Fox

Yes, they are originally from 1725 There has never been a tradition here of the original poster having any control over how the thread develops, sorry.

The 1725 book which those pictures come from is the first edition of The History and Lives of all the Most Notorious Pirates and Their Crews. It was the fourth edition (1732) that I originally posted those pictures from because I didn't, at that time, have a copy of the first edition. It's not the same book as Johnson's General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, which was in its third edition by 1725, and did not contain those pictures. Most of the text in both books is the same, but there are a few differences.

Because Osprey are really the only people who publish books with that kind of illustration, and Osprey won't publish a book about pirates unless it's written by Angus Konstam. (Or at least co-written - my understanding is that the clothing part of that book was more or less all done by David Rickman). The other problem is that there just isn't a universal consensus on the topic. People have been doing a lot of in-depth research into the appearance of pirates on this forum for a decade, and we still don't agree what they looked like!

Thats a second edition. It is, in fact, the very same book I linked to in this thread in Feb 2009... FWIW, I held that actual book last year... There are three completely fictitious chapters in the second volume: Misson, Lewis, and Cornelius. Lewis and Cornelius' chapters are tricky because they are not proveably false and like Misson's chapter, contain a number of references to real people and events, which give all three an unwarranted verisimilitude. Tew's chapter is, of course, based on a real person and contains some real events from his life, but is also filled with stuff about Misson, so the chapter is at least 50% fictional. Corroborative records are fairly sparse for most of the pirates in the second volume, and by the time Johnson wrote about them the events he describes were 20+ years old, so it's difficult to assess how accurate they are. The chapters on Condent and Bellamy, who were active much closer to the time of writing and about whom there are more sources, are the usual mix of truth, error, and fanciful embellishment that we associate with the worst chapters of the first volume.

FWIW, having made and worn the garments mentioned in the Admiralty slop contracts, I am 99% certain that the 'waistcoats' of Welsh red or ticking were the 'sailors' jackets' that we identify in pictoral evidence (though I acknowledge that several pictures show another garment under the 'jacket'). The grey kersey jacket comes out longer (based on the 1730s measurements) than the jackets shown in the pictures and is a superb warm and waterproof overcoat rather than every day wear.

I have some chairs like that in my kitchen too...

That's what garters are for...

I suspect he's a Chelsea Pensioner. I've looked at the Chairing of the Member countless times, and I can't shake the idea that the monkey is meant to be a French soldier. It's a very French looking uniform, and it's not unheard of for satirists to be rude about Johnny Furriners, but I can't for the life of me see the relevance of the joke.

I wonder what colour it was...

That is virtually identical to my kitchen table - awesome! (My kitchen table has fewer drawers and more dog-damage)

No idea off the top of my head. There were soldiers based in Jamaica, so it's possible. Independent companies were commanded by captains. Rhett was a militia colonel That's Stede Bonnet's execution, so it's Charleston, South Carolina...

I dunno, sounds very Old Testament to me!

Off the top of my head I'd say that that picture is set in Scotland (judging by the blue bonnets in the foreground) which probably makes it the execution of Thomas Green and co in Edinburgh in 1705. At that date Scotland was not part of Britain and so the uniforms were not regular English army establishment. Independent Company uniform was red and blue from their inception (sometime before 1711) until the 1730s(?) when the facings were changed to green.

Sorry Michael (and others), you're quite right, I may have made the blue waistcoats up. Indpendent Company uniform was red coat with blue facings, red breeches, and tricorn hat with white piping.

The company of soldiers Woodes Rogers took with him to the Bahamas was what was termed an "Independent Company". That is to say, they were regular soldiers but not attached to any particular regiment. There were Independent Companies in many of the Caribbean Islands, and several of the North American colonies, as well as others scattered around. I haven't managed to track down information specific to Rogers' Bahamas company, but I have looked at information relating to the supply and uniform of numerous other Independent Companies, all of whom were equipped identically. The Independent Company uniform, which would have been worn by the troops in the Bahamas as well as those in Bermuda, Jamaica, New England, and Africa (amongst other places), was a red coat with blue facings, blue waistcoat, red breeches, and a tricorn hat with white trim.

No probs. I'm pretty sure that somewhere on the forum, years ago, I posted Walter Moor's letter about the event. You might find it with a search if it hasn't been cleaned up and I'm not imagining things.

Which bit are you asking about? Walter Moor in the South Sea Company vessel Eagle surprised Lowther's men ashore. Lowther was neither captured nor killed and it was believed at the time that he committed suicide. The South Sea Company was actively trading until the mid 18th century and still existed until the mid-19th century.

That is the generally accepted version, but it's based on the fact that La Buse was later in command of the Cabo. There's no evidence that I know of that he was actually present at the capture, and circumstantial evidence (above) that he wasn't. Even if he was present at the capture, he wasn't in command.

I haven't actually read the book, but there were some fairly extensive discussions on another forum with David Rickman, who wrote the part on pirates' clothing. One thing that struck me at the time was that DR had some very fixed ideas that he wasn't really prepared to alter, even in the face of contradictory evidence. For example, he was insisted that English sailors didn't wear tricorn hats before 1730: when the Luyken picture of an English Admiral wearing a point-back tricorn was posted he insisted it was a bicorn! Likewise, he was provided with more than one GAoP reference to thrum caps, but still doubted they were in use. Now, David is a very capable historian and quite able to make his own conclusions, but in this case I felt (and I believe others did too) that he was making conclusions before considering all the evidence and wasn't prepared to revise them when new evidence was presented. However, this is not a thread for criticising individual authors: anyone wishing to see for themselves can access the discussion here: http://piratebrethren.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1555 and some other places on the same forum. The hats in the pictures you posted are fairly obviously based on the 'Peter the Great' hat in the Hermitage museum: It is true that there are no 100% certain depictions of the RN slop caps, but based on the written description and pictures of other hats from the period, I think it's a close enough reconstruction. Again, I think you're being a bit too demanding in how cut-and-dried you want the evidence to be. We know that petticoat breeches were made of checked fabric in the 1690s and that checked fabric was available in the 1715-30 period, so why would petticoat breeches not have been checked then? That's reasonable extrapolation. It is quite true that the RN slop jackets have too many buttons. The figure lying on the floor in the Blackbeard illustration has 12 buttons down the front and 3 on each pocket. If the figure climbing out of the hatch is also supposed to be wearing a slop jacket then there's two on the back as well. 18 or 20, but certainly not the specified 15. Yep, we don't know how widespread use of the slop clothing was, but it certainly wasn't a uniform in the way it's depicted here. Or case bottles, such as the figure in the top illustration is waving about.

Nope, (virtually) all the troops sent from England to the colonies, and many of those raised in the colonies, wore red coats.

It's not that they're all bad, but they are certainly variable in quality. A lot of the older ones are based on research that is way out of date and some of the early illustrations are ludicrous. The other problem is that a lot of them are very basic, so come with all the usual caveats about generalisation. Finally, some of them are just plain wrong in places. The first of their pirates books contains pictures of "pirates" with earrings, tattoos, there's probably even a parrot in there somewhere... The recent book by Angus Konstam and David Rickman that you've criticised elsewhere is an Osprey book, should give you some idea. Why so? Current research suggests that they were red.

Rereading Lazenby's account, and comparing it with McCrae's, I now think it quite likely that La Buse joined Taylor and co at Madagascar, after the capture of the Cabo. At the beginning of McCrae's account it's clear that La Buse was at Mayotte at the time of the engagment with the Cassandra. Lazenby narrative then covers the whole of the time from that engagement up to the capture of the Cabo, but makes no mention of them meeting La Buse at any point.

From the narrative of Richard Lazenby, prisoner of John Taylor: "They caroused, and kept their Christmas in a most riotous manner, destroying most of the fresh provisions they had aboard, of which quite two-thirds was wasted. After three days of such debauchery and waster, they decided to go to Mauritius to repair the Victory, which was now in a very bad way."

Oh I dunno, I know that I have uncovered (and mostly shared) a great deal of evidence, both about pirates' clothing specifically and seamen's clothing in general, than was available in 2006. And I'm not the only one, by any means. By and large it confirms our earlier thoughts, there's nothing wildly contradictory except for the solitary source showing a pirate in possession of a pair of riding boots, but the more evidence that can be brought to bear the more reliable our impression of "what pirates wore" becomes.

In 1727 or thereabouts a crew of pirates led by John Vidal were reduced to cutting up oars to make cudgels because they didn't have any cutlasses. Admittedly, they were fairly shoddy pirates...