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DANIEL DEFOE AND KENT:
A CHAPTER IN CAPEL-LE-FERNE HISTORY.
BY WILLIAM MI.NE'!', M.A., F,S.A.
THE question raised by the facts which it is t11e purpose of
these notes to set forth, is to a large extent a literary one,
and if its discussion is to claim inclusion in these pages, it
must be that it introduces us to some Kentish families and
tells us something of the mauor and the land they held
in the small Kentiiih vilJ:tge of Capel-le-Ferne.
Problerns respecting the authorship of anonymous works
are among the class that can scarcely ever be finally closed,
and though the question to be here discussed is of less
importance than the inquiry into the authorship of the
letters of Junius, yet in its way it is not without interest,
dealing as it does with Daniel Defoe.
0£ all Defoe's works, one of the most successful was the
Sfrange .Apparition of M1·s. Veal, and this curious fact is
to be noticed a.bout it that, pure romance as the tale is, its
foundation rests on real people whose ex:isleuce can be proved
by outside evidence. This artince is one more than once
employed by Defoe in pursuance of his policy of trying to
make his readers believe that the romance he was weaving
was a reality. His best ]mown work., Robinson Orusoe, is
founded on a real Alexander Selkirk., whose story is to be
found in Woodes Rogers; and the same will be found true of
othe1· of his imaginative tales such as Oaptain .Avery and
Captain Singleton, and if I cite these it is beca.ue I wish·
to call attention to the fact that they are bot-h concerned
with Madagascar.
It bas. often been a problem with those ,vho have written
on Defoe what share he had in a work whichi on its first
62 DANIEL DEFOE AN:D KENT:
appearance in 1729, attracted much attention, and has
frequently been republished, uamely, Madagasca1·; 01·, Robert
Drury's Joumal during fifteen years captivity on that Island.
The framing of the story is strnngly reminiscent of
Robinson Orusoe, being that of a boy who, shipwrecked on
the island of Madagascar, spent :fifteen yea1·s, mostly as a
slave, among· the natives. That there was a Drury, and that
he had some experience and knowledge of Madagascar is
true beyond all doubt, though it seems equally certain that
he would have been quite unequal to the task of recounting
his experiences i.n the clear and charming style which has
helped to make the book one of the classics of its date, and
has prolonged its interest down to the present day. The
preface, indeed, admits that the work as we have it was not
written by Drury. 'The original,' says the preface to the
first edition, 'was wrote by Robert Drury, which, consisting
of eight quires in folio, each of near an hundred pages, it
was necessary to contract it and put it in a more agreeable
method.' This was done by the 'transcriber,' and the
problem is, was this transc.riber Danil Defoe ?
The last editor of the book, Captain Pasfield Oliver, R.A., *
has entered more fully into this question than any other
writer. His general conclmdons are that there was a Drury,
who knew from personal experience something of Madagascar,
but that this experience was gained in the course of
piratical and slave-tJ:ading voyages, and that the fifteen
years residence among the natives, with all its wealth of
detail, is purely imaginary, and must be mainly attributed to
the 'transcriber,' who derived the facts which make the
story so lifelike and vivid from earlier French writers on the
island. For the details of the evidence on which these
conclusions are based the reader must be ref erred to Captain
Oliver's introduction; we are here only concerned with the
question ,vhether the 'transcriber' was Defoe, and the
purpose of these pages is to bring forward certain evidence
which was unknown both to Captain Oliver and to Defoe's
* London, 1900.
A CHAPl'ER IN CAPEL-LE-FERNE HISTORY, 68
.numerous biographers, evidence based on a coincidence so
marked as, in the opinion of the writer, to establish
Defoe's authorship beyond all question.
The nature of the story and the style in which it is
written have already raised question whether it were not by
Defoe; moreover, when we remember the success of Robinson
Crusoe, published in 1719, nothing· seems more likely than
that the author of that work should have been anxious to
repeat his success by another story cast in the same mould;
and, in following it, to hope for an equal triumph. Further,
Defoe had already dealt with Madagascar in the two works
named above, published respectively in 1719 and 1720, which
affords strong evidence that he had turned his attention to
the island, and must have known much about it, seeming-ly
from de Flacourt and other Fren<'h writers who, if we are to
believe Captain Oliver, are the sources whence much of the
graphic detail of Drury's narrative was derived.
Coming by some chance upon D1·ury, and learning something
of his tales of Madagascar, Defoe may well have seen
the opportunity of a new Robinson Crusoe, and, seizing i,
have given us Drury's fifteen years captivity.
The essence of Defoe's tales lies in their wonde1·ful
assumption of accuracy of fact. The iutroduction to the
work we are consideriug tells us that 'it is nothing else but
a plain ho11est narrative of n matt.er of £act,' just as the
author of Robinson Crusoe 'believes the thing to be a just
history of fact,' and aga.in in the Strange .Apparition
assures us that 'this relatio11 is a mutter of fact '-the very
similarity of the asseveration in the three cases rouses
suspicion. In order to support this artifke Defoe, as we
have seen, is given to introJucing real people on whom to
found his stories, and it is the remarkable connection
between the persons on whom Drury's Madagascar and the
Strange Apparition of M1·s. Veal are fouuded which forms
the subject of these pages. It is but little likely that when
the two works were first published-Mrs. Veal in 1705,
Drury in 1729-this connection would have been noticed,
to-day it would be even less capable of observation; that I
64 DANIEL DEFOE AND KENT
am acquainted with it I owe to the existence of certain
family memoranda, as well as to the fact that I am connected
by a marriage of 1698 with both the families concerned.
Let us now turn to the works themselves and see who
are the charncters appea1·ing in them. In the Stram,ge
Appa1·ition of Mrs. Veal we have Mrs. Veal herself, a lady of
30 years of age ancl unmarried, for the title is merely one of
courtesy, and her brother William Veal, Controller of the
Customs at Dover, with whom she lived, a11d for whom she
kept house. The point of the story is that Mrs. Veal
appeared to her friend Mrs. Bargrave at Canterbury on the
8th of September 1705, being the day after her death at
Dover. Now as to Mrs. Veal's existence, as well as to the
date of her death, there is no doubt, for her burial is entered
i.n the Registers of St. Mary at Dover as having taken place
on the 10th of September 1705.
The existence of William Veal, as well as the office which
he held, can be proved with equal, indeed with greater,
certainty. His sister, with whom he had lived, died in
September, and within three mouths we :find him marrying
Elizabeth Hughes, a widow, of Capel-le-Ferne,* a small
hamlet some four miles from Dover, and of this marriage
I shall have more to say later.
I cannot prove that he was Controller of the Customs at
this date, though it is so stated in the Strange Apparition,
but that he held the post later appears from a note made by
my ancestor Isaac Minet, then living at Dover, who says,
'Mr. Natha.nael Matson died at Dover, 5th 9ber, 1719, and
was buried 7th, and had a veq pompous funeral, the bearers
being [inter alias] Mr. William Vealle, Controller of the
Customs.' .A. Mr. Henry Matson dies in 1721, when
Mr. Vealle is again named among the bearers at the funeral,
though on this occasion he is not said to be Controlle1·.
The same writer, however, again mentions him in 1724, and
as holding the same post.
* The marriage is found in the Capel Registers, and took place on
December 15, 1705.
A CHAP'rER IN CAPEL-LE-FERNE HISTORY. 66
There ca,n therefore be no manner of doubt as to the
existence of the Veals., brother and sister, and that William
held the ·office assigned to him by Defoe, while that his
sister kept house for him accords well with the £act of his
.Jmtrriage very shortly aft.er her death. Here, then, Defoe is
found. basing his story, the rest of which is, of comae,
pure romance, 011 real people, who are proved to have lived.
at Dover.
Let us next tum to examine in the same way the folk
who appear at the opening of the Madagascar story. Drury
embarks for the voyage which was to end so ilisastrously for
him, in February 1702, on bou.rd the' Degrave' of 700 tons,
a ship belonging to the New East India Company, for the
two companies were not then united. The Captain was one
William Young, who had with him his son William as
second mate. Arrived in In
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