"The Mutiny" for Daniel Defoe's "Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" (1863-64)

The Mutiny (page 328) — the volume's eighty-fifth composite wood-block engraving for Defoe's The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. Related by himself (London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64). Part II, The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Chapter X, "He is left on shore." Full-page, framed: 14 cm high x 21.9 cm wide. Running head: "Crusoe left at Bengal" (p. 329).

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: Crusoe's crew insists he left on shore

We were at this time in the road at Bengal; and being willing to see the place, I went on shore with the supercargo in the ship’s boat to divert myself; and towards evening was preparing to go on board, when one of the men came to me, and told me he would not have me trouble myself to come down to the boat, for they had orders not to carry me on board any more. Any one may guess what a surprise I was in at so insolent a message; and I asked the man who bade him deliver that message to me? He told me the coxswain.

I immediately found out the supercargo, and told him the story, adding that I foresaw there would be a mutiny in the ship; and entreated him to go immediately on board and acquaint the captain of it. But I might have spared this intelligence, for before I had spoken to him on shore the matter was effected on board. The boatswain, the gunner, the carpenter, and all the inferior officers, as soon as I was gone off in the boat, came up, and desired to speak with the captain; and then the boatswain, making a long harangue, and repeating all he had said to me, told the captain that as I was now gone peaceably on shore, they were loath to use any violence with me, which, if I had not gone on shore, they would otherwise have done, to oblige me to have gone. They therefore thought fit to tell him that as they shipped themselves to serve in the ship under his command, they would perform it well and faithfully; but if I would not quit the ship, or the captain oblige me to quit it, they would all leave the ship, and sail no further with him; and at that word all he turned his face towards the main-mast, which was, it seems, a signal agreed on, when the seamen, being got together there, cried out, “One and all! one and all!” [Chapter X, "He is left on shore," pp. 327-29]

Commentary

None of the previous illustrators have represented Crusoe's being marooned for his moral convictions on the shore at Bengal after the incident at Madagascar. In the dramatic confrontation between the sailors (left) and Crusoe (right), the crew express their determination to leave the ship themselves if Crusoe, who has advocated moderation in dealing with the natives, does not disembark immediately. Even though he was acting upon humanitarian impulses, Crusoe may have overreached his authority in ordering the men to desist. As a principal shareholder in the venture, his authority extends only to the safety of the supercargo, but he had attempted to order the men, as if he were the Captain. In vain does the Captain, Crusoe's nephew (probably to the right of the picture) attempt to reason with the men. In the text, the ultimate confrontation with the crew occurs on the shore of the Bay of Bengal, after the ship has lost five of its crew to the Arabians and the men are still smarting from Crusoe's characterizing their actions on Madagascar as a "massacre." Having been given an ultimatum by the boatswain, Crusoe discusses the situation with his nephew on the shore, but can find no basis for compromise. Here he is left with his goods and enough money to make his own way back to England, not merely for "speaking his mind," but for constituting a threat to those who behaved so badly in the recent conflict, for the men fear that he will "call them to account for it when they came to England" (327). Although the picture implies that this confrontation between Crusoe, the Captain, and the five spokesmen of the crew (the boatswain, the gunner, the carpenter, and two inferior officers) occurs on the deck of the ship, it in fact occurs on deck without Crusoe present.

Related Material

References

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. Related by himself. With upwards of One Hundred Illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64.

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Exciting Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, as Related by Himself. With 120 original illustrations by Walter Paget. London, Paris,and Melbourne: Cassell, 1891.

Last modified 8 April 2018