Flint's Island by Leonard Holton

First published: 1972

Type of work: Allegory

Themes: Politics and law

Time of work: The mid-eighteenth century

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: The Caribbean Sea

Principal Characters:

• Edward Samuels, skipper of the brig Jane
• Tom Whelan, quartermaster of the Jane and narrator of the story
• Long John Silver, ship’s cook and a complete villain
• Mr. Hogan, sailing master of the Jane
• Smigley, ship’s carpenter of the Jane
• Hodge, boatswain (pronounced “bo’sun”) of the Jane
• Green, a simple seaman
• Dr. Weiger, a physician living in Marystown, Georgia

The Story

Flint’s Island is a sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, which was published nearly a hundred years before. Driven off their course by storms, the crew of the brig Jane are relieved to sight land on August 31, 1760. The ship is damaged, and a quiet harbor in which to make repairs is a welcome sight. The officers and crew are at first unable to identify the island. Then, much to everyone’s surprise, the taciturn first mate, Mr. Arrow, announces the landfall in question is Flint’s Island— the very island where the infamous and incredibly successful pirate deposited the results of his career of rape and pillage.

The crew learns that Mr. Arrow was, for a short time, a member of a treasure-hunting expedition that chartered the Hispaniola to recover Flint’s treasure some years before. A treasure trove was found, but, as they are informed by Smigley, the ship’s carpenter, only part of it was carried away in the Hispaniola. While the crew is prey to daydreams of wealth beyond compare, Edward Samuels, captain of the Jane, is more concerned with replacing several defective spars before the next storm arrives. In consequence, Mr. Arrow and Tom Whelan, the seventeen-year-old ship’s quartermaster, row ashore to look for suitable wood. They are successful in this endeavor, but while the two are separated, Mr. Arrow dies of a mysterious gunshot wound.

As Tom Whelan examines the body, a man who identifies himself as Long John Silver appears. Silver informs Whelan that he is the only survivor of a shipwreck. He also speculates that Mr. Arrow, taken with drink, committed suicide. Inasmuch as the island appears to have no other inhabitants, Whelan accepts Silver’s explanation and reports it to Captain Samuels. The manner of Mr. Arrow’s death is soon a matter of small importance to the crew of the Jane. Silver confirms the rumor that a substantial portion of Flint’s treasure remains on the island; indeed, he claims to know its location.

Captain Samuels is concerned about taking such a cargo aboard the Jane, and he is not unmindful that it will be difficult to persuade the crew to leave it intact. Once the ship is repaired, he shifts anchorage to a location nearer the treasure cave. When the treasure is safely aboard the ship, Silver calls his henchmen out of hiding and seizes control of the Jane. The crew is set ashore and placed in irons.

Fortunately, Whelan and Hodge, the ship’s boatswain, absent on a hunting expedition, are able to free them. Samuels and his men recapture their ship from the pirates and set sail for Savannah, Georgia, taking many of the pirates with them. With a damaged vessel, several wounded men, and barely enough hands to work the ship in calm weather, Captain Samuels proposes to make safe harbor at the earliest opportunity. Because of the lack of able-bodied men, however, he is compelled to allow Silver to assume the duties of ship’s cook.

Silver uses his freedom to sabotage the ship and persuade most of the crew to mu-tiny. The captain and the few loyal members of the crew are set adrift in a small boat. The group survives the nightmare journey, but only barely. Recovering their strength in Marystown, Georgia, they await the return of their captain with a new ship. With the lure of treasure to galvanize the colonial governor into action, Samuels is soon placed in command of a warship with orders to capture Silver and his gang.

Whelan and his captain are able to recapture the remaining mutineers and locate the Jane. Before they board their former ship and deal with Silver, he explodes the powder magazine and escapes in a small boat. With both Silver and the treasure lost, Whelan returns to Salem, presumably wiser and only slightly richer than when he left. Yet, his sacrifices are not to go unrewarded. A chance remark by Samuels leads Whalen to more pirate treasure in a Salem graveyard. The booty is promptly unearthed by Whelan, and those who remained loyal to the Jane profit from that devotion.

Context

Flint’s Island forms a sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883) and derives much from the earlier work’s tradition. Treasure Island remains one of the most famous and most widely read adventure stories to appear in the English language. Built on the fantasies of childhood—vital, vibrant, and suggesting great possibilities—it presents a world in which primitive passion, impulsive action, and casual betrayal are the norm: a symbolic introduction to the manifold difficulties of adolescence. The popularity of the work may stem to a considerable degree from the manner in which it validates the pubescent emotions of the readers. Leonard Wibberley was strongly affected as a child by the romance and grandeur of Treasure Island and emerged as one of the foremost authors of juvenile literature in the United States. Effectively capturing the spirit of romantic youth and giving it expression in the printed form, Wibberley’s books, like those of Stevenson, deal with the world as an expansion stage filled with romantic incident.

Karl Marx said that individuals make history, but not in the manner that they always intend. Marx was writing after a lifetime of experience, but Wibberley’s audience lacks such perception. His books present his readers with a surrogate journey into the depths of human discovery. This perhaps explains the book’s eighteenth century setting, a period in which individual passions were yet to be obscured by the conventions of an urban, industrialized society.

Upon first reading the work, Wibberley says he expected to find a sequel to Treasure Island. He was surprised to learn that there was none. His expectation became an obsession until, after half a century, he ventured his own explanation of what happened after Treasure Island’s Hispaniola left Flint’s island. Parallels between the two books are immediate and obvious. Both narrators, Jim Hawkins and Tom Whelan, must face the responsibilities of manhood at an early age because of the death of their fathers. Both the master of the Jane and the formidable Captain Smollett of the Hispaniola are rigid, unyielding men in the matter of duty and the right sort of behavior. In both instances, a medical doctor is available to offer a more pragmatic and less judgmental attitude concerning the human spirit and the failure of individuals to adhere to an austere code of conduct. Dr. Livesey is capable of making some interesting deals with the pirates in Treasure Island, while Dr. Weiger hires a lawyer who persuades the authorities to allow the mutineers from the Jane to escape punishment.

The enjoyment of Treasure Island is enhanced by the number of riddles to be solved: The reader is undoubtedly aware before reading Flint’s Island that Long John Silver is a rogue, yet mysteries abound throughout the sequel despite this knowledge. Long John Silver escaped at the close of Treasure Island. Silver lied and murdered, but he was a good cook and a remarkable individual despite his physical and moral flaws. To have allowed Wibberley to kill him off or to have allowed Silver to find grace and forgiveness would have diminished the character’s effectiveness. The man who brawled his way across the pages of Treasure Island would dismiss such a fate with a snort. Not surprisingly, Wibberley continues the old rascal’s existence by allowing him to evade capture and escape with an unknown amount of treasure. Long John Silver remains at large, as he did at the close of Treasure Island.