Colonel Jack

The considerably longer title under which it was originally published is The History and Remarkable Life of the truly Honourable Col. Jacque, commonly call'd Col. Jack, who was Born a Gentleman, put 'Prentice to a Pick−Pocket, was Six and Twenty Years a Thief, and then Kidnapp'd to Virginia, Came back a Merchant; was Five times married to Four Whores; went into the Wars, behav'd bravely, got Preferment, was made Colonel of a Regiment, came over, and fled with the Chevalier, is still abroad compleating a Life of Wonders, and resolves to dye a General.

The picaresque novel can be considered as a crime fiction, along with some of Defoe's other works such as Moll Flanders (1722) and Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (1724).

Worried for his own security, Jack and his wife flee to the West Indies under pretence of illness, where he eventually learns of a general pardon of the remaining rebels and that consequently he is a free man.

Returning to Virginia to join his wife, who has already made her way back to manage their business interests, Jack's ship is captured by the Spanish, and he finds himself taken to Havana.

Published only eleven months apart, Colonel Jack shares many plot elements with another of Defoe's works Moll Flanders.

Amongst these similarities are: both Moll and Jack are orphans; they marry five times; they turn to crime initially from desperation; are wrongly arrested in the process; are transported as Indentured servants to America; become rich plantation owners; benefit from the advice of a teacher; reunite after many years with a lost spouse, with whom they live out their last days.

[4] In Captain Charles Johnson's The Lives and Exploits of the Most Noted Highwaymen (1734) there appears the history of Colonel Jack, and a nineteenth century penny dreadful was also based upon his life.