. Sabatini writes:His lordship’s voice was harsh as a file. He writhed as he spoke, and for an instant his features were distorted. A delicate dead-white hand, on which the veins showed blue, brought forth a hankerchief with which he dabbed his lips and then his brow. Observing him with his physician’s eye, Peter Blood judged him a prey to the pain of the disease that was destroying him.

  Lord Jeffreys is a horrible figure, a vampire-like monster that feasts on the torment of his victims in his courtroom, even as his own illness feasts on his body, and he is both frightening and frightful. He is the embodiment of depraved political fanaticism, the attack dog of a vengeful King James II. He is only opposed in his madness by Peter Blood who, during the mockery that poses as a trial, turns the tables on this hanging judge by the use of his keen intellect, instructing the Chief Justice about the true application of justice. At one point in Chapter III, while defending himself for helping the wounded Lord Gildoy, he admonishes the enraged Jeffreys by stating: “Justice is the concern of every loyal subject, for an injustice committed by one who holds the King’s commission is in some sense a dishonour to the King’s majesty.” Blood’s triumph in his duel of words with Jeffreys is that he torments the tormenting Chief Justice in turn. As one of the jurors noted, “On my soul, that swarthy rascal has given his lordship a scare. It’s a pity he must hang. For a man who can frighten Jeffreys should go far.” And, of course, the reader understands this to be a foretelling statement.

  The larger injustice, of course, in these opening chapters of Captain Blood, beyond the hijacking of the application of law in Jeffrey’s court, is the even more reprehensible practice of slavery, another thematic point in Sabatini’s novel. After being convicted of treason, Peter Blood is saved from the hangman’s noose when his sentence is commuted to transportation to Jamaica as a slave, along with eleven hundred other prisoners. Despite the drunken and frenzied objections of Chief Justice Jeffreys, claiming “misplaced clemency” on the king’s part, Sabatini makes it quite clear that clemency had nothing to do with this decision. The reader is told frankly that King James II, in his diabolical wisdom, had realized that he was wasting the valuable resource that his captives offered as exploitable labor, and hence wasting an unrealized profit. Sabatini adds: “He [King James II] knew that to spare lives in this fashion was to convert them into living deaths. Many must succumb in torment to the horrors of West Indian slavery, and so be the envy of their surviving companions.” The reader understands this to be a grotesque rationale, enacted by a heartless ruler for the meanest of purposes, and the depiction of this grim stage of Peter Blood’s odyssey transforms the erstwhile swashbuckling adventure story into a captivity narrative, a story of slavery in the New World that certainly resonates with an American audience all too familiar with the horrors of America’s colonial slave-trading and antebellum slave-owning past. Sabatini’s portrayal of slavery is an interesting one, however, in that it reveals that slavery, as an institution, extended beyond the African slave trade in this hemisphere, and that its existence, in any form and for any reason, was a crime against all humanity. Sabatini underscores in Peter Blood’s enslavement the immoral economic and political underpinnings of the practice of slavery, and Blood’s escape from this pernicious condition makes Sabatini’s novel a truly American story in its celebration of personal freedom. Regrettably, elements of racist nationalism are nevertheless still evident in Captain Blood, in the author’s stereotypical portrayals of the Spanish and French as stock villains.

  The popularity of Captain Blood spilled over into the medium of the motion picture, and two film versions were released in the 1920s and 1930s. The first, a silent film produced by Vitagraph and directed by David Smith, appeared in 1924 and starred J. Warren Kerrigan as Peter Blood and Jean Paige as Arabella Bishop. The second version, released in 1935 by Warner Brothers, was the more famous of the two. It was directed by Michael Curtiz and featured an unknown Australian actor named Errol Flynn in the starring role as Peter Blood (Olivia de Havilland, another relative unknown, appeared as Arabella Bishop, and Basil Rathbone as Levasseur). Robert Donat was originally cast in the lead, but failed to appear when the shooting began. The studio then wanted to cast Brian Aherne in the starring role, but he declined. For Errol Flynn and Warner Brothers both, the final casting selection was a fortuitous one. With Captain Blood, Warner Brothers helped to reinvigorate the popularity of the swashbuckling pirate film with movie audiences and with other Hollywood studios, and Errol Flynn himself became the foremost of cinematic swashbucklers.

  In his Preface to his edited collection of fiction, A Century of Sea Stories (1934), Rafael Sabatini comments eloquently on the function of the sea adventure story, reminding us indirectly that a substantial portion of Captain Blood: His Odyssey takes place on ships sailing the ocean. Sabatini writes:

  All good stories of the sea, then, are . . . stories of the conflicts that arise among men cooped within the narrow confines of the commonwealth that is represented by every vessel, of conflict between ship and ship, or of that most terrible conflict of all, the conflict between man and the awful forces of nature which, greatly daring, he has harnessed to his service.21

  Captain Blood is, of course, itself a classic sea story, one of the most famous and influential adventures of the sea ever published. It remains as fresh and exciting to readers today as it did when it was first published some eighty years ago. And, as Sabatini informs us in the above passage, as a classic sea adventure, Captain Blood does indeed present its protagonist with a number of conflicts, internal and external, practical and philosophical. The resolution of Peter Blood’s conflicts during his odyssey is entirely satisfying. His various triumphs celebrate the victory of the virtuous hero in a world of inequity, and celebrate the final attainment of love and honor for those who deserve them, achievements snatched from the designs of a sometimes malicious Fate. Many readers would probably agree that, all else aside, Captain Blood is simply no less than a wonderfully entertaining story, replete with action, romance, and adventure, and this quality alone is enough to guarantee its lasting immortality.

  NOTES1 Peter Keating, The Haunted Study: A Social History of the English Novel 1875-1914 (London: Secker & Warburg, 1989), p. 352.

  2 Charles S. Olcott, At the Home of Rafael Sabatini (Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin/Riverside Press, 1927), pp. 3-4.

  3 St. John Adcock, The Glory that Was Grub Street: Impressions of Contemporary Authors (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, no date given), p. 281.

  4 Olcott, p. 5.

  5 Rafael Sabatini, “Preface,” A Century of Historical Stories, edited by Rafael Sabatini (London: Hutchinson & Company, no date given), pp. vii-x.

  6 Rafael Sabatini, “Historical Fiction,” What Is a Book?: Thoughts About Writing, edited by Dale Warren (Boston: Houghton Mifflin/ Riverside Press, 1935), p. 23. Note: Sabatini is quoting himself in this passage, which first appeared as a preface to his play produced in 1925, entitled The Tyrant: An Episode in the Life of Cesare Borgia.

  7 “Romance,” Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature, 1995 ed.

  8 Sabatini, Preface, Historical Stories, p. ix.

  9 Olcott, p. 7.

  10 Ibid., pp. 7-8.

  11 George MacDonald Fraser, Introduction, Captain Blood: His Odyssey (Pleasantville, NY: Akadine Press, 1998), p. xiii.

  12 Ibid., xiv.

  13 Bernard Cornwell, Introduction, Captain Blood: His Odyssey (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002), p. viii.

  14 David Cordingly, Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates (New York: Harvest/Harcourt Brace & Co
mpany, 1995), p. xvii.

  15 Ibid., p. 43.

  16 George MacDonald Fraser, Foreword, The Fortunes of Casanova and Other Stories, selected by Jack Adrian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. v.

  17 Fraser, Captain Blood, p. xvii.

  18 Cornwell, p. x.

  19 Robert Sampson, Yesterday’s Faces: A Study of Series Characters in the Early Pulp Magazines, Volume 5—Dangerous Horizons (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1991), p. 24.

  20 Rafael Sabatini, Captain Blood Returns (New York: Ballantine Books, 1976), p. v. Note: this is a paperback reprint of the 1931 edition.

  21 Rafael Sabatini, “Preface,” A Century of Sea Stories, edited by Rafael Sabatini (London: Hutchinson & Company, 1956), p. 7. Note: this is a hardcover reprint of the 1934 edition.

  Suggestions for Further Reading

  Bloom, Clive. Cult Fiction: Popular Reading and Pulp Theory. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

  Brantlinger, Patrick. Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830-1914. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988.

  Cawelti, John G. Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976.

  Curtis, Sandra R. Zorro Unmasked: The Official History. New York: Hyperion, 1998.

  Drew, Bernard A. Action Series and Sequels: A Bibliography of Espionage, Vigilante, and Solder-of-Fortune Novels. New York: Garland Publishing, 1988.

  Fisher, Margery. The Bright Face of Danger: An Exploration of the Adventure Story. Boston: Horn Book, 1986.

  Green, Martin. The Adventurous Male: Chapters in the History of the White Male Mind. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993.

  Hoppenstand, Gary. Popular Fiction: An Anthology. New York: Long-man, 1998.

  Howarth, Patrick. Play Up and Play the Game: The Heroes of Popular Fiction. London: Eyre Methuen, 1973.

  Hughes, Linda K., and Michael Lund. The Victorian Serial. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1991.

  James, Lawrence. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1997. Note: This is a paperback reprint of the 1994 edition.

  Judd, Denis. Empire: The British Imperial Experience from 1765 to the Present. New York: BasicBooks, 1996.

  Levine, Lawrence W. Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.

  Lofts, W.O.G., and D.J. Adley. The Men Behind Boy’s Fiction. London: Howard Baker, 1970.

  Lukács, Georg. The Historical Novel. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1983. Note: this is a translation by Hannah and Stanley Mitchell, copyright 1962.

  McCann, Sean. Gumshoe America: Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and the Rise and Fall of New Deal Liberalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000.

  McClure, John A. Late Imperial Romance. London: Verso, 1994.

  McCracken, Scott. Pulp: Reading Popular Fiction. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1998.

  Mitch, David F. The Rise of Popular Literacy in Victorian England: The Influence of Private Choice and Public Policy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.

  Noel, Mary. Villains Galore: The Heyday of the Popular Story Weekly. New York: Macmillan Company, 1954.

  Orel, Harold. The Historical Novel from Scott to Sabatini: Changing Attitudes toward a Literary Genre, 1814-1920. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.

  Pyle, Howard. The Book of Pirates. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2000. Note: this is a paperback reprint of the 1921 Harper & Brothers Publishers edition.

  Slotkin, Richard. Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America. New York: Atheneum, 1992.

  Smith, Erin A. Hard-Boiled: Working-Class Readers and Pulp Magazines . Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000.

  Smith, Evans Lansing. The Hero Journey in Literature. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1997.

  Taves, Brian. The Romance of Adventure: The Genre of Historical Adventure Movies. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1993.

  Twitchell, James B. Preposterous Violence: Fables of Aggression in Modern Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

  Watson, Colin. Snobbery with Violence: Crime Stories and Their Audiences . New York: Mysterious Press, 1988. Note: this is a paperback reprint of the 1971 edition.

  Zweig, Paul. The Adventurer: The Fate of Adventure in the Western World. New York: Basic Books, 1974.

  CHAPTER I

  THE MESSENGER

  Peter Blood, bachelor of medicine and several other things besides, smoked a pipe and tended the geraniums boxed on the sill of his window above Water Lane in the town of Bridgewater.

  Sternly disapproving eyes considered him from a window opposite, but went disregarded. Mr. Blood’s attention was divided between his task and the stream of humanity in the narrow street below; a stream which poured for the second time that day towards Castle Field, where earlier in the afternoon Ferguson, the Duke’s chaplain, had preached a sermon containing more treason than divinity.

  These straggling, excited groups were mainly composed of men with green boughs in their hats and the most ludicrous of weapons in their hands. Some, it is true, shouldered fowling pieces, and here and there a sword was brandished; but more of them were armed with clubs, and most of them trailed the mammoth pikes fashioned out of scythes, as formidable to the eye as they were clumsy to the hand. There were weavers, brewers, carpenters, smiths, masons, bricklayers, cobblers, and representatives of every other of the trades of peace among these improvised men of war. Bridgewater, like Taunton, had yielded so generously of its manhood to the service of the bastard Duke that for any to abstain whose age and strength admitted of his bearing arms was to brand himself a coward or a papist.

  Yet Peter Blood, who was not only able to bear arms, but trained and skilled in their use, who was certainly no coward, and a papist only when it so suited him, tended his geraniums and smoked his pipe on that warm July evening as indifferently as if nothing were a foot. One other thing he did. He flung after those war-fevered enthusiasts a line of Horace—a poet for whose work he had early conceived an inordinate affection:“Quo, quo, scelesti, ruitis?”

  And now perhaps you guess why the hot, intrepid blood inherited from the roving sires of his Somersetshire mother remained cool amidst all this frenzied fanatical heat of rebellion; why the turbulent spirit which had forced him once from the sedate academical bonds his father would have imposed upon him, should now remain quiet in the very midst of turbulence. You realize how he regarded these men who were rallying to the banners of liberty—the banners woven by the virgins of Taunton, the girls from the seminaries of Miss Blake and Mrs. Musgrove, who—as the ballad runs—had ripped open their silk petticoats to make colors for King Monmouth’s army. That Latin line, contemptuously flung after them as they clattered down the cobbled street, reveals his mind. To him they were fools rushing in wicked frenzy upon their ruin.

  You see, he knew too much about this fellow Monmouth and the pretty brown slut who had borne him, to be deceived by the legend of legitimacy, on the strength of which this standard of rebellion had been raised. He had read the absurd proclamation posted at the Cross at Bridgewater—as it had been posted also at Taunton and elsewhere—setting forth that “upon the decease of our Sovereign Lord Charles the Second, the right of succession to the Crown of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, with the dominions and territories thereunto belonging, did legally descend, and devolve upon the most illustrious and high-born Prince James, Duke of Monmouth, son and heir apparent to the said King Charles the Second.”

  It had moved him to laughter, as had the further announcement that “James Duke of York did first cause the said Late King to be poysoned, and immediately thereupon did usurp and invade the Crown.”

  He knew not which was the greater lie. For Mr. Blood had spent a third of his life in the Netherlands, where this same Jame
s Scott—who now proclaimed himself James the Second, by the grace of God, King, et cetera—first saw the light some six-and-thirty years ago, and he was acquainted with the story current there of the fellow’s real paternity. Far from being legitimate—by virtue of a pretended secret marriage between Charles Stuart and Lucy Walter—it was possible that this Monmouth who now proclaimed himself King of England was not even the illegitimate child of the late sovereign. What but ruin and disaster could be the end of this grotesque pretension? How could it be hoped that England would ever swallow such a Perkin? And it was on his behalf, to uphold his fantastic claim, that these West Country clods, led by a few armigerous Whigs, had been seduced into rebellion!