Mr. Arrow

Mr. Arrow serves as the first mate of the schooner Hispaniola during the voyage to Treasure Island. He is introduced as a brown old sailor with earrings in his ears and a squint, and he is initially on very thick and friendly terms with Squire Trelawney. However, his tenure as an officer is marked by a fatal lack of command and a secret vice that ultimately destroys him.

Appointment and Early Signs of Weakness

Mr. Arrow was discovered and recommended for the position of mate by Long John Silver, who described him as a very competent man. Squire Trelawney, in a letter to Dr. Livesey, reported that Silver had unearthed this capable mate. Despite this promising start, Captain Smollett immediately expressed reservations about Arrow, stating bluntly, "I don't like my officer." The captain elaborated that while he believed Arrow to be a good seaman, he was "too free with the crew to be a good officer," arguing that a mate should keep to himself and not drink with the men before the mast. This early assessment proved prophetic.

Deterioration and Secret Drinking

Once at sea, Mr. Arrow's performance deteriorated rapidly, even worse than Captain Smollett had feared. He had no command among the men, who did what they pleased with him. More critically, he began to appear on deck with a hazy eye, red cheeks, and a stuttering tongue—the unmistakable marks of drunkenness. Time after time he was ordered below in disgrace. Sometimes he fell and cut himself; sometimes he lay all day long in his little bunk at one side of the companion; sometimes for a day or two he would be almost sober and attend to his work at least passably. The crew and officers could never discover where he obtained his liquor, which became the ship's mystery. Watch him as they pleased, they could do nothing to solve it. When asked directly, he would only laugh if drunk, or if sober, deny solemnly that he ever tasted anything but water. Jim Hawkins later deduced the source of the alcohol when he overheard Long John Silver give Dick the key to a keg of rum, thinking to himself that this must have been how Mr. Arrow got the strong waters that destroyed him.

Disappearance and Aftermath

Mr. Arrow was not only useless as an officer and a bad influence among the men, but it was plain that at this rate he must soon kill himself outright. Nobody was much surprised, nor very sorry, when one dark night, with a head sea, he disappeared entirely and was seen no more. Captain Smollett's reaction was characteristically blunt: "Overboard! Well, gentlemen, that saves the trouble of putting him in irons." His disappearance left the ship without a mate, forcing the advancement of the boatswain, Job Anderson, to serve in that capacity, while Squire Trelawney, who had followed the sea, often took a watch himself in easy weather. The coxswain, Israel Hands, a careful and experienced seaman, was also trusted at a pinch. Arrow's failure thus directly contributed to the erosion of the ship's proper chain of command, a weakness that the mutineers would later exploit.

Narrative Role and Significance

Mr. Arrow functions as a cautionary figure whose weakness and secret intemperance serve as an early indicator of the rot within the crew of the Hispaniola. His inability to command and his hidden drinking problem create a leadership vacuum that forces the loyal party to rely on less reliable men. His mysterious disappearance, while removing a liability, also signals the beginning of the ship's descent into disorder, setting the stage for the open mutiny that follows. His fate underscores the novel's themes of discipline, secrecy, and the corrosive effects of vice, particularly rum, which proves as destructive to the pirates as it was to their officer.