Fox

I didn't say I didn't like Leslie, I said that his book couldn't be relied on. Very little is known about Leslie. There is absolutely no way of verifying his bona fides. His book was published 21 years, a full generation, after Blackbeard's death. There is no way of telling whether he was always reporting things of which he was personally aware or whether he was sometimes repeating hearsay and gossip. If he was reporting hearsay and gossip, it's impossible to tell which parts of his book those were. We have no evidence at all that Leslie knew or even met the Thaches of Jamaica. Concluding that he did from the meagre lines in his book is stretching the evidence much further than it warrants. There is no way of telling where his personal bias lay There is no way of telling how good his memory was of decades-old events There is no way of telling whether and how much he made stuff up. His book was written for public consumption and should thus be taken with a grain of salt regardless. One possibility is that Leslie was reliable and referring to Lucretia Thache, and consequently your theory is correct. As I've said, I'm not saying your theory is wrong. Another possibility is that he simply made it up to make his book salacious and by coincidence there happened to be a woman named Thache alive in Jamaica at that time, I'll leave it up to you to judge the likelihood of that, but in the interests of 'reasonable doubt' I offer it as an alternative. A third possibility is that he knew of the existence of the Thache family and having read the first edition of the GHP added 2 and 2 in his head. A fourth possibility is that he knew of the Thache family and for reasons unknown of his own 'gave' them Blackbeard. A fifth possibility is that he got his information from someone else who, in turn, could have been guilty of my second or third options. A sixth possibility is that there was another Thatch family on Jamaica who either escaped the records (and we both know there are gaps in the records - you acknowledge it yourself in your article) or whose records have hitherto been overlooked or lost. Give me a little longer and I'll probably come up with more. The point is that without trying too hard I have come up with six different scenarios, all of which fit the limited available evidence, and only one of which means that Edward Thache was Blackbeard. Edward Thache may have been Blackbeard, I acknowledge that possibility: but equally he may not have been. Like I said, you have a theory. As for the money, I'm a historian, you're welcome to every penny of my spare cash if you think it will help, both of them.

I think the real reason that some historians are biased against genealogy (I'm not one of them by the way) is that on the whole genealogy doesn't tell us very much about the bigger picture. For example, I myself have found a real-life Mary Read whose story fits almost perfectly into the version printed in Johnson's account, but despite having written and presented on women in piracy I haven't included her: partly because I cannot link her directly to the pirate Mary Read any more than you can link Edward Thache of Jamaica to Blackbeard, and partly because knowing when Mary Read was baptised and what her mother's name was tells us precisely nothing about her career as a pirate or about women at sea in the early-modern period or anything else. It's not that the story's not interesting, it is, it's just limited in its usefulness. The reason I doubt that you'll be able to get this past the theory stage is less to do with the limitations of the documents, and more to do with the inherent unreliability of Leslie's account. None of this is to say that I necessarily think you're wrong, and what you do is entirely up to you, none of my business at all, but I'll go back to my original point which was that this is a theory and should be treated as such. For what it's worth, I didn't say you have to know who was lying, I said you have to know how they're lying - assume that everyone is. I'd add that although genealogical records tend not to be adversarial, that doesn't necessarily make them more reliable, they have their faults too depending on how they are used.

More and better sources. He might have been from Jamaica, it's certainly a possibility, but I doubt we'll ever be sure beyond reasonable doubt. Even if we could be sure that he was from the island, the Thache family would only be the most likely possibility, not a certainty. Or, a source which definitively links Blackbeard to the Thache family. Honestly, I wish you luck, but I really doubt you'll ever be able to take this past the 'here's an interesting possibility' stage.

I certainly dispute that it's enough to base anything on, and that it's 'practically... the birth certificate'. Statements like that are waaaaaaay over the limit of what's supported by the evidence. If we knew for certain that Blackbeard was from Jamaica then I'd agree that the Thache family there likely produced Blackbeard, but we don't know it for certain, not even close. I'm not saying you're wrong, and I don't have an alternative theory, but frankly, from an academic standard, you're stretching the evidence well past credibility. You've made a case for a theory, it's not a bad case and it's not a bad theory, but it's no more than that. Honestly and objectively? Based on the evidence presented, no better than even.

Substitute 'person' for either and the nail is well and truly struck on the head.

Yes, he could have been that. My point was that there is no evidence that it was so. We don't know that the Jamaica Thache was Blackbeard, and even if we did we don't know why he ceded property to his relative, and even if you could show that he definitely did it out of generosity it's only one act. There's really not enough there to start speculating on his character. Exactly. I'm not at all convinced that the government did single out Blackbeard for special treatment, there was really no need for them to do so as with his powerful ship, unusual beard, and audacious actions before Charleston he pretty much single himself out. If we compare the treatment of Blackbeard with the treatment of Henry Every, for example, whom we know beyond doubt that the government singled out for vilification, the circumstances are quite dissimilar. But whatever the root cause of it, Mist merely reflected what was already going on, yet in your article you make him the architect of the piece which, fairly clearly, he was not. But both of those things are very subjective. You may have got the impressions you describe from reading the GHP, but others may not have. You can't claim that Mist was deliberately creating a particular image in his readers' minds when the text actually contradicts both of those images. That's really not clear from your article, which appears to conflate privateer captains with everyone who served on privateers Neither am I. In fact I dedicated my PhD thesis to refuting that very argument of Rediker's and providing an alternative model. My thesis is available online for free here: 'Piratical Schemes and Contracts': Pirate Articles and Their Society, 1660-1730 It's not terribly relevant here, but I'll happily provide a summary if you (or anyone else) would like. When it comes to pirates and Jacobitism, I think I'm the resident expert everywhere Herriot is easily one of the most enigmatic figures of the 'golden age', and we'll probably never figure him out. When I started my Master's thesis my supervisor gave me one of the best pieces of advice I have ever had: 'The question is not is this witness lying to me? It's how is this witness lying to me?' There's no such thing as a 'credible witness', everyone is subjective and nobody ever tells the full story from every angle, the important thing is to work out in what way a witness might be credible or not. And just because a witness is not credible in some respects does not mean that nothing they say can be believed. The operative question here is whether or not Herriot had anything to gain by fabricating the claim that Blackbeard wrecked the QAR on purpose, or anything to lose by admitting that it was an honest accident. It's not enough to say that there are no other witnesses, if you want to show that Blackbeard was innocent of the charges of treachery then you need to provide a solid argument for why Herriot would have lied about it. Personally, I can't see any reason, but I'll leave you to form your own case How many examples of other merchants and mariners committing gang rape and murder can you find? Actually I think in a general sense there's a very strong case to be made that pirates were much more willing to employ violence than the wider maritime community. For example, in the Royal Navy the maximum number of lashes a Captain was allowed to inflict on his own authority was 12, and records of East India Company voyages show that 12 was a typical number, yet in more than one set of pirate articles we find that the standard is set at 39, and there are numerous testimonies of pirate receiving hundreds of blows. Agreed, all of the examples I gave came from sources other than the GHP. Civility costs nothing. Thank you in turn for not taking offence at my rather critical analysis of your article.

I can't swear that 1978 was the first, but it's the earliest I've managed to find in years of searching. And yes, that's more or less exactly what I meant about the blue/black thing. One witness reported what he actually saw, a blue flag; the other saw a dark coloured pirate flag so it automatically became a 'black flag'.

Just call 'em British, they won't mind that at all

I'll take that invitation. I have no axe to grind in this discussion, I frankly don’t give a rope’s end where or when Blackbeard was born, but having read the article there are a number of issues that trouble me. I’ll leave most of the details to others, but I’d agree that there are issues with assuming Vernon was a source for Mist or Leslie, and intrinsic issues with Leslie’s work. However, those have already been brought up so I’ll address only my own original thoughts. In general I like to be as balanced as possible, but the nature of peer-reviewing doesn’t always work like that. I don’t think that the General History can really be blamed for the demonisation of Blackbeard. Blackbeard was a thoroughly notorious character in his own lifetime. Maynard’s report of Blackbeard’s last fight, for example, described him as ‘notorious’ when it was published in The Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer, 25/4/1719, and included details of the many wounds Blackbeard endured before he could be overcome, describing the battle as ‘Bloody and Desperate.’ To the reading public, then, Blackbeard was already a furious figure years before Mist (if indeed it was he) put pen to paper. Blackbeard himself contributed to the image too, of course, with his long beard and extravagant black ribbons. Beyond question, here was a man who stood out as something different from other pirates. I certainly don’t agree that Mist ‘can be blamed for the choice to make Blackbeard his star notorious pirate,’ Blackbeard was already notorious in the Atlantic seafaring community and the reading population of Britain and the colonies, well before Mist’s book. For example, of all of the pirates active between 1700 and 1725, Blackbeard was the only one to have had a ballad published about him during that time. Mist didn’t make Blackbeard a star, Blackbeard did. You note yourself that in 1717 Blackbeard and his men were characterized as ‘Barbarous’ and ‘inhumane’ by the Boston News Letter. I’m also somewhat confused by your dismissal of Wilkie for the embellishments he added to the Blackbeard tale, which you follow with some fairly whopping embellishments of your own in regard to the General History. You claim that Mist ‘created visions of hundreds of filthy syphilitic pirates lining up outside at Thache’s plantation a little more than a mile from, yet in sight of, Bath Town to have a turn at the vile pirate’s sixteen-year old childlike bride. The shooting of guns, the “clinking” sound of swordplay that traveled across the water to Bath, all invigorated by rum and sexual abandon,’ Whereas what Mist actually wrote (and which you later quote yourself) was that while Blackbeard lived with his wife near Bath ‘it was his custom to invite five or six [my emphasis] of his his brutal Companions to come ashore, and he would force her to prostitute herself to them all, one after another.’ Hardly the vision you accuse Mist of creating. You do the same thing later when describing the wreck of the QAR: ‘Mist did not say so, but he intimated that Thache killed hundreds of people that day.’ Mist intimates no such thing, and in fact in the very passage which you quote yourself categorically states that the crew of the QAR did not perish. I am troubled by your portrayal of privateers as distinct from pirates by being ‘wealthy,’ and ‘learned aristocrats.’ I doubt that many of the privateer captains could truthfully be described as ‘learned aristocrats’ in the true meaning of the word, and I’m positive that the men under their command could not. The vast majority of the men who served on privateers were lower class mariners who preferred to take a risk in the hopes of a large reward rather than labour more safely for a smaller reward. They were not only very like the crews of pirate vessels they were frequently, in practice, the very same people. In regard to the genealogy (which I did manage to follow, just) you state, quite definitively that ‘These deeds indicate that the only Thache family on Jamaica was Blackbeard’s family.’ That is a very misleading statement, they do no such thing. They indicate that there was a Thache family living on Jamaica, in no way do they link that family with Blackbeard, and yet you repeatedly inform the reader that Edward Thache Jr. of Jamaica and Blackbeard were one and the same person, as if it was an established fact. They might well have been the same person, I have no specific evidence to refute it, but it's a supposition and should be treated as such. Your assertion that the Rev. Thomas Thache, whom you describe as a ‘moderate Presbyterian’ may have been a Jacobite supporter had he lived past 1688 is somewhat confusing. Of all of the various Christian sects practising in English society in the seventeenth and eighteenth century the Presbyterians were probably the most despised by Jacobites, who indeed used ‘Presbyterian’ as an insult, regardless of their target’s actual faith. For a nice piratical example, Thomas Davis, when he was forced into Bellamy’s company, was castigated, ‘You Presbyterian dog, you should fight for King James.’ If the Rev. Thache was a Presbyterian then he was very unlikely to have been a Jacobite. Given the large part Jacobitism seems to play in your work, may I recommend Paul Kleber Monod's excellent Jacobitism and the English People, 1688-1788. In trying to justify Blackbeard’s wrecking of the QAR you present an argument that there was probably no treachery involved because none of the pirates present mention it. ‘No records have surfaced that provide evidence that Blackbeard committed these atrocities except the [stede Bonnet] trial transcript,’ you write, implying that a lack of other evidence suggests that those pirates on trial may have fabricated their being double-crossed by Blackbeard. It’s certainly a possibility, but I must question how many other first-hand accounts of the loss of the QAR you’ve read that don’t accuse Blackbeard of treachery? To my knowledge, the source which accuses Blackbeard of deliberately wrecking the QAR to cheat his men is the only first-hand account of the incident. It’s true that there are no other sources which reliably describe Blackbeard’s treachery at Topsail Inlet, but it is equally true that 100% of the witness-accounts of the event do accuse him. In short, it’s a false argument. In a general sense there are a couple of threads running through the article which bother me. Firstly, you use one single document, describing one single incident (the ceding of property by Edward Thache Jr.), completely devoid of any context or background, and which crucially may not relate to Blackbeard himself at all, to paint a picture of Blackbeard as a kind and generous man, and then fit the rest of the evidence around that picture. It is certainly possible, perhaps even probable, that Blackbeard was not the monster that popular history books portray him as (though academic historians will not consider this ‘news’), but that’s a long way from the congenial and familial character you seem to be trying to create. Secondly you mention a few times that pirates in general were not the vicious men than history has depicted them as, and use a couple of examples (such as Vane and Low) as the exceptions that prove the rule. However, accounts of atrocities committed by pirates are certainly not limited to those two men: Cocklyn is described as a brute, Anstis’ men supposedly gang-raped a captive then broke her back and threw her overboard, in Taylor’s crew it was written into the articles that women on captured ships were to be ‘given up to the hazards of the sea’, accounts of tortures and murders abound, ships full of men were set alight and then adrift, the list goes on... One final point. Earlier today you wrote here, 'Nor do I need to explain the birth/age date of circa 1680, "around 1683," or anything else of that nature.' I'd argue most strongly that any 'Professional Research Historian' should be ready to explain everything they write.

I've lost count of the number of times I've had to explain it here, and yet it's really very simple: historically, England, Scotland, and Ireland were three kingdoms that made up Great Britain. Nowadays it's slightly different - England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland make up Great Britain, but historically Wales was considered part of England and Ireland was united. To differentiate the Scots from the British is akin to differentiating Texans from Americans.

I have some thoughts (no surprise there I imagine) First of all describing the House of Stuart, or anything else, as 'Scots-British' is inaccurate. The phrase you're looking for is either 'Anglo-Scottish' or simply 'British'. The country immediately south of Scotland is not Britain, it's England: Scotland is part of Britain. It's a small point but an important one. As a general introduction to Jacobitism the article is not bad, but I think when you describe the legal ramifications of being a Jacobite you miss the point. It's true that personally held beliefs could not be prosecuted in law unless those political beliefs led you to illegally protest, and you're quite correct in that statement, but what you miss is just how far the law extended in outlawing Jacobite protest. If, for example, you were heard drinking a toast to the Pretender that was enough to have you reported and the constables banging down your door. Singing a Jacobite song in the wrong part of town could see you beaten up and arrested. Captain John Silk of the London militia was hauled before the Corporation in 1711 to defend himself for having his company musicians play a tune (without words) that sometimes had pro-Jacobite words set to it. So yes, Jacobitism could only be prosecuted as a criminal activity if it involved some kind of protest, but legally speaking almost any form of Jacobite expression counted as protest. Imagine a state in which you could be arrested for telling your Republican neighbour you were thinking of voting Democrat. In fact, imagine a state in which you didn't have the option to vote Democrat at all, but could be arrested for telling your neighbour that you thought it was a pity there was no Democrat to vote for. Into that world stepped the pirates of the 'golden age', many of whom had pro-Jacobite sympathies. And not just pirates, but many other criminal groups: smugglers, poachers, highwaymen. It's often difficult to disentangle because charges of Jacobitism were routinely tacked on to other criminal charges in order to vilify the accused, but even so there is enough evidence to show that many criminals (and many non-criminals too) expressed pro-Jacobite sentiments. How far they went in their support for the exiled Stuarts is impossible to quantify. It's been observed that in the early 18th century Jacobitism was really the only discourse of dissent available to those dissatisfied with the Whig regime, but at least in the cases of pirates and smugglers genuine practical assistance was offered to the Jacobite cause. In case you haven't read it, my article on piracy and Jacobitism from the International Journal of Maritime History can be found here: https://www.academia.edu/772352/Jacobitism_and_the_Golden_Age_of_Piracy_1715-1725

The blue/black dichotomy of Low's flag sheds interesting light on the finer details of pirate flags. The two sources are clearly describing not just flags with the same device, but the same actual flag, yet one witness described it as black, the other as blue. True black was a notoriously difficult colour to dye, and to make colour-fast, so a lot of the things described as 'black' were actually just very dark colours - in this case a very dark blue hue which had probably faded a little over time. One witness described what he was supposed to see, a 'black' flag; the other described what he actually saw, a blue flag. An important lesson on the nature of witnesses. Although the device described on Low's flag has since been attributed to Blackbeard, that flag was not attached to Blackbeard's name until the 1978, in Douglas Botting's TIME-LIFE book, Pirates.

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It's not exactly what you're looking for, but might be of interest. Here's a list of goods shipped from New York to Adam Baldridge's trading post on St. Mary's Island, Madagascar, in 1691: August 7th 1693. Arrived the Ship Charles, John Churcher master, from New York, Mr. Fred. Phillips, owner, sent to bring me severall sorts of goods. She had two Cargos in her, one Consigned to said Master to dispose of, and one to me, containing as followeth: 44 paire of shooes and pumps, 6 Dozen of worsted and threed stockens, 3 dozen of speckled shirts and Breaches, 12 hatts, some Carpenters Tools, 5 Barrells of Rum, four Quarter Caskes of Madera Wine, ten Cases of Spirits, Two old Stills full of hols, one worme, Two Grindstones, Two Cross Sawes and one Whip saw, three Jarrs of oyle, two small Iron Potts, three Barrells of Cannon powder, some books, Catechisms, primers and horne books, two Bibles, and some garden Seeds, three Dozen of howes. And the following good were recovered from a captured pirate ship in 1718 10 Great Guns & Carriages, 2 Swivle Guns, 3 Pateraroes, 4 Chambers, 80 Musketts, 5 Blunderbusses, 5 Pistols, 6 Old Pateraroes, 4 Old Chambers, 20 Guns Tackles, 10 Breechins, 2 Guns, Worm and Ladle, 4 Spunges, 2 Crows, 10 Organ Barrels, 7 Cutlasses, 5 Great Gun Cartridge Boxes, 8 Cartridge Boxes for small arms. 53 hand Granadoes, 200 Great Shot, 2 Barrl. Powder, 4 Caggs of Patridge, 2 Powder Horns. ACCT. OF SAILS, RIGGING & STORES, etc. 1 Main sail, 1 Fore sail, 1 Jib, 2 Flying Jibbs, 1 Top Sail, 1 Sprit Sail, 1 Square Sail, 1 boat Main Sail & Fore Sail, 22 Spare Blocks, 1 main Sheet, 1 Topmast Stay, 1 Fore halliards, 1 Jib halliards and Down hall, 1 Topping Lift, 2 Grinding Stones, 24 Water Casks, 1 barl. of Tar & a peice, 30 barr. of Powder, 7 Dead Eyes, 1 Kittle, 2 Iron potts, 3 Anchors, 1 Cable, 1 old peice of Junk, 13 planks, 2 Top Sail Sheets, 1 Boom Tackle, 18 bbr. of Beef & pork. 2 Runners & Tackles, a Small Quantity of tallow, and Tobacco, 3 Compasses, 1 Doctors Chest, 1 black flagg, 1 Red flagg, 2 Ensignes, 2 pendants, 1 Jack, 8 Stoppers, 1 fflying Jibb halliards, 1 Top Sail Halliards, 1 main Halliards, 1 main Down hall, 1 Jib Sheet, the other for Bow fast. 1 Flying Tack, 1 Fish Hook & Pendant, 2 pump Spears, 1 Broad Ax, 1 Wood Ax, 1 hand Saw, 1 pair of Canhooks, 1 hammer, 1 Augur, 1 plain, Some Iron work and Lumber.

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The East India Company also make good bad guys because historically they raped India dry, drove the country into poverty, and generally stomped their big colonial boots over the rights of the natives. Oh, no, wait, they didn't actually do that stuff, but why let the facts get in the way of a good story?

Yep, with the Wooden World, the focus is the mid-century (so 20-30 years after your period of interest), and some stuff changed in that time like the uniforms, as you say, but most of the information would be relevant. Command of the Ocean is a much broader work, dealing with the social history, but also with the ships and operations of the Navy over a much larger period. A lot of the book would be completely irrelevant to you, but the stuff that is relevant would be priceless. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is worth reading, but you need to bear in mind that the author is an avowed marxist, both in historiographical terms and in his own politics, and that is a big influence in his work. It also deals specifically with the merchant marine rather than the Royal Navy. If you want to know about the merchant marine too then I'd suggest that BtDatDBS should be the fourth book you read, after you've read Ralph Davies' The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Peter Earle's Sailors, English Merchant Seamen 1650-1775, and Daniel Vickers' Young Men and the Sea.

I'm about to go away for a few days, I'll try and reply more fully on my return, but in the meantime if you're buying books I'd thoroughly recommend N.A.M Rodger's Command of the Ocean, and his earlier The Wooden World, for the best run down on the Royal Navy in the eighteenth century (CotO covers a very broad period, and TWW is mid-18thC, but both will give you the background you need for fiction writing).

Don't make me look up the references! There was one guy who was forced into a pirate crew and was told, words to the effect of, "You're worse than a negro now"

1701-25 is a long period! When exactly do you want to know about?

Define 'crew'. If you have slaves on board are you really going to do the pumping yourself? And define 'free/slave'. If you'll pardon the pun, I don't think the issue is all that black and white. As for the interpretation of statements, when Blackbeard left Topsail Inlet he was described as having with him 40 white men and 60 black (or something like that), yet the evidence that those black men were slaves is compelling. In some cases such statements may well have meant free black men, but in others it's doubtful, I don't think there can be any blanket interpretation that could be applied to every instance. For another example, Bart Roberts' crew is described in a couple of places as consisting of so-many white me and so-many black, but we know that those black men didn't speak English, so they can't have been very well integrated into the company.

Random question for the La Buse-ophiles: Does anyone know of any evidence of La Buse wearing an eyepatch? I don't recall mention of one anywhere, but does it come up in any of the non-English sources? Wikipedia makes the claim, I don't believe it.

Pat Croce's flag, whatever he likes to say, can't be dated earlier than the 20th century. The red flag of Lt. Curry's is interesting. It may well date from the late 18th century, but it's almost certainly not really a pirate flag. In the first place it's too small to be a useful flag, and in the second place the log books of the ships that Curry and his brother were serving on at that time show no encounters with pirates. Obviously everyone would like it to be a pirate flag, but the current thinking is that perhaps it's a prop from an early amateur dramatics performance, which might be just as interesting in a different way.

Rather behind the times, I just went in search of that reference. There are other references to Bellamy flying a skull and cross bones (the trial of the survivors of the Whydah, for example), but I'm chasing down all the odd flag references at the moment. The CSPC, vol. 29, p.230 is indeed a letter from Hamilton dated Dec. 14 1716, and it does mention attacks by Bellamy in the Mary-Anne, but it does NOT mention Bellamy's flag.

I agree entirely, Captain Taylor (whose first name was probably Richard, by the way) is one of the great unsung pirates of the 'golden age'. I strongly suspect that the reason he didn't get so well known as others is simply that he didn't get a chapter in Johnson's General History. According to a number of sources, Taylor was granted a Spanish pardon in 1722 and retired on his wealth. Jacob du Bucquoy claimed in 1744 that he was living in Cuba on his own plantation. Incidentally, the capture of the Nuetra Senora de la Cabo, the rich prize you allude to, was probably the single richest prize taken by a pirate of the 'golden age', and was worth far more than the Cassandra.