Although Defoe toyed with radical notions throughout _The History of the Pyrates_, he had little faith in their practicality. Libertalia must be understood as Defoe's best expression of political and social ideals which he admired but considered unworkable. The continuation of Misson's career in the section "Of Captain Tew" depicts the decline and fall of the utopia and the hero's tragic death as a disillusioned idealist. This, however, is another story, a story which suggested that private property was necessary, equality impossible and slavery a useful expedient for colonization. It was a far more comforting message for the Augustan Age, but it could not silence the tocsins of the French Revolution which sound throughout the speeches of Misson and Carracioli. Maximillian E. Novak University of Michigan Bibliographical Note The text of "Of Captain Misson and His Crew" has been reproduced from the Henry E. Huntington Library's first edition copy of the second volume of _A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates_ which appeared under the title _The History of the Pyrates_. Notes to the Introduction [Footnote 1: Daniel Defoe, _A Review of the Affairs of France_, ed. A. W. Secord (New York, 1938), IV, 424a.] [Footnote 2: _The Anatomy of Exchange--Alley_ (London, 1719), p. 8.] [Footnote 3: _A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates_ (London, 1728), II, 220.] [Footnote 4: See Cesare Beccaria, _An Essay on Crimes and Punishments_ (Stanford, 1953), pp. 97-99.] [Footnote 5: In the previous year Defoe had written that "it was the most dangerous thing in the World for a young Gentleman, sober and virtuous, to venture into _Italy_, till he was thoroughly grounded in Principle, ... for that nothing was more ordinary, than for such either to be seduc'd, by the Subtlety of the Clergy, to embrace a false Religion, or by the Artifice of a worse Enemy, to give up all Religion, and sink into _Scepticism_ and _Deism_, or, perhaps, _Atheism_." _A New Family Instructor_ (London, 1727), p. 17.] [Footnote 6: See Ruth Bourne, _Queen Anne's Navy in the West Indies_ (New Haven, 1939), pp. 63, 169-172; and _Manuscripts of the House of Lords_, New Series (London, 1921), VII, 117-119.] [Footnote 7: See Philip Gosse, _The History of Piracy_ (New York, 1934), p. 194; and Patrick Pringle, _Jolly Roger_ (London, 1953), pp. 136-138.] _Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci_. Hor. THE HISTORY OF THE PYRATES. VOL. II. OF CAPTAIN MISSON.