Fox

The source for this is Johnson's chapter on Bart Roberts.

All of the sailors on both sloops were drawn from the crews of the Royal Navy vessels HMS Pearl and HMS Lyme, so whoever dispatched Blackbeard was unquestionably a Royal Navy sailor. I have never seen any evidence to suggest that RN seamen of any nationality took their own swords with them, and weapons were generally restricted on board ship in any case. So I'm not convinced that the big sword from home idea is reasonable. Neither is there any reason to believe that BB's head was cleaved straight off - in fact, the usual story (of uncertain origin) is that it took two blows on the neck to kill him. The senior RN officer in Virginia took joint responsibility for the venture with Spotswood, and as an RN officer had a jurisdiction that extended as far as the high-tide mark.

I have no real reason to dispute that the man was a highlander - though it could just be journalistic license. However, I have my doubts about it being a 'highland' broadsword in the sense we usually think of them. Assuming that he was actually a highlander, there's no reason to suppose that he brought his own sword - nobody else did, unless they were an officer.

If you could answer the question of what Royal Navy issue swords looked like (or indeed, if there was a single pattern at all) with any kind of certainty, then you'd be a very popular fellow.

There are many books that could be covered by that description, some worse than others, but I suspect you're thinking of Villains of all Nations by Marcus Rediker. Much as I disagree with about 80% of Rediker's conclusions, I do think this is an interesting point worth commenting on, because there is a big gulf between pseudo-history and history-written-from-a-viewpoint-that-differs-from-one's-own. Rediker's work falls firmly into the latter IMHO, as his interpretations are based on solid historical facts rather than speculation and wishful thinking. For example, pirate pay-scales were fairly simple and quite level, with the captain usually receiving between one and three times the amount received by the rest of the crew (with a couple of notable exceptions). Rediker interprets this as being evidence of progressive thinking of a left-wing nature, by comparing it to Royal Navy pay scales in which a captain could earn more in a day that the lowest members of the crew earned in a month. However, compared to many merchantmen and fishing vessels the pirates' pay-scales are about 'normal', so they were no more progressive or socialist than anyone else of the time in my opinion. See? Rediker's conclusions might be debateable, but they are at least rooted in real history. Not like that awful pirates and Knights Templar nonsense that we thought would never go away...

Nope, I don't think there has ever been a general belief that shoes would have been worn at all times, I just don't see the logic of going barefoot under working conditions when shoes were available.

But I'm not talking about walking on coral or gravel (not much coral round here, but I have no problem walking on gravel). When you climb ratlines in bare feet all of your body's weight is transfered to a 1/2" wide strip on the bottom of your foot. Then, as your weight comes onto the line it bends under your foot, cutting into the sides of your foot and doing its best to fold your foot in half from underneath. You can kind of see what I mean if you take a coarse skipping rope, put your bare foot in the middle of it, and pull with all your might on both ends at once. It's not unbearable life-threatening pain, but it's not at all painful when wearing shoes, so where's the logic in doing it bare foot? Stubbing the little toe of your cold wet bare foot on a gun carriage is unbearable life-threatening pain, and can be avoided by the simple expedient of wearing a shoe.

Or it could be a mule. In fact, I think it is quite clearly and unambiguously a mule. If you look at the area where the leg covering meets the toe covering it's quite clear that the leg covering (the stocking) is going inside the toe covering (the mule). Same where the heel of the stocking meets the sole of the mule. Why is it illogical to wear shoes on ship? I worked on a square-rigger for ten years and virtually always wore shoes. Too many things to stub your toes on to risk going barefoot when working, and trying to climb ratlines in bare feet is a fairly refined form of torture. Based on that experience I'd say it was far more logical to wear shoes if you had 'em. FWIW, I know Royaliste shares that opinion. Further, there is evidence in support of it. One of the reasons the Admiralty introduced the slop system in the early 17th century was because of complaints from captains that their men didn't have enough clothing, and one of the things mentioned is shoes. So, there were men going barefoot, but it was necessity, not choice. Or, for example, the watercolours by Gabriel Bray, 2nd lieutenant of HMS Pallas, show sailors painted from life while working aboard a ship in 1774/5:

To me that looks like a completely unambiguous stocking worn under mules.

Clement Downing, like a lot of the 'travel' authors of the time, seems to be quite good on the stuff he actually witnessed for himself (with the usual caveats about subjectivity, audience etc), but most of the stuff he wrote about pirates was based on hearsay (at best - some of it was probably just made up to fill in the gaps), and by the time he came to write the book it was 14 year old memory of hearsay. For the pirate stuff he's nothing like as reliable as the people who were actually there - Richard Moore etc. And, as shown above, some of the stuff he wrote is demonstrably impossible. However, this conversation has inspired me to look a bit deeper into Captain Laws of the Mermaid - I think there's a healthy chunk of mystery yet to be solved!

Ah, your information comes from Clement Downing's Compendious History of the Indian Wars, published in London in 1737... Sadly, much of Downing's information is proveably wrong. For example, there are multiple first hand source that show that Roberts began his piratical career after Howell Davis captured the merchantman Princess, on which ship he was serving as mate, not under John Williams in the Terrible (of whom no evidence appears to exist outside Downing's book). The Onslow was captured on 8 August 1721 (this is one of the best documented captures of the whole golden age of piracy, so there's no doubt about its date) almost exactly one year after England and co captured the Cassandra at Johanna in his ship the Fancy (again the dates are easily verifiable from the accounts given by people such as Capt McCrae, commander of the Cassandra). The surgeon "Mr Moore" mentioned by Downing is none other than the Richard Moor I quoted in my last post, who says in his own testimony that he was captured and forced to join the pirates "by two pirate Vessels the one called the Speedwell (whereof Jeremiah Cocklin was Comander) and the other the Duke of Ormond (whereof Oliver le Boos was Comander)", not by England or Roberts (in fact, Moore was captured by Cocklyn and La Buse the day after Roberts was captured by Davis). Sorry, but Downing's version of events is a terrible mish-mash of truth, error, and fiction, and cannot be relied upon at all.

I'm glad this topic has been bumped. I found further evidence of Blackbeard and slavery in N.C. a while back and have been meaning to post it. When he later had to defend his actions in N.C., Captain Brand wrote: "...that during the time I was in North Carolina I was att the governer's house; that when I applied myself to him for a parcell of sugars and slaves that did belong to Tach, he Order'd the Martial to deliver the slaves, and the Naval Officer the sugars to me." (Ellis Brand to the Admiralty, 12 March, 1719. ADM 1/1472) So, some of the 60 black men taken by Blackbeard from Topsail Inlet to Ocracoke were sold as slaves (such as those sold to Tobias Knight), some were kept as slaves by white members of the company (such as those owned by William Howard), and some were kept in the ownership of BB himself, and eventually turned over to Brand.

Differ all you like, I shall be delighted to hear alternatives provided that they are well backed up with original and reliable sources.

I would certainly like to know more about those sources! When was this meeting? Roberts only rose to command in late July 1719, and by September 1719 was on the coast of Brazil. According to the deposition of Henry Hunt, Davis was still alive and in command (and in the Gambia river) at least as late as 5 July. Roberts only took over after Davis was killed at Principe, and according to Thomas Jones, the pirate spent 15-16 days at Principe before Davis was killed. Roberts was in command by 27 July when Thomas Grant was captured in the Experiment. This all suggests that Roberts rose to command in the last week of July 1719. James Bradshaw's testimony is a little vague, but suggests that Roberts was active off Brazil by the first half of September 1719. Your meeting presumably took place in August 1719 then? According to Richard Moor, by early June 1719 Cocklyn and La Buse were cruising together independently of both Davis and England, and John Taylor was aboard Cocklyn's ship (though he briefly held his own command in the summer of 1719). Therefore none of them were at a meeting with England and Roberts in August, and Taylor was certainly not acting as quartermaster to England and Roberts' company - though it is conceivable that he was acting as joint quartermaster to Cocklyn and La Buse's companies. When England left the coast of Africa he was not with La Buse. La Buse was sailing in company with Taylor and Cocklyn, and had command of the Duke of Ormond, which he later exchanged for another vessel called the Comrade (or Courade). En route to the Indian Ocean (by which time he was sailing alone), La Buse captured the Indian Queen and took command of her for his own use. This is all pretty unambiguous in the deposition made by one of La Buse's crew (The Examination of John Matthews, 12 October, 1722. HCA 1/55, ff. 20-21) "Three pirate Ships vizt. the Speakwell Capt Taylor Comd, the Duke of Ormond, Oliver de la Bouche Comd and the Courade, Jeremiah Cocklin Comd; came down the Coast of Guinea to Widaw Road aforesaid and took the aforesaid ship Heroine as she lay at anchor there and carried her to the Island of Coreno a desolate Island upon the said Coast where the pirate ships usually harbour and refit. That before the said ships arrival there the said Jeremiah Cocklin commanded this Examinate and sixteen others of the said ship Heroines Crew on board the sd Pirate ship ye Courade about four of whom went upon their own accord. That afterwards some of them were carried on board the said pirate ships Speakwell and Duke of Ormond and this Examinate and seven more were forced to continue on board the said ship Courade. That the Examinate desired the said Capt de la Bouche (who had exchanged his ship with Capt Cocklin for the sd ship Courade) sev times to set him on shore that he might come home again to England but the said De la Bouche refused to let him go telling him that he wanted hands and must go with him otherwise he would shoot him which he offer’d to do sevl times upon the Exaiates refusing to work onboard the said ships which the Examinate was forc’d afterwards to do for preservation of his life seeing no possibility then to get off. That after the said ship Courade left the Coast of Guinea the said Capt de la Bouche proceeded with her towards the East Indies and in her passage thither met with an English Merchant ship called the Indian Queen laden with slaves which he took and afterwards went onboard the same with all his crew and gave his own ship the Courade to the Comd of the sd ship Indian Queen and put all the men of the said ship Indian Queen onboard the Courade with him except seaven whom he detained onboard his new ship the greatest part of whom were unwilling to stay with him but the sd de la Bouche forced them. That they proceed afterwards to the Island of Mayotte upon the Coast of India to careen their ship." Neither was England in command of the Victory when he sailed round the Cape of Good Hope. The Victory was captured by Cocklyn. From Richard Moor's testimony: "And the sd Ship the Speedwell about 5 Days after she was come from Corista took a French Vessell called the Victory (whereof one Captain Hays was Comander) and plundered her and brought her to Cape Lopez and there fitted her out for their service and manned her with the Company of the Speedwell and gave the speedwell to the sd Captain Hays, and from Cape Lopes they proceeded in the sd Ship the Victory under the Comand of the sd Cocklin to Madagascar... and were there joined by two other pirate ships called the Fancy and the John Gally under the Comand of Edward England " (By the time of the capture of the Victory, La Buse had already left to make his own way round the Cape of Good Hope in the Comrade, and Taylor had rejoined Cocklyn's company when the pirates abandoned the Duke of Ormond.) John Plantain went to the Indian Ocean as a member of Edward Condent's company, which had also sailed round the Cape independently. Richard Moor again: "in the Month of December 1721 he the Informt having been forced into the Service of the Pirates was at the Island of St Mary near Madagascar in a Ship called the Cassandra in company with other pirate Ships and he the Informt there saw one Plantin who appeared to be and was (as ye Informt believes) intimately acquainted with many of the Pirates and eat and drank and caroused with them and owned and confessed that he had been a pirate belonging to the Dragon under the Comand of Edward Condon" Captain Laws of HMS Mermaid was already on the Spanish Main when Taylor and the Cassandra arrived there. Taylor sent Richard Moor and others to act as envoys to petition for a pardon. When they arrived and found the Mermaid they went on board and delivered the petition to Captain Laws. Captain Laws' own brother acted as a hostage to guarantee Taylor's safety while negotiations were carried out. Seagar is mentioned in various sources, with a variety of different spellings. Richard Moor, for example, says "...the Cassandra under the Comand of Jaspar Seater who was made Captain of her in the room of ye sd Edward England (who was turned out of Comand)..."; Cocklyn died at Madagascar and was replaced by Taylor. You're probably thinking of Howell Davis, Roberts' predecessor, who was killed during an attempt to capture Principe.

The letter appears to have been written by Sarah Horne herself. Bear in mind that free or cheap schooling was available in most parts of the Anglophone world by the end of the 17th century. There was no requirement to teach children to write (though in some colonies children were legally required to be taught to read), but the ability to read or write was not limited to those who could pay.

That's about right by my experience: serve and tar the standing rigging, but not the running rigging. Replacing rigging was (is) an ongoing job on sailing vessels, but untreated rope can last years. Hemp is far less prone to rot than manilla, fwiw.

Changing first names - or, to be more accurate, using more than one first name - was not all that uncommon, but we do have to be careful that we're not talking about different people. For example, there was a Christopher, William, and Samuel Moody, all active pirates 1717-1718, but definitely different people. Sometimes, however, we can be pretty sure it's the same person so, for example, John Taylor is sometimes referred to as Richard Taylor (don't recall 'William', where's that from?), and Cocklyn is usually called Thomas, but occasionally Jeremiah. Congdon is variously spelled Condent or Condon, but they're all the same name just spelled differently, and the only first name I recall from a primary source for him is Edward - quite where the other forenames he gets given came from, I don't know. Blackbeard and la Buse are the only ones I can think of from the GAoP who adopted an 'alias' as such. Seagar and England were different people.

Yep. In fact it was going to one of the pirates who frequented St. Mary's, but we know he wrote back. FWIW, Avery never went to St. Mary's himself, though the fortifications there were ascribed to him. In fact, the fortifications were built by Adam Baldridge, local agent of New York merchant Frederick Philipse, and the letter above survives because it was seized among the papers carried by one of Philipse's supply ships, the Margaret, commanded by sometime pirate Samuel Burgess.

Tricky with those 1690s Red-Sea men, they usually set out as privateers and turned to piracy once they got there: many of them still considered themselves privateers even after committing piracy (well, it's not really a 'crime' if the victims don't speak English or go to church is it?)

For those who don't follow my facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/#!/ETFox), I thought this might be of interest: Sarah Horne to her husband, a pirate, 5 June, 1698 For me perhaps the most interesting thing is that this surviving letter reveals a regular correspondence ("I have sent you two letters before this and have Receved One") between pirates based at St. Mary's island and their families in Europe.

You could argue that the number of non-UK sailors was even smaller. Canadians were technically 'British' inasmuch as they were subjects of the British crown, not an independent nation, and the same might be true of the West Indians, depending where in the West Indies they were from. The Jamaican was certainly a 'British' subject. Americans present a problem because, in theory, American seamen were not liable to impressment but American citizenship was a little nebulous at times and it was a common and well-known ruse for British seamen to claim to be Americans to avoid impressment (and indeed, for British press-officers to impress American seamen on the grounds that they 'might' have been British). There were therefore a number of men listed as American who were actually British, and possibly a few men listed as British who were actually American, not to mention a few who could claim to be either.

Now my brain hurts. I wonder if that could possibly be any worse. (Yes, it could, but only if #6 was about why pirates really wore earrings...)

I must admit I didn't even bother reading page 2. The author lost my respect by including Stephen Decatur.

It would be nice to find more than a couple of 1670-1740 shanties of any kind! In the introduction of Hugill's book there is a rowing chant from (IIRC) the sixteenth century. If I ca find my copy I'll post it later unless someone beats me to it.

Not to mention when clothing was expensive. Slop contract prices compared to RN pay scales show that a working shirt cost around half a week's wages and a jacket cost half a month's wages for an ordinary seaman. Makes it easier to understand the mentality of re-using old linings...