Slavery is banished from Misson's ship, and the negroes are schooled in
the principles of freedom.

Perhaps the most difficult problem in discussing the principles of
Misson and Carracioli is to attempt an explanation of why Defoe, a
Presbyterian, should have made his protagonists into deists. Defoe
attacks Carracioli's deistic arguments through his narrator, Captain
Johnson, who remarks that such ideas are pernicious only to "weak Men
who cannot discover their Fallacy." But since similar ideas appear in
Robert _Drury's Journal_ published a year later, it may be assumed that
the arguments of the deists held a certain fascination for Defoe at this
time. Carracioli's deism also has a dramatic function in the story. That
on a voyage to Rome a young man like Misson should be converted to deism
by a disillusioned "lewd" priest was in harmony with the traditional
English belief in the dangers of Italy.[5] That Carracioli should
combine the rebellion against organized religion with the revolt against
monarchy is indicative of Defoe's keen apprehension of the future course
of history.

Considered as a short novel, the history "Of Captain Misson and his
Crew" reveals many of the same techniques which Defoe used in his longer
works. To gain a sense of verisimilitude the narrator pretends to be
working from a manuscript, a device which Defoe also employed in his
_Memoirs of a Cavalier_. As in _Colonel Jack_ real historical figures
and events from the War of the Spanish Succession are woven into the
adventures of the _Victoire_. Captain Misson and his crew sink the
Winchelsea, an English ship lost in the West Indies at the end of
August, 1707, and they barely escape from Admiral Wager's fleet which
fought a famous battle there in 1708. Even the name of Misson's ship,
the _Victoire_; was undoubtedly familiar to Defoe as the vessel