Fox

I mean waistcoats made from the linings of coats.

Oh I see what you were getting at. There's nothing groundbreaking about it. It was the custom in the English army from the later seventeenth century onwards to issue waistcoats that matched the facing colour of the coat - though there are exceptions, the Independent Companies being one of them. Often, when new coats were issued, the waistcoats were made from the linings of the previous issue of coats. One of the common complaints from the Independent Companies though is that they got sent overseas then forgotten about, and never had any new kit kit issued, so it's unlikely that many of them benefitted from recycled waistcoats.

Gunners were not part of the Independent Companies, and had different uniform regulations.

That I have thought for a long time and that is why I was skeptical of that "Woodes's company" would be redcoats at all. What about the "wiki fact" (not too good ) that there were soldiers in ship that captured Rackham. And I think it is likely that uniformed soldiers of some sorts were present in executions of pirates (at least in London or ?). And what about navy marines and War of the Quadruple Alliance there might be marines in the navy there since war was on in America s well..... The logic is good, but Woodes Rogers' company is described in every source as an 'Independent company', which means regular uniformed soldiers. There were also Indpendent Companies in most of the other Caribbean and north American colonies. There were no 'marines' still on the establishment for most of the GAoP, the marine regiments and 'soldiers for sea service' were disbanded circa. 1714, but regular army soldiers were used aboard ship from time to time after then. One day I'll get aorund to researching the uniforms of the Royal African Company soldiers, but in the absence of other information, they were most likely clothed in red and blue.

Many many people did it. There are various references to a 'Captain Moody', and the name 'Christopher Moody' is familiar from the GHP, so people put them together. You actually have to read stuff in an archive to find the name William Moody...

You're welcome. I'll do my best to clarify some more. Both Richard Moor and Captain McCrae say that after capturing the Cassandra at Johanna the pirates gave their ship, the Fancy, to McCrae. If the Count of Ericeira thought that the pirates ships were called Fantasie and Victorieux that suggests that the pirates renamed the Cassandra as Fancy. As to who was in command of which ship, Richard Moor, who spent a great deal of time aboard the pirate vessels, is quite clear. He says that Taylor and Seagar commanded the Victory and Seagar commanded the Cassandra/Fancy. He goes on to say that La Buse replaced Seagar when Seagar died at Madagascar, shortly after the capture of the Cabo. If the Count of Ericeira though la Buse was captain then perhaps that shows that la Buse was the one who conducted the negotiations (in French), and therefore gave the impression of being in command. As Swashbuckler says, it means "said", or previously mentioned. According to Moor, when they arrived as Madagascar the pirates had the Victory, Cassandra/Fancy, Cabo, and another prize called the Greyhound. Taylor took command of the Cabo, la Buse assumed command of the Cassandra/Fancy, the Greyhound escaped, and they burnt the Victory. Apart from Johnson, they are all modern authors. Woodard's book is well researched, I'm not so convinced about Botting. Johnson's book is a mix of very good and awful.

No, despite the fact that many historians associate 'Captain Moody' with him, he was never a captain. The 'Captain Moody' mentioned in other documents was most likely either Samuel or William. Further to this, looking back over WIlliam Bournal's trial for the la Buse thread I see it is confirmed that William Moody was captain of the Rising Sun

I do not recall ever having read a reference to him having only one eye, in a period source or a modern one.

Welcome aboard La Buse, and thankyou for your wonderful information. This is the first evidence I've seen that La Buse was present at the capture of the Cabo We tend to be very focussed on sources in our own languages, so it's great to hear something from the French side. In answer to this question, yes, all of the sources I have quoted are historical. William Snelgrave and Jacob du Bucquoy were both captured by pirates and later published accounts of their time on board pirate ships, Snelgrave's account was published in the 1730s, du Bucquoy's was published in 1744. Richard Lazenby was also captured by the pirates and held aboard their ship - he was actually on board at the time of the capture of the Cabo. His account was not published at the time but exists in the East India Company records at the British library and was published in Charles Grey's book Pirates of the Eastern Seas in 1930. Captain McCrae's account of the capture of the Cassandra was published in The Post Boy, 25 April and 27 April 1721. The testimonies of Richard Moor and John Matthews were given in London and exist in the High Court of Admiralty depositions book in the National Archives, Kew. The trial of William Bournal is in the Colonial Office papers in the National Archives. They have never been published and were transcribed here by me.

That's one of the reasons that I generally don't include 'buccaneer' evidence when discussing pirates...

Grommet. sometimes referring to a boy, sometimes to an inexperienced seaman.

I also have difficulty accepting Vikings as pirates, for those reasons and because the vast majority of Viking raiding occurred on land. Sure, they used boats to get to the land, but they rarely (if ever) took vessels at sea. The word 'piracy' might be used in reference to acts committed on land, but it's not a strictly accurate use. It can also be used today to describe software theft and in the 18th century was used to describe plagiarism, but they're not act of actual piracy per se. In English law at least, piracy was defined as robbery at sea or on tidal bodies of water including estuaries. Once you set foot on land it becomes simple robbery, not piracy That's something of a misconception. Privateering was seen by most nations as a legitimate form of warfare, provided that the privateer held a valid commission from a recognised state and that a state of war existed between the privateer's country and their victim's. This is where the misconception comes in. Drake, for example, was considered a pirate by the Spanish because he (probably) didn't actually have a commission, and at the time of his 'privateering' England and Spain were not at war. In another scenario, Jacobite 'privateers' were treated as pirates under English law because James Stuart, in whose name their commissions were issued, was not recognised by the English state as representing a legitimate state. Some Jacobite privateers tried to get around it by taking French commissions, but then they were guilty of treason for taking a foreign commission against their own country. However, American privateers in the Revolution, for example, or French privateers during any of the wars against England, were treated as prisoners of war if they were captured.

You're welcome to call 1730 the end of the GAoP if it makes you happy. Or 1740, or 1750, or 1927. Personally, I dislike 1730 for exactly the same reason that you like it. History does not happen by arbitrary dates, so for me 1729, or any other year, is just as good as 1730. Less neat, perhaps, less compartmentalized, but potentially more accurate. However, there's no 'boss of the world application of dates to time-periods', so whatever floats your boat. But as I've said before, what is actually important is not when was the GAoP, but what was the GAoP. Now, on 13 October 1691 something actually occurred which genuinely changed the pattern of Western piracy in a massive way. If that's too meticulous for you, so be it. My post originally proposing that date was somewhat tongue in cheek, but it's still as good a date as any. After that date things were genuinely different. The actual end of the GAoP is harder to pinpoint, but nonetheless we can identify changes in the pattern and nature of piracy that took place between 1722 and 1725. The changes were more gradual, but they did occur. Between 1726 and 1730 there were no major changes, they had already occurred, and the pattern of piracy remained essentially unchanged until the next great wave of Atlantic piracy in the early 19th century. Now, this does not mean that all piracy that occurred between those dates fits the pattern of what we might call GAoP piracy - John Quelch's cruise is a good example - but that doesn't make the point any less valid. There was still a great deal of 'medieval' thinking and activity going on during the 'renaissance'. In short, call it 1730 if you wish, but if you want to convince others that you're right then justify it. In what way was piracy in 1731 different to piracy in 1729?

Tricky. The French vessels Rose and Victoire returned from plundering in the Red Sea in 1634, but they may have been privateers rather than pirates. The Roebuck was an English privateer, but certainly committed an act of piracy in 1635 when she attacked an English Company ship. From then on, there are lots of examples of ships with lawful commissions exceeding their terms and committing acts of piracy. Perhaps the first indisputable pirate in the area was the Satisfaction: in 1684 her crew mutinied and turned the captain out, then went on to take a number of prizes. Joseph Cooper and Philip Lyne were still active into 1726, but were so insignificant and divorced from other pirates that I struggle to define them as 'golden age' pirates - it depends on how you choose to define the term. I think the Guarda Costas are a bit like the buccaneers, they inhabited a kind of grey area where they might or might not have been pirates. Certainly they committed the odd act of piracy, and other nations oftens considered them pirates, but like the buccaneers they usually had some semblance of legitimacy - by definition they held commissions. I prefer not to count them in with the likes of Blackbeard and Roberts because they were so different in many ways: they held commissions, they had safe ports to return to near their cruising grounds, they condemned their prizes in a (theoretically) legally approved fashion, etc. FWIW, I don't believe Rediker includes them in his tally. Most serious pirate historian look well beyond the GHoP for their evidence: trial accounts and associated depositions, newspapers, colonial correspondence, merchants' correspondence, naval accounts, other published accounts, and other similar sources provide far more information than the GHoP, and about many pirates not included in the GHoP. From that evidence it's fairly clear that pirate activity in both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans went into decline after 1722 and was dropping right off by 1725. There were pirates active after that date, but never in the same numbers as earlier and, crucially, never with anything like the networks established by the Lowther group, who in turn were relatively insignificant when compared to the Flying Gang-Roberts-Taylor group. I can't even think of an example of two pirates sailing in consort after about 1725, let alone more.

I think we should stick with the moniker simply because we will stick with it, whether we like it or not. Since there is no governing body of historians to determine which phrases are or aren't allowed there will always be people using the phrase and others like it. It's no more or less precise than similar monikers like 'iron age', 'medieval' or 'renaissance'.

I think it's more important than that. If the original question is "were pirates savers?" then evidence that they were not is just as important as evidence that they were.

Spoken like a true academic.

I don't think it's at all different. In either case we ask three questions: 1. Is it possible they did it? 2. Is there any evidence they did it? 3. Is there any logical reason that they might or might not do it? Whether earrings, tattoos, bucket boots, or daggers in the teeth, the answer to all three questions is the same: 1. Yes. 2. No. 3. Logic suggests not. Nose-picking is different of course: 1. Yes 2. No 3. Logic suggests probably.

Why carry a blade in your teeth when you've probably got a perfectly good scabbard for it? One other reason for carrying match in your teeth might be so that you didn't put it into your satchel of grenades when you reached in to take one out.

(See my last post)

Wow! So many posts to answer Bear in mind that many pirates simply described as "English" in the GAoP might easily have been American colonists, who were usually described as "English" at the time. That's a good example of one of the problems with the list, if I may say so. I haven't checked your footnotes, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but at the time we were compiling that list Marcus was writing his PhD thesis on Medieval German pirates, so I suspect a lot of those Germans came from him and have no bearing at all on the make-up of GAoP crews. Careful with those: England and la Bouche were know to have tried slave trading, and the black men on Blackbeard's ship were almost certainly slave as well. No, that list only includes those executed, so it doesn't include the Africans, those killed in the battle with HMS Swallow, those acquitted, those sentenced to servitude, or those respited to the Marshalsea prison. No, despite the fact that many historians associate 'Captain Moody' with him, he was never a captain. The 'Captain Moody' mentioned in other documents was most likely either Samuel or William.

Here's another bit that you might find interesting, from Jacob du Bucquoy's account of his time as a captive of John Taylor: "he divided his men into squads [messes] of seven men, consisting, for example, of a Frenchman, a Swede, a Portuguese and three or four Englishmen, so that the English, on whom he could depend, were always in the majority, and could warn him of all that was done or said on board."

It was a bit tongue in cheek. "as they were very much wounded, and no care taken in dressing, they were very offensive, and Stunk as they went along, particularly Lines, the Commander, who had one Eye shot out, which with part of his Nose hung down his Face..." The Evening Post, 28 May 1726, describes Lyne and his crew on the way to their trial.

Possibly of interest, from Richard Hawkins account of being captured by Spriggs' company: "When they first took me, they had twelve Guns, and thirty seven Men. I observ'd two Irish, one Sweed, and one French Man; the rest, I believe, are English." (Italics in original)

Philip Lyne, a pirate, lost an eye. They didn't cure it though, they hanged him. Probably a bit extreme for most surgeons.