Flint and Silver: A Prequel to Treasure Island

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I thank my agent, Antony Topping, and my editors Julia Wisdom and Anne O'Brien for their thorough professionalism and sound advice. They have made this a better book than otherwise it would have been.

John Drake, September 2007

Ria de Ponteverde carried guns; most merchantmen did: carriage guns, with powder and shot, rammers and sponges, trucks and tackles. They differed from ships of the various royal navies only in the relatively small degree of their armament, as compared with the exclusive concentration upon artillery that marked out the man-o'-war.

And it wasn't just a broadside battery on the main deck. It was swivels on the gunwale, and small arms in the lockers down below: muskets and pistols, pikes and cutlasses, and all the gear that went with them — cartridges, flints, powder horns and small-grained pistol powder. All this was a fearful expense and a burden upon trade, for there was not one farthing's profit to be made by honest seamen in hauling defensive arms and ammunition across the seven seas.

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