Tom Cringle's Log in Bloomington, MN

Michael Scott (1789-1835) spent much of his life in the West Indies during one of the most dynamic periods in British colonial history. A plantation manager and merchant in Jamaica, his knowledge of Caribbean pirates was first-hand.
During his years in the West Indies, Tom Cringle's Log took shape in Scott's mind as a series of maritime and tropical adventure sketches. Later, after they were published anonymously in Blackwood's Magazine, the tales were melded together as an exciting novel.