The other circumstances of the novel, in particular the characters of the pirates, are equally believable; Stevenson's "sea dogs" bear the mark of authenticity. During the so-called Golden Age of Piracy in the Atlantic, it was not unusual for the men sailing under pirate flags to be in their teens or sometimes even younger (one such, of whom a record was kept, was "Thomas Simpson, about ten"). Most, before they were forty, were retired, blind, crippled, or dead. The pirate's life at sea was in most cases easier — and surely a lot more fun, for those of a certain turn of mind — than that of navy crewmen or merchant sailors, but it was still hard and dangerous, requiring a young man's energy and fitness. The older pirates of Treasure Island, including Billy Bones, Pew, Tom Morgan, Long John Silver, and perhaps several others, in their fifties at most, had had their day in the late teens and early twenties of the century (Silver says he sailed with Edward England, who died shortly after 1720), and had either spent their shares of the loot taken from ships and towns or, no doubt infrequently in real life, had saved what they could. The chance to recover a large treasure, like the one Billy Bones' map leads to, would have been a dream come true for such men. Pirate crews (unlike the crews of naval or merchant ships, who served under the strict rule of a captain and officers they had not chosen) were generally democratic, electing their captains and reserving the right to depose them. Thus, Stevenson's pirates, freely choosing the redoubtable Silver as their leader, are off on a last grand adventure with a captain whom they trust, or so they must believe.
Jim Hawkins himself would not have been an unusual boy in the English (or colonial New England) eighteenth century, although he may seem to the twenty-first-century reader remarkably free from the normal responsibilities of a twelve- or thirteen-year-old. An innkeeper's son, he would have expected to inherit his father's trade and would have been educated early in the skills to pursue it. Those that required schooling — reading, writing, and arithmetic — he would have acquired by age ten or so; the others would be learned on the job, and (especially with his father ill and the inn not particularly successful) he would have been needed there to do as much work as he could. At the same time, an intelligent boy like Jim, with a man like Dr. Livesey to befriend him, may have had the opportunity to read adventure stories and see traveling actors perform (as Jim hints that he has done). At thirteen or nearly so, he would have been considered a man in all but physical strength, and, given the prospect of going on a voyage like the one Squire Trelawney invites him to join, he would likely have jumped at the chance — probably the only one he would get in his lifetime. He could take the voyage, however, only if his mother would have other help in running the family business, as the generous Trelawney offers.
