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Interestingly, Deane's tombstone in the Wilford churchyard records only that the captain "commanded a Ship of War in the Czar of Moscovy's service," that he "was appointed by His Britannick Majesty, Consul for the Ports of Flanders and Ostend," and that he "retired to this village in the year 1738." 36 But the captain could not manage publication from the grave, and it is ironic that all accounts since his death have been based on the narrative published originally by his brother Jasper in 1711, the account the captain had labored so diligently to suppress. Though attached to the old captain, Miles Whitworth apparently preferred Jasper's version because of the way it depicted his father. Others have found the first-person narrative of that account more authentic, dramatic, and compelling, which may explain why it has endured since Deane's death in every collection and anthology. It is perplexing that such a literate man, so protective of his reputation, wrote nothing about himself for posterity and that he did not have the foresight to consider that he might be remembered best in works of fiction. Yet, this too adds to the mystery of Captain John Deane.

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Notes

1. Duke Francis Stephen married Maria Theresa in 1731. Though he lost the throne of Lorraine in 1736, he was compensated with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. In 1745 he was elected Holy Roman Emperor.

2. John Deane to George Tilson, 26 August 1731, PRO SP 77 / 78 (Public Record Office, State Papers). Deane had just republished the account of the disaster: A Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Nottingham Galley & Co., first Publish'd in 1711, Revis'd and Reprint'd with additions in 1727, and now Re-publish'd in 1730. By John Deane, Commander (London, 1730).

3. J. B. Firth wrote that "the adventures and sufferings of the crew of the Nottingham Galley were as well known in the days of Queen Anne as the story of the sufferings of the crew of the Bounty were later in the century" (Highways and Byways in Nottinghamshire [London: Macmillan, 1916], p. 31).

4. Kenneth Roberts, Boon Island, reprinted herein; first published by Doubleday in 1956.

5. See my "Captain John Deane: Mercenary, Diplomat, and Spy," in People of the Sea, ed. Lewis Fischer and Walter Minchinton (St. Johns, Newfoundland: International Maritime Economic History Association, 1992), pp. 15773.

6. Captain John Dean(e), A Narrative of the Sufferings, Preservation, and Deliverance of Capt. John Dean and Company; in the Nottingham Galley of London, cast away on Boon-Island, near New England, December 11, 1710. Published with an introductory note by Jasper Dean, dated August 2, 1711, Horsly-Down (London: R. Tookey, 1711). Reprinted herein.

7. Information about the deposition is included in A True Account of the Voyage of the Nottingham-Galley of London, John Dean Commander, from the River Thames to New England, near which Place she was cast away on Boon-Island, December 11, 1710, by the Captain's Obstinacy, who endeavored to betray her to the French, or run her ashore with an account of the Falsehoods in the Captain's Narrative, and a Faithful Relation of the Extremities the Company was Reduc'd to for Twenty-four Days on that Desolate Rock, where they were forced to eat their Companions who had died, but at last were wonderfully deliver'd. The whole attested upon Oath by Christopher Langman, Mate, Nicholas Mellen, Boatswain, and George White, sailor in the said Ship (London: S. Popping, 1711). Reprinted herein.

8. Captain John Deane, A Narrative of the Sufferings, pp. 22, 39 herein.

9. Langman, Mellen, and White, A True Account, pp. 4243, 6061, 58 herein. Langman even argued that Deane "barbarously told the children in his lodging, he would have made a frigasy of them, if he had had 'em in Boon Island."

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10. A Sad and Deplorable, but True Account of the Terrible Hardships and Suffering of Capt. John Deane & Company on Board the Nottingham Galley (London: J. Dutton, 1711), pp. 1. 7.

11. Cotton Mather, Compassions Called for. An Essay of