Captain Singleton

Stolen from a prosperous family as a child and raised among travelling people, Bob Singleton escapes into maritime life and is eventually abandoned with a mutinous crew on the coast of Madagascar. Rather than remain there, the men attempt an extraordinary overland crossing from Mozambique towards the Atlantic coast, surviving heat, hunger, dangerous terrain and violent encounters while accumulating ivory, gold and other wealth.

When Singleton later turns pirate, the novel shifts from survival narrative to a practical account of ships, crews, prizes, trade routes and the economics of organized robbery in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. His friendship with the Quaker surgeon William Walters gradually challenges the habits of violence and acquisitiveness that have governed his life. Defoe uses adventure to examine commerce, colonial exploitation, criminal enterprise and the possibility of repentance.