Dr. Peter Blood is a sharp-witted Irish physician, who had had a wide-ranging career as a soldier and sailor (including a commission as a captain under the Dutch admiral De Ruyter) before settling down to practice medicine in the town of Bridgwater in Somerset. Dr. Blood involuntary gets involved in the Monmouth Rebellion while the town prepares to fight for James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth. He wants no part in the rebellion, but while attending to some of the rebels wounded at the Battle of Sedgemoor, Peter is arrested and convicted of treason. The sentence is death by hanging, but King James II, for purely financial reasons, has the sentence for rebels commuted to transportation to the Caribbean, where they are to be sold into slavery. When a Spanish force attacks and raids the town of Bridgetown, Blood escapes with a number of other convict-slaves, captures the Spaniards' ship and sails away to become one of the most successful pirates in the Caribbean, hated and feared by the Spanish and always sparing English ships. Colonel Bishop, humiliated by Blood's escape and by Blood himself, devotes himself to capturing Blood with the hope of hanging him. Table of Contents: Captain Blood Captain Blood Returns The Fortunes of Captain Blood
