Empire: World History - 202. Long John Silver: The Truth Behind Treasure Island

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

Robert Louis Stevenson, a sickly boy with a vivid imagination, grew up along Scotland’s rugged coast, where tales of shipwrecks and buried gold stirred dreams of pirates and treasure. Out of this coastal world, Stevenson crafted Treasure Island - and with it, Long John Silver, a character who has since come to define the cunning, complex pirate in our imaginations. But what inspired Stevenson’s tale, and how did his own experiences, steeped in adventure and struggle, breathe life into one of literature’s greatest pirates? Tracing the origins of Treasure Island and its enduring characters, we learn that the stories are grounded in Stevenson’s Scottish roots, a tapestry of real pirate lore, and the influential writings of Daniel Defoe. We meet Jim Hawkins, the young hero, and Long John Silver, the peg-legged rogue inspired by stories of real marauders. Join Anita and William as they explore how Treasure Island came to shape the mythical pirate figure and inspire countless adventures. To buy tickets for Great Mughals: Art, Architecture and Opulence visit: https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/great-mughals-art-architecture-opulence?utm_source=empire_podcast&utm_medium=paid_editorial&utm_campaign=great_mughals_empire_podcast Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: [e-mail] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Assistant Producer: Anouska Lewis + Becki Hills Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpower.com. Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William Turimpool. We're just all giddy because we like this subject, pirates. And thank you for liking it, too. We've had so many nice things said about it.

We have been looking at real-life pirates, as you know, if you've been following the series. Blackbeard, William Kidd, Henry Avery, boo here's terrible Henry Avery. He's my favourite. He's your favourite. Not in real life, but it's the best story. It was extraordinary story. I mean, he's an appalling human being. Appalling human being, but what a tale. It's a good story, but I mean, you know, still, I'm sort of team William Kidd.

William Kidd was free William Kidd! Can I get T-shirts? Every pin as bad as the rest of them, I'm quite sure. Not on the Henry Avery scale of shit. But anyway. Look, today we're going to be discussing probably the pirates that you know better, but the ones that were not real, or were they, the fictional pirates, the ones that, you know, you've watched on screen or you've read in children's books or, you know, you've seen pictures of...

On pantos. Through Disney and pantos. Oh, yes, you have. You know you have. Oh, no, you haven't. Your timing is, I mean, exquisite. But it's extraordinary how this subject of all subjects should be. become the stuff of Pantons. Because as we saw last time with Henry Avery, these are very gruesome stories.

These are not sort of happy children's stories. These are stories of rape, pillaged, looting and robbery. And yet, we've managed somehow to, as we'll hear today, wave a magic wand over them and turn them into things that every kid wants to hear. I mean, now, honestly, a hand on heart, I did tee you up to tell everyone who we're talking about since you haven't. We are, by the way, with our exquisite comedic timing available for Panto in 2025. Let me just tell you. I mean, I really like Captain Hook out of all of the characters in Peter Pan. I think there's more hook in me than anyone else. So Captain Hook is one we're going to address, and J.M. Barry, and how did he get his inspiration? But you're starting us off with arguably the most famous fictional pirate of all time. Long John Silver. Step clunk. Step the man

with the wooden leg. It is Long John Silver. So tell me, first of all, why did you choose Long John Silver. Why does he appeal? Well, Long John Silver is something that is deep in my childhood. I was lucky enough to grow up in a tiny Scottish seaside town called North Berwick. And from my earliest childhood, I remember my grandmother pointing out to me the house where Robbie Lewis Stevenson used to come on his holidays. I think he was in Edinburgh. And in fact, I remember the house in Edinburgh because I think I even went to children's parties in that house where Robbie Newon Stevenson grew up. So he was very much around, long before I really knew who he was, he was someone that was very much talked about in the place I grew up. And the story always was. And there were different versions of the story. I always heard, first of all, that it was the Bass Rock that was the basis of Treasure Island. Looking now online and going down lots of rabbit hills, it seems it was two islands along, the island of Fidra, which is off a lovely beach called Yellowcray. And if anyone is anywhere near the East Lothian coast anytime soon, go and walk along. long yellow craig, which is happy memories for a lot of my childhood treasure hunts, which

again were inspired by Treasure Island. And this still goes on. We have in North Berwick still every summer a Robbie Doon-Steemson Festival and there's treasure hunts, inevitably in maps. Does everyone dress as a pirate? And all the kids are dressed as pirates. And I never quite believed it, to be honest, because North Berwick is as sort of clean and unpirity as anywhere has ever been. It's a lovely place. It's one of the most gorgeous, gorgeous of all Scots seaside towns, recently voted by the Sunday Times, the prettiest town in Britain and the best place to live in Britain, and nothing could be less threatening the North Berwick with its sort of pubs and chippies and seaside mission and all this sort of stuff going on on the beach.

But allegedly, this is where the idea percolated in Robert Louis Stevenson's childhood, going on canoe trips along the coast, going crabbearing, looking for crabs on North Berwick Beach, and having the same childhood as I had, which is a lovely and a strange thought, but I wish I'd come up with the idea for the Treasure Island, something as lucrative as that. I mean, look at the bright side, glass half four. This pod would never have happened if you were rich enough not to care. Quite true.

A great full nation, says cute. So, are you starting with Robert Lucy, or do you want to tell us a little bit about the other man, who is also a great pirate producer? Let's start with Daniel Defoe, exactly. I think Donald Defoe is the daddy. of all pirate stories, one might say. And he sort of predates everybody, born in 1660, an English writer, not Scottish, one of the few Scottish people, actually, we've discovered this in our

romp around the high seas with pirates, is that many of them, if not most of the ones we've talked about, have some Scottish connection, but devote very much an English writer. Because his was the seminal work, Robinson Crusoe, which sets the archetype for so much pirate fiction in the future. You know the story of Robinson Crusoe, I'm sure, but it is a man who has been stranded on an island. He is left entirely on his own and he's sort of to stop himself going mad and waiting year upon year with his eyes upon the horizon, waiting for somebody to rescue him. He learns to, and with terrible false starts, build homes for himself, build huts for himself, make clothes for himself, survive on this island, transforming coconuts into all manners of things.

And if you've seen Castaway with Tom Hanks very much in the spirit of Robinson Crusoe, again, a man playing the survival game, to try to stop himself going mad. And Robinson Crusoe was such a seminal work. But William Daryl, did you know, all great fiction is based, as we are finding, on real life. And so there was a real castaway that grabbed the world's attention. And we mentioned him last week, Alexander Selkirk. I think we need to talk a little bit more about him rather than just mention him. So just remind us how he came up last week.

He came up last week in the Henry Avery episode and just remind us why he came of in the Henry Avery episode. Because there is a story which is not verified that Alexander Selkirk, the castaway, who was the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe, was a ship member under the captain, Henry Avery, on the fancy. One who's very masculinely named the fancy. Yes, that's right. I think you aren't realizing the full resonance of the word fancy, which has a romantic sort of.

I swear on all that is holy, all I can think of is him on a fondant fancy, that there's this pink iced cake. in the water, which is blasting enemies. Well, as we know, Henry, Henry was not one of pink fondant and had a rather harsher edge to his steel than that. And apparently, anyway, according to some historians, Alexander Selkirk, the castaway, who was a real character, did spend time on Henry Avery's ship until he left it. Okay, all right. Beautifully summed up.

Exceptional stuff. It's hugely accurate. Can I tell you a bit more about Alexander Selkirk, though, because he's really interesting. He's one of those same people who starts off as a Royal Navy officer and then becomes a Scottish privateer. And it is, you know, that transition between being legit and non-legit on the high seas is a very easy one to make. Which is so flexible as we've found, yeah.

Very, very flexible, particularly if your crew doesn't like you. And so Selkirk finds himself in this position. He is a man who's on a ship during the War of Spanish Succession. And the Seckport is the name of the ship. It's captain by a man called Thomas Stranding. And he is telling Selkut keeps telling stranding, there's something wrong with the boat. This boat is not seaworthy. We really, honestly, I'm telling you there's something very wrong with the boat.

And he keeps saying this until the captain has had enough of this man's carpin, and he decides I can do without him. And so he just strands him in a place, it's off the coast of Colombia. It's near Malpello Island. So we're talking about 400 kilometres from the coast. of what is in El Columbia. And he's just dumped that. He gives him a knife and the clothes he's wearing and pretty much, and a musket.

That's very important than a musket. So Selkech finds himself there and he, like Robinson Crusoe, is staring constantly on the horizon. He is Fife, born and brought up. Like everybody we're going to see on this story. According to reports, he was a quarrelsome man with an unruly disposition and had been in court before being a privateer and then stranded for indecent conduct. church and I really wanted to get to see what that was. What did he do? That's in the record. In Lower Largo, no less. What did he do in church? But he's on this island and lucky for him,

he has grown up in the house of his father who is a shoemaker and a tanner in Lower Largo. So he's sort of, you know, imbibed through this and it's probably that experience that saves his life, to be honest, because through what he has seen and what he decided not to be, be his career. Very soon it becomes clear to this poor man who is, how long is he stranded? I think he's stranded for about three years on this island. And we haven't said that the ship he gets dumped from immediately sinks. Oh, sinks. He was right. He was absolutely right about this ship not being seaworthy. It was creaking and groaning. They dump him and they go off and the ship then promptly sinks. So, you know, if only he had the pleasure as I told you so, but he doesn't even know

this because he's so stranded. He's stranded and he's sitting doing sort of skinning goat skins. Well, that's what he does. So his clothes fray to pieces. And so then he does, with his musket, he hunts animals. And he has a very finite amount of bullets. But he manages to get, in the early days, shoot for food, and then skins them, and then puts them to one side thinking this will come in handy at some point. And then he learns to stitch these clothes.

And he also learns to stitch coconut shells into shoes to fashion them into sandals. And in the end, when they fall apart, he doesn't. need them anymore because his feet are so calloused that, you know, he feels nothing. But it is thanks to that sort of tannery background and that shoemaking background that he's able to stitch together shelters to hide him away from the elements. And it is the thing that allows him to survive. He is eventually rescued. We should say this is the basis for Desert Island Discs, isn't it?

Because he also has a Bible. He has a Bible. He has a Bible. This is what you're allowed. It doesn't have to plead works for Shakespeare at this point. But he has to wait until 1709 when a ship called the Duke notices him, the captain of the Duke takes him aboard. And he immediately becomes this overnight sensation and sort of pretty much dines off the story for the rest of his life. There's some lovely bits of stories.

He lives off feral goats and wild turnips. It's the nicest. It's not a bad diet. He personally domesticated the cats. of the island and gets them to catch the rats. So he doesn't get overrun by rats. It is an amazing story. You know, if you read DeVosso-Robinson Crusoe,

because he would have been, like everybody else, bombarded with the story of Selkirk and how extraordinary this man was. And he sort of reproduces it. A nice detail for you, if you're so keen on these very feminine ships. You'll be glad to hear that the ship that picks him up is called the Duchess, which would go nicely in a fleet with the fancy. That's hilarious, because I read it was the Dew.

Oh, how interesting. It is the Duchess. I literally wrote down his ship was the Duke. Captain by no less than William Dampier. Right. That's so funny. I wrote down the Duke so my brain wouldn't take that on. But Defoe does more than just kind of plagiarise the life of Salkirk and reproduce it,

because he does produce this thing called the Pirate Code. Now tell us, I mean, this is the first time this idea of a pirate code comes into the public consciousness. Reminders, what is the Pirate Code, William? So, yes, we've talked about the Pirate Code before. It's this idea, this sort of, this fantasy, really. And this is one of the basis for this fantasy that all pirates are equal, that whether you're black or a slave or wherever you're from, once you're in the Jolly Roger, you are all pirates together.

But we know it not to be true at all, don't we? And in fact, all these guys are much darker and much more hierarchical horror stories attached to them. And slaves remain slaves, in fact, are often turned into slaves by these pirates. And Defoe is creating the beginning of this myth. It's an attractive idea that generations love. So the romance is there, yes. Free men in an unfree world, you know, that there is some honour among thieves.

It is an honour code among these thieves. But Defoe is the seminal influence on your man, Robert Louis Stevenson. Because Stevenson is beguiled by the Defoe's stories, isn't he? So as I say, yes, Robbie Louis Stevenson's childhood is Edinburgh, and his parents take holidays sometimes in Fife, near Lowe Lago, where Alexander Selkirk is from and where he first hears these stories. And then partly in East Lothian on the North Berwick Coast where he sees these islands and dreams up the idea of Treasure Island and a Treasure Map. And that's the starting point for this novel, which becomes the single thing above all else, Treasure Island, which romanticises and, if you like, humanises the whole story of the pirates.

But let's put some dates on him. So he was born in 1850. He's the only child of Thomas Stevenson and Margaret Balfour. And by all accounts was a very weak and sick. He had weak lungs because his mother had had weak lungs before. And so he inherits this congenital weakness. He's unusually thin. He's sort of wiry with a narrow vulpine face like a wolf. He's rather handsome in middle age and he has a kind of rather sort of dashing long hair that he wears over a velvet jacket and a kind of rather dashing moustache. But his family are famous.

And my friend Bella Bathgate wrote a whole book about the Stevenson's before Robby-Lew, because they are the makers of the Scottish Lighthouses. And so he grows up with lots of sea stories about, you know, all his family are taking boats and going off to islands and building lighthouses on them. And as you can imagine, lots of stories of storms and lifeboats and sailors washed ashore. And this is absolutely the milk that he drinks as a child. This is the stories which he hears at the table. Robert Louis Stevenson, because I don't know him as well as Willie keeps calling him Robbie. It's always Robbie.

He's Robbie Lewis. Definitely Robbie. Robert Louis. Once from Essex, always from Essex. Prodigious talent, this man, from a very clever family that make these lighthouses. But at the age of 16, he publishes his first work of fiction. And it recounts an unsuccessful rebellion against the Crown by Scottish Presbyterians, known as the Covenanters in 1666.

His dad is so quelling with pride over his son's achievement that he publishes this pamphlet at his own expense. I mean, talk about Nipo baby. He comes from getting published. And this pamphlet is delivered far and white. Stevenson starts getting a very good reputation. So covenanters are kind of, I mean, frankly, they're kind of Scottish Taliban. And I'm ashamed to say that my ancestors were among them. And they were extremist Protestants who went so far as to take inspiration for the Gospels and to refuse to meet in churches because of the sermon in the Mount where Jesus is sitting,

chatting to his disciples just on a mountain side. So this is what they did in Scotland, which is the most unsuitable place to have open air sermons ever because it's usually raining. Can you hear, I mean, I've just come back from Dundee. It's very windy. Very windy and very wet. But anyway, these guys burn down churches, and they are not only take issue with images and the usual sort of stuff that the early Protestant reformers take issue with in the Catholic Church, such as stained glass windows and illustrations of saints' lives and so on, they also take issue with the churches themselves and burn them down.

So all over Dumfriesia and the West Coast, which is where the covenants are from, these guys systematically destroy the churches of the region. But they were also greatly romanticised in some parts of Scottish history. They're seen as these very romantic vagabonds who broke free from convention and were not part of the establishment. And I think this is what appeals to Robbie New and Stevenson. He sees them as romantic figures. Well, okay.

So his father is proud of him for writing this Covenant of his story. He prints out his work. He gives it to all of his friends and says, show your friends. This is my boy. my boy, Robbie, this is my boy. However, this sort of pride in his boy doesn't last very long because Robert Louis Stevenson or Robbie is not great at university. He's at the University of Edinburgh and he is not doing so well. I mean, he enters very young. Is it normal for a child to enter at 16? I think it was at that stage, absolutely, yeah. Okay, so he certainly goes to the University of Edinburgh at 16, but perhaps it's because the subject that is dad, like an Indian dad, says you're going to follow in the family footsteps, you're going to be a lighthouse. engineer like me. But Robbie's wired differently. And, you know, had he gone into lighthouse engineering,

the lighthousees might have been wired differently because it's not his thing at all. So instead of applying, you know, himself to his studies, he starts becoming a bit of a rebel. Now, at uni, I can't imagine you rebelled at uni because you rebelled all your life and you continue to do so. But I did sort of go through a slight got goth phase until I realised my skin was far too dark. There are photographs that we can post on the internet. I would love to see the goth I was a wannabeed got for about a month. And then I just realized I just couldn't care off. Wasn't pale and interesting enough.

But he goes through that same sort of rebellion and starts becoming known for his outrageous dress and behaviour. So he grows this cavalier moustache and twiddles it. And, you know, he's got this bob haircut. He keeps throughout his life, yeah. It's just, you know, he turns and he gets himself image. And a wide-brimmed hat. Yes.

And what else? But he also smokes hash. And I can't imagine was easily available in 19th. Edinburgh and visited brothels, which probably was more available in 19th century. Well, that was probably the extracurricular activity that most were involved in. But he wears this sort of very distinct velveteen coat, and his nickname becomes velvet jacket at uni. And his dad is beside himself. Like, what is going to become of my boy, Robbie?

He started with such promise. And now he's turning into a bloody idiot. And he is absolutely obsessed with Daniel Defoe. and he's sitting there when he should be at college, studying, engineering and trying to become an engineer like his dad and uncles. He is imitating Daniel Defoe's style and also travelling a lot. He soon gets out of Scotland, as all Scots do, and goes off to the French Riviera to recover from his ill health. And, of course, once out in France, he begins to have love affairs, falls in love with a woman called Fanny van der Gryft Osborne, which sounds like it's not going to have. well.

Because? A married but separated American woman. 11 years is senior. Right. Okay. Not just that she's a relation to body of born. Not just the name. No.

Okay. And she's living in an artist colony. So he's quite a dashing and sort of bohemian character. He goes off to America to pursue her there. But again, his health is too delicate. It takes a turn for the worse as he's crossing the American plains, tracking down this woman. So he ends up poor.

sick and starving in Monterey in California, which is where Steinbeck also ends up. And Steinbeck finds in the low life of Monterey all the inspiration for his characters in Canary Row and of Mice and Men. Okay. And Stevenson does the same, doesn't he? And he also ends up in San Francisco. So looking out at the waters and nearly dying and seeing the low life by the Keys was entirely influential on him. So there he is. He's poor. He's bedraggled. He's, you know, his heart He's broken. He's sick. He's looking out at the waters around San Francisco, but life is about to change. Join us after the break and find out how. Welcome back. So we left poor old Robbie Louis Stevenson far from Scotland in Monterey, heartbroken, impoverished and sick, but things take a term

for the better quite soon after that. And he hears that Fannie has indeed obtained a divorce from a husband. And on May the 19th, 1880, she and Stevenson were married. And a year later, he returns to Scotland. Now, even in the Scotland of my childhood, there was a lot of raised eyebrows about divorced women. So I can imagine that when he settles in Bray Mar, it's because his family want nothing to do with him. It would be very scandalous in the 1880s to marry a foreign woman who had been divorced. They think he's gone quite mad with his mustache and his velvet jacket. So this is all now part. This is brand. Brand Robbie now. So yes, he sort of stays far, far away. But does Fanny have a son already when he marries? She already has a child that he kind of takes on, doesn't he? Which adds to the scandal of all of this.

He's well-grown young man. He's 13 years old and he's come with them and they're sitting in a cottage in Breh-Mar. So it's not as if when he begins writing Treasure Island that he's at all an established writer or a successful figure or the romantic sort of dashing figure that, you know, has children's festivals named after him all over Scotland. No, he's a rejected Nipo baby who has one pamphlet to his name and now his dad who got it out there. It's not talking to him. So, yes, quite. Yeah, so it's a bit of a mess. But drawing on Daniel Defoe and drawing on his East Lothian childhood holidays and drawing on this story that's there in that original book on the pirates, the non-fiction book, that both Blackbeard and La Boustealthyrie. the French pirate, the buzzard, leave treasure maps. These are historical stories which are

actually established. And drawing on that gives the starting point for this book, Treasure Island, when a treasure map is found. It's even more charming than that. It starts with a home project. So Fanny's 13-year-old son is busying himself around this Braymar cottage. You know, he's not got any of his friends left. He's not with his dad, you know, so he starts amusing himself. I assume they're short of cash, too. Yeah, he does paintings using watercolours. And he wants to turn this sort of drab cottage into something more beautiful. It's 13-year-old, you can totally see this in your mind's eye.

So he starts turning the rooms into a picture gallery just to keep himself occupied. Stevenson is charmed by this and sometimes joins in. And it is on one of those occasions that he makes this map of a fictional island, which he calls Treasure Island. And that is this image in the cottage on the wall in this picture gallery that is the imagination of a 13th. year old, that the idea of Treasure Island haunts him and keeps coming back to him, this map that he's drawn just to, you know, entertain his stepson. And the Scottish law, which may or may not be true, is that the shape of the Treasure Island, which is drawn, is this island of Fidra between

Gillen and North Berwick and East Lothian, and it's turned upside down. And that's the shape of the island. That is so interesting. He actually talks about this map and how this sort of image keeps haunting his brain. He says, as I paused upon my map of Treasure Island, the future characters of the book began to appear then visibly among imaginary woods and their brown faces and their bright weapons peeped out at me from unexpected quarters, fighting and hunting treasure on these few square inches of a flat projection. And the next thing I knew, says Robert Louis Stevenson, I had some papers before me and was writing out a list of characters. Isn't that great? That's brilliant. It starts with those characters and a list of chapters.

he also says that he makes at this beginning. So, you know, it's haunted by this picture and this idea that's struggling to come off the page. He decides very early on, I suppose I'd Defoe as well, that this would mean more if it has some historical grit in it. So he writes the London booksellers, very famous booksellers called Nut and Bain. And he says, can you send me all historical information about pirates, in brackets, not buccaneers, but pirates like Blackbeard? because he wants facts to underpin his story like Defoe had done with Selkirk. And he had in his mind that the prospective readership is very much going to be boys. Like Fanny's son, I suppose you write for who you see and who you care for.

And so this sort of steady stream of books comes to him, some of which are really dodge, by the way. You know, as we found out, a lot of the pirate factual books that were written at the time were based on nonsense, our fiction. But, you know, that's what he has, and he has a good heart in him. But he comes up with these characters. So he finds that the main character in his book is going to be Jim Hawkins, a young lad who finds a treasure map in an old sea chest belonging to a deceased sailor called Billy Bones at his family inn. You can't get a better name than Billy Bones.

Fantastic. Yeah, exactly that. And then the voyage begins with Jim alongside a man called Dr. Livesey and someone called Squire Trelawney who set out to try and find treasure hiring a ship, the Hispaniolaola, And unknowingly, they bring aboard a man and a crew, and the man who leads this crew, go on, you take it away. I know you want to. Long John Silver, no less. Okay, so then what happens in the story? Well, of course, there's a mutiny.

Mid-voyage, Jim overhears Long John Silver and the crew, plotting mutiny, realizing their intent to seize the treasure for themselves. And then they go off onto the island, and Jim and his allies battle Silver's pirates in a series of skirmishes while racing to find the best. treasure, and then they return. Defeating the mutineers, securing the treasure, and Jim and the remaining loyal crew returned to England, but Long John Silver, who's not a sort of total villain, is he? He's not a pure evil, no. He's really sympathetic, actually. He's scared of being hanged, and he wants to make a bit of money and have a life, doesn't he really? And he does escape with a portion of the loot. So Long John Silver is not the kind of demon that Captain Hook and some of the other sort of more dodgy fictional parrots. I'll make an impassioned claim for Captain Hook in our

next episode of fictional pirates, but let's put him to one side. But long John Silver, I mean, you know, you will remember him. He has a parrot on his shoulder and a wooden leg. So that's step-thunk, step-thunk when you know he's coming. So let's find out actually if there are, you know, real historical precedence for what is in the book. So, I mean, we know that things that have become very popular with pirates are actual things. Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight is what his pirate. No, his pirate is parrot. His pirate.

His pirate keeps saying, and those are actual coins that are minted in the Americas from the late 15th century throughout to the 19th century. I had never worked that out all my childhood. I used to read about pieces of that and even played that game, Buccaneer. Do you ever played Buccaneer when you were a child? What's Buccaneerneur? Buccaneer is a sort of monopoly-style board game that was all about pirates. And you had diamonds and pieces of eight and treasure chests and maps.

No. I played a game called Bukaroo, which is a donkey behind that too. I was very bad at Bukaroo. Not Buccaneer. Yeah, yeah, Baccaroo I liked. So that is true. We know that he would have come across stories like that of William Kidd who had buried treasure. So, you know, there is a precedent for buried treasure and everyone is kind of a little bit obsessed with this. And if you remember in the story of William Kidd, we should just remind those who may not have heard that episode that William Kidd that William Kidd, that William Kidd, on the scaffold tries to make a deal with the Admiralty that he will give over his treasure map if he could be taken on the trip to dig up the treasure. The Admiralty rather unimaginatively says no, it just hangs him.

So leaving that hanging, where is the treasure? Literally leaving it hanging. And people are still looking for the treasure. We did tell you about some arrests that have been made in Asia, people in Vietnam, I think, people who'd sort of come illegally to try and dig for treasure. Anyway, look, I was looking at some of the books that he might have got from Nut and Bain, you know, this stream of books and how they might have been inspired him. There is a book that was published in 1682, which was a hugely successful book,

which must have been one of this stream of things that he got, which is a first person accounting of life as a buccaneer in the Americas by a man called Alexander Exelman. I think I'm saying, it's E-X-Q-U-E-M-E-M-E-L-I-N. Exquelmelmin, let's go Ex-E-L-M-L-L-L-L-N. I think that's it, Ex-E-E-L-L-M-E. It is a real name, a 1682 book. And it is a primary source on Caribbean Raiders throughout the 1660s. So people sort of come to this man and he writes this guy, Alexander, a lot like Jim Hawkins' voice.

So he presents himself, he's on these voyages, but he's very much like Jim Hawkins is, an innocent among thieves. You know, that he just happens to be on these voyages. So that voice, I don't think it's too much of a stretch, that this is very influential on him. and it's a first-person account, and he describes the pirates much in a way Jim Hawkins describes the crew. There is also that very sus book that we've talked about before, Captain Johnson's general history of pirates, P-Y-R-A-T-E-S, which we have concluded is pretty much bullshit. It's pretty much made up, but full of good stories that kicks off this old bandway. But it has the names, even some of the names of the pirates that end up in Stevenson's book, you can find them. So, you know, Howell Davis, Edward England, Bartholomew Roberts, there's a fictionalized Israel,

rail hands in the Stevenson's book. You know, you've got real pirates in his book, like Blackbeard, Edward Teach, you know, makes a supporting role in there. And the geography, isn't it? The geography is not just the Caribbean, but it's also Madagascar, which kept coming into all our stories. Every one of our pirates that we talked about at some point goes to this famous pirate colony in Madagascar, both William Kidd and Avery and Blackbeard. And then there's also this interesting thing which I'm longing to know more about, and we haven't dealt with enough, I think, this whole thing of the Malabar pirates, the pirates off the coast of Kerala. And there's a whole world of pirates that hunt down the spice ships and the had ships, which are crossing the Indian

coast. And we dealt with Avery in the Red Sea, capturing that incredible fleet of Hajis from Arangzeb's court. But I love all these stories of all these guys operating out of the creeks of Malabar and Goa. We might come back to that. I mean, the things, you know, the more you do this series. People sometimes ask me, are you ever worried that you're going to run out of material? No, because we are the land of the rabbit hole. And we have to like force ourselves not to go through every rabbit hole we come across. Can I tell you a nice little nugget I found about Stevenson? Again, I'm really interested in how the formation of these works of art that then become legendary. And so I love that story of the painting of the map on the wall with Fanny's 13 year old son.

But there's also another lovely story. Stevenson is friends with the parents of a guy called Philip Goss. And he will become the author of the 1932 history of piracy. And the reason that Goss becomes obsessed with pirates is because Stevenson infects him with his passion. Because he tells him and his siblings pirate-themed stories at bedtime. So he's often over for dinner. And they say, Uncle Robbie, Uncle Robbie, will you tell us a story about pirates? And it infects Goss to such an extent. He builds up the most important collection of piracy books in this country.

And he uses it to write a book in 1924 called The Pirates Who's Who, the History of Piracy. And it's the first attempt to be sort of academic about this issue of piracy. And to try and work out what's true and what's not. Although he didn't do a very good job, but it has to be said, because he does take on face value some of those old books that we now know to be a little bit full of nonsense. But Goss's book collection is so extensive and so well thought off. Do you know where it is right now? Where is it? The Royal Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

So there's a direct line through bedtime stories and the Man of Treasure Island. and an actual collection in an actual museum. Isn't that great? It would be lovely to spend time putting this all into a book, wouldn't it? It would be great to write a pirate book. I love all that. Yeah. Also, just one other little nugget, since I'm getting over-excited about these things. Ben Gunn, on Treasure Island, you know, this character who is also stranded. So that's very much Alexander Selkirk, who's sort of on his island as well. This stranded idea of a man like Daniel DeFoe's Robinson Crusoe is a real thing.

But do you remember what Ben Gunn was desperate for on the island? What did he want? Cheese! All he wants is cheese! You know, I remember on my first trip to India when I was 18 years old, I remember I used to fantasise about Stilton. The one thing that I really, really longed for was a piece of Stilton. How interesting. How interesting.

I didn't realize this is a long tradition. But Anita, tell me about who the historical characters are based on in Treasurandum, because each of them, or the main characters do all have historical precedence, don't they? They have links that you can trace. back. So Captain Edward England and the parrot. So there's a real parrot behind Long John Silver's parrot? There is a real parrot behind the parrot, yes.

So Silver says he sailed with this man, Captain Edward England. It turns out he was real. And he was one of those pirates who visited Madagascar, Malabar. It's the same three places, isn't it? It's that sort pirate triangle. Yes, the triumvirate pirate. And he captured a 700 tonne Portuguese galleon, allegedly laden

with the wealth of the entire vice royalty of Goa in 1721. So this is the same story as Labus. Can you remember I told the story of how I'd gone to the grave of Labus and found all the rum? Oh, yes. Yes, yes. So these two together, Labus, who's French, the Buzzard, and Edward England and his parents, so a very sort of avian crew, together land on the ship coming out of Goa.

And it, in fact, is bringing the viceroy back with all his winnings from all his time in the Indies. And I think after the attack on Orangzeb's flagship, this is the second biggest hall that any pirate ever captures. And they split it between Edward England and Labus. When Labus is at the scaffold, he takes his treasure map. This is the famous image, which again percolates into so much pirate literature. And he tears up the pieces of the map and throws it into the crowd. and so no one has the whole map but everyone's trying to work out where Laboosa's treasure is buried

and it's ever been found and again people continue to look for it and continue to offer offerings at Laboosa's grave. Yeah, you said he sort of thought, did you find sort of rum? Rum, cigarettes and pastis. Pastis as well, nice. So he, real. Peter Scudamore, Peter Scudamore,

the surgeon who amputates Long John Silver's leg in the book, he is a real person There was a real pirate called Peter Scuddemolome, who was taken prisoner after the defeat and death of Captain Bartholomew Roberts. Roberts dies from a grape shop which struck him directly on the throat. And Scudemore tries to incite his fellow prisoners and also Angolan slaves, which are below deck, retake the ship, saying it is better venturing to do this than to proceed to Cape Corso and be hanged like a dog. And sun dried. And sun dried, he says. but it doesn't really work because he is indeed hanged and sun dried. So, you know, there are the names which are direct links.

So you can just see that Stevenson's sort of parade of books from Nut and Bain. You find them nestled in the work if you dig. I'm also, because in all fiction, all pirates seem to have Cornish accents. They all talk about our ease. And here we are. They hanged like a dog and sun dry. We went straight into it without thinking. Well, shall I tell you what it is?

My Simon sent me a note on it. I'm trying to find it. So the reason that all pirates have West Country accents is because the actor who played Long John Silver and Blackbeard was a West Country man. His name was John Newton. And he's the first person who puts these characters on screen. And he does it with the West Country accent because he grew up in Cornwall near Land's End. And he exaggerated the West Country accent to make it sort of sound more interesting and different to the Toffs. And so after that, you know, Like, O'R! Newton is known as the patron saint of international talk like a pirate day. And that's why we all, there is an international talk like pirate day. But again, there is a basis for this, isn't that? Squire Trelawney in Trelawney is definitely a Cornish name in Treasure Island, Rob Lewston,

makes one of the key characters a Cornishman. And if you ever go to Cornwall, all those places like St. Moors and Hodes and Bays are full of pirate stories and smugglers, smugglers and pirates. Smugglers and Pirates and, you know, sort of thinking moonfleet and all of that. But the accent is thanks to John Newton who played both Blackbeard and Long John Silver on screen and was a Cornishman. And that is why we all revert to that. Arr. Sun-dry in the sun.

Scurvy dogs. We talked so long about this. We were going to do Peter Pan in this episode as well. J.M. Barry and his island of pirates. And Peter Pan, who is the scourge of the pirate Captain Hook. But we just talked so much about this and we'll do it in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening. Do you have anything to add before we leave these fine people?

Just that if you go to North Berwick in June, you can join the North Berwick-Roberic-Roberic Festival and go and take your children to dig up treasure in North Berwick Beach, which is a thing I did all my childhood and strongly recommend it. Take a spade. Go nuts. Until the next time we meet then, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnon. And goodbye for me, the scurvy dog, William Durampal.