As to Drury, Captain Pasfield Oliver
thinks that his editor, probably Defoe, or an imitator of Defoe,
'faked' the book, partly out of De Flacourt's _Histoire de Madagascar_
(1661), and a French authority adds another old French source,
Dapper's _Description de l'Afrique_. Drury was himself a pirate, his
editor thinks: Defoe picked his brains, or an imitator of Defoe did
so, and Defoe, or whoever was the editor, would know the story that
Drummond really lost the 'Speedy Return' in Madagascar, and could
introduce the Scottish adventurer into Drury's romance.
[Footnote 30: Fisher Unwin.]
We can never be absolutely certain that Captain Drummond lost his
ship, but lived on as a kind of _condottiere_ to a native prince in
Madagascar. Between us and complete satisfactory proof a great gulf
has been made by fire and water, 'foes of old' as the Greek poet
says, which conspired to destroy the journal kept by Haines and the
journal kept by Benbow. The former would have told us what piratical
adventures Captain Green achieved in the 'Worcester;' the latter, if
it spoke of Captain Drummond in Madagascar, would have proved that the
captain and the 'Speedy Return' were not among the 'Worcester's'
victims.
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