However, the governor of the island suffers from gout and his wife suffers from megrims, and only Blood can bring them relief. Bishop is a cruel and heartless man who takes a strong dislike to Blood and more than likely, would have found cause to flog him to death. Blood and his companions are shipped overseas to be sold as slaves.īlood is bought by Colonel Bishop, whose niece Arabella has taken a shine to him. Found guilty, the court sentences him to hang, but his sentence is commuted when representatives of the English planters in Barbados petition the Crown to send them slaves to work their plantations. When Blood is found treating the wounded, he is arrested as a traitor and brought to trial before Judge Jeffries at the Bloody Assizes. When some of his neighbors join the Duke of Monmouth’s rebellion against King James, Blood stays away from the conflict, but finds himself drawn into it when some of his rebel neighbors are wounded. Peter Blood has had his share of excitement and adventure and now wants only to practice his profession, admire his flowers and smoke a pipe. As a very young man, he served the French navy and for several years, he was a prisoner of the Spanish. Peter Blood, an Irish physician, lives in Somersetshire. The book was so popular, it spawned several sequels and cemented Sabatini’s reputation as a master of the sweeping, romantic historical novel. In 1922, Rafael Sabatini published Captain Blood, the tale of a physician sold into slavery who becomes a pirate.

The popularity of the historical novel has waxed and waned since Sir Walter Scott invented it when he published Waverly.

Captain blood by rafael sabatini