Produced by David Starner, Deirdre Menchaca, Ted Garvin and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team OF CAPTAIN MISSON From "The History Of The Pyrates. Vol. II." By Daniel Defoe GENERAL EDITORS Richard C. Boys, _University of Michigan_ Ralph Cohen, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Vinton A. Dearing, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Lawrence Clark Powell, _Clark Memorial Library_ ASSISTANT EDITOR W. Earl Britton, _University of Michigan_ ADVISORY EDITORS Emmett L. Avery, _State College of Washington_ Benjamin Boyce, _Duke University_ Louis Bredvold, _University of Michigan_ John Butt, _University of Edinburgh_ James L. Clifford, _Columbia University_ Arthur Friedman, _University of Chicago_ Louis A. Landa, _Princeton University_ Samuel H. Monk, _University of Minnesota_ Ernest C. Mossner, _University of Texas_ James Sutherland, _University College, London_ H.T. Swedenberg, Jr., _University of California, Los Angeles_ CORRESPONDING SECRETARY Edna C. Davis, _Clark Memorial Library_ INTRODUCTION Defoe has been recognized as the author of _A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates_ since 1932 when John Robert Moore suggested that the supposed author, Captain Charles Johnson, like Andrew Moreton, Kara Selym or Captain Roberts, was merely another mask for the creator of _Robinson Crusoe_. Although most of the first volume is of minor literary importance, the second section which appeared in 1728 as _The History of the Pyrates_ commenced with a life "Of Captain Misson and His Crew," one of Defoe's most remarkable and neglected works of fiction. In much the same manner and at the same time that John Gay was satirizing Walpole's government in _The Beggar's Opera_, Defoe began to use his pirates as a commentary on the injustice and hypocrisy of contemporary English society. Among Defoe's gallery of pirates are Captain White, who refused to rob from women and children; Captain Bellamy, the proletarian revolutionist; and captain North, whose sense of justice and honesty was a rebuke to the corruption of government under Walpole. But the fictional Captain Misson, the founder of a communist utopia, is by far the most original of these creations.