Captain Blood · Chapter
IV: Human Merchandise explained
Peter Blood and his fellow rebels are spared execution due to a royal decree ordering transportation to the plantations.
What happens
Peter Blood and his fellow rebels are spared execution due to a royal decree ordering transportation to the plantations. They are shipped aboard the Jamaica Merchant, where Blood's medical skills save lives during a sickness outbreak. Upon arrival in Barbados, they are inspected by Governor Steed and Colonel Bishop, and Blood is sold to Bishop for ten pounds, despite the intercession of Bishop's niece, Arabella.
Themes in this chapter
Justice and Injustice
The arbitrary clemency of the King, motivated by profit rather than mercy, highlights the injustice of the legal system and the commodification of human lives.
Class and Social Mobility
Blood's fall from gentleman physician to slave underscores the precariousness of social status and the brutal realities of class hierarchy in colonial society.
Characters to notice
- Captain Peter Blood
Convicted rebel transported to Barbados; uses his medical skills to treat sick prisoners; sold to Colonel Bishop for ten pounds.
- Jeremy Pitt
Fellow rebel transported with Blood; present during the inspection and sale.
- Colonel Bishop
Colonel of Barbados Militia; purchases Blood as a slave for ten pounds after inspecting the convicts.
- Arabella Bishop
Colonel Bishop's niece; shows pity for Blood and tries to persuade her uncle to buy him.
- Governor Steed
Governor of Barbados; oversees the arrival and sale of the convicts.
- Captain Gardner
Master of the Jamaica Merchant; negotiates the sale of Blood to Colonel Bishop.
Key passages
“Thus it happened that Peter Blood, and with him Jeremy Pitt and Andrew Baynes, instead of being hanged, drawn, and quartered as their sentences directed, were conveyed to Bristol and there shipped with some fifty others aboard the Jamaica Merchant.”
Peter Blood, Jeremy Pitt, and Andrew Baynes were spared execution and instead transported to Bristol to be shipped on the Jamaica Merchant.
Describes the commutation of their death sentences to transportation.
“Peter Blood was sold to Colonel Bishop—a disdainful buyer—for the ignominious sum of ten pounds.”
Colonel Bishop bought Peter Blood as a slave for the low price of ten pounds, showing contempt for him.
Highlights the dehumanizing nature of the slave trade and Blood's reduced circumstances.