Captain Blood: His Odyssey

“Yet Peter Blood, who was not only able to bear arms, but trained and skilled in their use, who was certainly no coward, and a papist only when it suited him, tended his geraniums and smoked his pipe on that warm July evening as indifferently as if nothing were a foot [sic].”

The narrator introduces Peter Blood by explaining the hero’s position as a bystander rather than a participant in the upcoming battle. Supporters of the cause believe men who don’t fight must be cowards or papists, but Blood’s neither a coward nor a papist, unless it suits him, therefore he chooses not to join for another reason: He’s too self-sufficient and cynical to fight for a doomed cause on behalf of a duke he despises.

“He laughed and sighed in one; but the laugh dominated the sigh, for Mr. Blood was unsympathetic, as are most self-sufficient men; and he was very self-sufficient; adversity had taught him so to be.”

These lines not only explain Blood’s attitude toward the men marching to their doom, but they also describe characteristics that will prove necessary to Blood’s survival. Blood’s lack of sympathy for Monmouth’s volunteers is the result of his self-sufficiency, which means he feels no kinship with people who unquestioningly follow leaders unworthy of their trust. He prefers to trust himself because he learned from difficult experiences that he can’t rely on others to advocate for him. His attitude concerning leadership, trust, and self-interest, displays the characteristics he’ll need to endure the dangers awaiting him: independence, stoicism, sound judgment, and humor.

“He had been considering that in his case of instruments there was a lancet with which he might perform on Captain Hobart a beneficial operation. Beneficial, that is, to humanity. In any case, the dragoon was obviously plethoric and would be the better for a blood-letting. The difficulty lay in making the opportunity. He was beginning to wonder if he could lure the Captain aside with some tale of hidden treasure, when this untimely interruption set a term to that interesting speculation.”

Blood contemplates how to use his lancet to permanently stop Hobart from terrorizing people. This glimpse into his imagination serves to develop Blood’s character.