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The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Called Colonel Jack — Reading Notes

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In Category - Exploration Survival Adventure Tales

Authors: Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2016 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: England -- Social life and customs -- 18th century -- Fiction; Adventure stories, English; Picaresque fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 149,805

Reading time 652 min

Text sections 15

The source record for The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Called Colonel Jack — Reading Notes measures this digital text at 149,805 words, 10 hr 52 min estimated reading time, and 15 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 34.4 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “England -- Social life and customs -- 18th century -- Fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #52603

Defoe's picaresque novel follows Colonel Jack from London pickpocket to Virginia planter, soldier, and merchant. The excerpts show a first-person narrative that shifts from criminal exploits to maritime adventure, with detailed cargo inventories and ransom negotiations.

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Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
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and. Yet even when the scene shifts to the further side of the ocean, Defoe makes no blunders; nothing impossible occurs; his geography is correct. In _Colonel Jacque_, perhaps more than anywhere else, we see that interest of Defoe’s in distant British possessions which made him, as I have said, one of the “imperialists” of his time. Even so, what vividness there is in the American scenes is too largely commercial. Not many people, other than small traders or would-be traders, could ever have read with interest such a paragraph as the following:—

“With the sloop I sent letters to my wife and to my chief manager with orders to load her back, as I there directed, viz., that she should have two hundred barrels of flour, fifty barrels of pease; and, to answer my other views, I ordered a hundred bales to be made up of all sorts of European goods, such as not my own warehouses only would supply, but such as they could be supplied with in other warehouses where I knew they had credit for anything.”

Very different are the earlier pages which deal with Jacque’s adventures as a poor criminal boy in England. Here Defoe was on ground that he knew thoroughly. Sir Leslie Stephen[1] has observed that Defoe passed beyond the bounds of probability when he made his hero, an almost elderly man writing his memoirs in Mexico, remember the details of his boyish thieving with marvellous exactness. Barring this improbability—one by the way which you are not aware of while you read the scenes in question, for you do not know how long a time will elapse before the hero begins to record his experiences—the verisimilitude of the first part of _Colonel Jacque_ could not be surpassed. Moreover, in picturing the life of the poor, neglected boy, Defoe is unusually sympathetic. And so in the early pages of _Colonel Jacque_, more than anywhere else, is found the power of the story, the secret of its popularity when Smollett was writing _Roderick Random_, and the secret of its appeal to readers to-day. Lamb was hardly overstating the case when he declared, “The beginning of ‘Colonel Jack’ is the most affecting, natural picture of a young thief that was ever drawn.”[2]

At the end of the second volume of _Colonel Jacque_ will be found two of Defoe’s earlier political satires:—_The True-Born Englishman_ and _The Shortest Way with the Dissenters_. The former, the most celebrated piece of verse which Defoe wrote, was published in January, 1701. The circumstances which led to its publication are set forth by the author himself in his autobiographical sketch of 1715, _An Appeal to Honour and Justice_.

On the first of August, 1700, according to his statement, there appeared “a vile abhorred pamphlet, in very ill verse, written by one Mr. Tutchin, and called _The Foreigners_; in which the author . . . fell personally upon the King himself, and then upon the Dutch Nation. And after having reproached his Majesty with crimes that his worst enemy could not think of without horror, he sums up all in the odious name of _Foreigner_. This filled me with a kind of rage against the book, and gave birth to a trifle which I never could hope should have met with so general an acceptance as it did; I mean _The True-Born Englishman_.”

The reason for Tutchin’s pamphlet was that William III., never loved by the English, became less and less popular after the death of Queen Mary. A Dutchman, he was supposed to have the interests of Holland more at heart than those of England. This supposition was strengthened by the fact that he took no Englishmen into his confidence as he did his old and trusted Dutch friends. These, naturally, shared his unpopularity, especially the Duke of Schomberg and the King’s favourite minister, William Bentinck, created Earl of Portland, both of whom are mentioned by Defoe in his _True-Born Englishman_.

Defoe, in this reply to Tutchin’s pamphlet, sought to prove that the king and his foreign friends had as good right to the esteem of the English as any patriots in the history of the country. In the first part of the “poem,” as Defoe called his satire, he showed that William, with his Dutch blood, was as much entitled to the name of Englishman as any of his subjects, who came of mixed British, Pictish, Roman, Saxon, Danish, and Norman blood. In short, Defoe made the English out a hybrid race, and with excellent good sense showed that their national vigour was due largely to their being so. Much of what he said might well be said to-day of the people of the United States, as for instance, the following from Defoe’s explanatory preface:—

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The opening of Defoe's novel immediately establishes a first-person narrator who recounts his life from childhood, beginning with his apprenticeship to a pickpocket. The title page promises a career that spans thievery, transportation to Virginia, military service, and multiple marriages. The excerpts provided, however, focus on a later episode: the narrator's capture by a French privateer and his subsequent ransom negotiations in Bordeaux. This shift from London lowlife to international commerce and war suggests that the book's middle sections broaden into adventure fiction, with detailed accounts of prize cargoes and the mechanics of ransom.

A First-Person Voice That Adapts

The narrator's voice is direct and circumstantial. In the excerpt, he reports the capture of a merchant ship with a precise inventory: "260 hogsheads of sugar. 187 smaller casks of sugar. 176 barrels of indigo." This list is not merely decorative; it grounds the story in the practical world of trade. The narrator also notes the captain's wariness, "having a prize of such value in his hands, he was resolved not to lose her again." The tone is matter-of-fact, even when describing violence—"they fought bravely for it"—which suggests a narrator who has seen enough to be unruffled. Readers should watch how this voice handles different settings: the same man who picked pockets in London now negotiates with a French captain and corresponds with a London merchant. The consistency of his practical, observant tone across these varied scenes is a key feature of Defoe's method.

The Mechanics of Ransom and Commerce

The ransom episode is a small case study in eighteenth-century maritime law and personal finance. The French captain initially demands "three hundred crowns." The narrator, claiming to have goods shipped from Virginia, writes to England and receives a letter of credit from a London correspondent. He then visits an English merchant in Bordeaux who "told me I should have what money I pleased." The process is described step by step: writing by post, waiting for an answer, learning that his own ship had been retaken, and using that news to his advantage. Defoe's interest in the practical details of credit, correspondence, and negotiation is evident. Readers should note how the narrator's earlier life as a thief has equipped him with a shrewdness that serves him well in legitimate commerce. The episode also hints at a network of transatlantic trade that connects London, Virginia, and Bordeaux.

War and Privateering as Background

The excerpt is set during "open war," and the narrator distinguishes between lawful prize-taking and piracy: "as it was in open war and by fair fighting, as they call it, there was no objection to be made against them." The French captain is careful to avoid English men-of-war, sailing south to the latitude of 45 degrees 3 quarters before heading into the Bay of Biscay. The prize is taken to Bordeaux, where the owners come overland to consult. The narrator's own status is ambiguous: he is an English prisoner, but he has access to credit and can negotiate his release. This ambiguity—between enemy and trader, captive and free agent—runs through the episode. The war is not a grand narrative of battles but a practical constraint that shapes the narrator's movements and opportunities. Readers should observe how Defoe uses war as a backdrop for individual calculation rather than patriotic drama.

What the Excerpts Leave Unseen

The excerpts cover only a middle section of the novel. The opening chapters, which depict Colonel Jack's childhood as a pickpocket and his transportation to Virginia, are not represented here. Nor is the later part of his life, which according to the title includes military preferment, five marriages, and involvement with the Chevalier (the Old Pretender). The reader must infer that the narrator's character develops across these phases, but the excerpts give no direct evidence of his early criminal education or his later political allegiances. The tone in the provided pages is that of a seasoned merchant-adventurer, not a repentant thief. This discontinuity is typical of picaresque narrative: the hero's voice remains constant while his circumstances change radically. A first-time reader should be prepared for shifts in setting and fortune, and should not assume that the narrator's present sobriety reflects his past or future.

The excerpts from Colonel Jack reveal a narrator who is resourceful, observant, and comfortable with the details of trade and negotiation. The book's episodic structure means that each section may introduce new characters and settings without much transition. Readers will benefit from attending to the narrator's consistent voice—practical, unromantic, and slightly detached—as a guide through the many turns of his story. The novel rewards patience with its accumulation of concrete detail and its unsentimental view of human enterprise.

Reading Defoe’s Colonel Jack, I kept thinking of the strange quiet in Wood and Stone, where lives unfold like heavy cloth. Both men carry the weight of choices barely understood, moving through worlds that feel indifferent to their stumbling. It wasn't the adventure that connected them, but the loneliness underneath. That ache lingers, like dust in afternoon light. Wood and Stone: A Romance — Reading Companion felt like a familiar hand resting on the same old ache.