The first appearance of Daniel Defoe’s The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Known As Colonel Jack (published on December 20, 1722) is as much indicated by the title as by the subject matter. The book contains many aspects of a very energetic lifestyle, including crime, survival, reinvention, travel, commerce, and the high ambition of attaining a better social position, within one man’s biography. This novel does not make a graceful entrance; rather, it comes into the room with an entire biographical and moral foundation all in one. The structure of the text indicates Defoe was not seeking only to entertain; rather, he offers the reader an example of how careless neglect in the upbringing of a child may ruin that child’s life and how that same child may become reformed after having gone through the process of making the best use of whatever he has available to him in order to improve his life.
Colonel Jacque does not have its force through polish. Defoe constructs his hero, first as an orphaned infant, then through picking pockets by living on the streets, then through turning to criminal activities to survive and develop into a man, after which he survives through kidnapping, being purchased into slavery, being forced into plantation living, and trading for his freedom. London’s earlier sections are written with such great detail of Defoe’s own extensive knowledge of the economic hardships present in London’s poorer areas and the struggles for survival that they appear more like a record of actual life in London in the early 1700s than fictional books written in a modern style. The book is most effective when showing a child who is subject to poverty, hardship, and habitual life development being created; this is when Defoe creates the most connection between himself and his readers.
Defoe’s work also has a moral complexity that is surprising; for example, the Colonel’s character is not simply a villain but is self-serving, aware, and pragmatic in his dealings with others, but Defoe allows Jacque to have some small remnants of morality and hope left in him over the course of the book by allowing him to remember being told he was “a gentleman.” This depiction of status gives the reader a realistic basis for the exploitation of the colonized by colonial powers: status is the result of everyone imagining it, pretending to be it, pursuing it, and purchasing it; and while the hero has a moment of stealing and being a servant, he still walks along the path of “status,” helping another through his self-interest (Defoe; Commodity as a Language).
In Defoe’s book, there is also a language for commercial activity being confused with a sense of self; for instance, he demonstrates this by figuring that someone who comes from nothing and is in a state of civil war would think about trading, credit, purchases of land, and profit. While the descriptions of America can feel flat and dull, this aspect of Defoe’s book does reflect the historical reality that is Defoe’s intention to show that money and movement and character are related.
Ultimately, Colonel Jacque is an unflinching and riveting masterpiece. Although its emotional warmth may be minimal compared to later novels, it offers an equally strong experience—a stark and clear depiction of the process through which a person’s life can be shaped by considerations of circumstance, desire, discipline, and happenstance. Rarely do 18th-century works depict crime, class, and self-creation with such honesty. These same reasons make this book continue to command attention almost 300 years after its original publication.
