John Benbow

John Benbow (c. 1682 – 17 November 1708) was an English traveller, who wrote an early account of Madagascar after running aground and being captured there.

He was the son of Vice-Admiral John Benbow. On 29 June 1696, he was appointed a volunteer on board . He did not, however, remain long in the navy, and in February 1700-1 sailed for the East Indies as fourth mate of the Degrave, a merchant ship. As his father was at this time commander-in-chief in the Downs, and was a few months later appointed commander-in-chief in the West Indies, and thus had it in his power to advance him in the navy, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that there was some breach between the two.

The Degrave, a ship of 700 tons, duly arrived in Bengal, where the captain and first mate died and thus, in ordinary course, Benbow was second mate when she started for her homeward voyage. with the exception of one boy, Robert Drury, then fifteen years old, who, after fifteen years' captivity, was rescued by an English ship, and spent the rest of his life as porter in a London warehouse. We may suppose that Benbow's constitution was broken by the hardships of his savage life; he seems to have lived for a few years at Deptford, in very humble circumstances, and died on 17 November 1708.

He had written some account of Madagascar which remained in manuscript, and was accidentally burnt in 1714. It had, however, been seen by several, and the hazy recollections of it, together with Drury's story, were worked up, not improbably by Daniel Defoe, and published under Drury's name with the title of 'Madagascar, or Robert Drury's Journal during Fifteen Years' Captivity on that Island' (1729).