A Panorama of Slavery: The Privateersman

Captain Marryat, he of The Children of the New Forest, was a naval officer during the Napoleonic Wars and served under Lord Cochrane. His last naval adventure novel was The Privateersman, which turns out to be a reflection on slavery, for our hero, a disinherited gentleman from the north of England gets tricked into the slave trade, is then enslaved and then... Well you shall read the story.

The story opens in media res with a series of naval encounters in the Caribbean while our hero is a crewman on the privateer Revenge commanded by Captain Weatherall. First the Revenge captures a Frenchman, then is overwhelmed by a French and a Spanish ship acting together, then our hero is freed by the Hero and sent to hospital in Port Royal, Jamaica to recover. Then it's back to Liverpool, England and he meets the owner, Mr. Trevannion, of the privateer on which he had served in the Caribbean.

Now he sails as mate on a ship trading to Senegal, but is wrecked and captured by "natives" and carried off into the desert and sold as a slave to a fierce Negro desert king. But one of the king's women, Whyna, takes pity on him, and he becomes her personal slave. But then he and his companions are ransomed, return to the coast and sail back to Liverpool.

His time with the Negro queen excited interest in the gentry of Liverpool but soon it was time to ship out as first mate on another trip to Senegal. He uncovers a plot to capture the ship, foils the conspirators and sails back to Liverpool.

After a trip to London our hero gets command of his own ship for a bit of privateering. But first he takes some escaped Jacobites to Bordeaux, France and makes the acquaintance of the French that he fought in the Caribbean. Of course the Frenchie wants another fight, but our hero beats him and takes his ship as a prize back to Liverpool. But then he is arrested for helping the Jacobites escape. After being condemned to death and a short stay in the Tower of London as a traitor condemned to death he is pardoned and returns to Liverpool.

But his imprisonment in the Tower of London has persuaded our hero Elrington that privateering is not for him, and so he tells his employer -- in the hearing of the employer's daughter, the fair Miss Amy Trevannion, who is much impressed. He agrees to one more privateering cruise in which he captures three ships. But first he rescues a drowning man from a sinking ship that turns out to be his younger brother, Philip.

His employer is so pleased with him that he proposes to take him into business after a year's trial, but at the end of the trial Elrington refuses partnership because his employer's business is privateering. Miss Trevannion is cold towards him, and yet our hero observes her, later, weeping.

After numerous trials and excursions Elrington -- did you know his real name was Musgrave? -- heads to London to enroll his pal Captain Levee's ship to sail for the Royal Navy as a naval rather than a private ship. Then he captains a ship to Senegal for his employer, to take advantage of a special deal in elephant tusks and gold dust. 

But then Elrington gets the fever and when he wakes up his crew has exchanged the tusks and gold for slaves and they are on their way to Brazil and he is a prisoner of the mate Olvirez who hatched the slave plan. And when the ship arrives Rio de Janeiro in Brazil Elrington is sent off to a government diamond mine, for life, as an effective slave. But of course, he gets released by an extraordinary coincidence, and soon gets on a ship to return to England.

Only the ship gets wrecked on an island off North America. Elrington and the captain repair the ship enough to float it and get off the reef but they and the crew are captured by pirates and stripped of everything from clothes to money. The pirate soon anchors off the coast of America and cut the captives adrift in a rowboat.

By the way, did I mention that Elrington -- or Musgrave -- had scored a diamond from the diamond slave mine that he hangs around his neck in a leather pouch?

The former captives land and separate, and Elrington and a companion find a canoe and paddle up the coast, but then get captured by Indians, escape, and then recaptured. His companion is killed but he is forced to marry an Indian woman: slavery? One day while out hunting with the Indians he encounters a white man and would have joined his ship, except its crew were called the "Jolly Rovers:" pirates. He walks on and comes to a house on a hill. It is a plantation run by a woman who employs two convicts as slaves, and now also our hero, who finds himself once more a prisoner, a slave. But pretty soon he find out he is to be her sex slave as well: marriage or your life. Impossible: because Miss Trevannion! He tries to escape, but is captured and put in irons.

Pretty soon the plantation is attacked by Indians and set afire. He and his mistress run off in the smoke, and then he runs away from her and into the Jolly Rovers and joins their ship. But he refuses to join their crew or become their pirate captain. Even so, it's back down to the Caribbean and Jamaica. On the way they run into the pirate ship that had despoiled Elrington before and capture it. While engaged with the other pirate ship a British corvette shows up and blasts the pirates to smithereens.

Guess who the captain of the corvette is? Elrington's brother Philip.

So Elrington, first name Alexander, real surname Musgrave, makes a swift passage to England, sells his diamond for £38,000, finds out that his baronet father and his two elder brothers are dead, so he is now Sir Alexander Musgrave, and he can go to Liverpool and make his beloved Amy Trevannion into Lady Musgrave.

What a life: enslaved three times, imprisoned twice, captured any number of times. But things are much better now.