MarkG

That's a great one. I found a YouTube video showing it in action. Mark

I woudn't go swimming in it but it is pretty clean unless it rained recently and caused the local sewage systems to overflow. It gives you incentive to hold onto the ladder tight. Mission is turning into quite a pirate. First he started hostilities at Paynetown, now he's volunteering to be part of the boarding party. Mark

More information - the wedding rehearsal and dinner are on the ship Friday from 7-9. We can probably start hanging around the ship by 8:30. I can see about having the barge open for us until we can get onto the ship. This time we are planning on taking the ship. That means that at least a couple of pirates will need to climb onto the ship from my boat. We will have a rope ladder for this. Volunteers? Mark

Morgan's raid on Maricaibo is illuminating. He was originally planning on attacking Cartagena but his flagship's magazine blew up and many of his ships could not sail into the wind. As a result his force was reduced from 900 to 500. He decided that Cartagena was too powerful to attack with that force so he switched to Maricaibo. The city was reached by a river that had a fort at the narrowest point. On his way in, Morgan attacked the fort from land. The Spanish abandoned it and left a store of powder with a fuse burning, hoping to kill Morgan's force in the blast. Morgan defused the trap (personally according to some accounts) and went on to sack Maricaibo. When they went to leave the city they found that the Spanish had refortified the fort. The fort only had enough cannons to defend one side and it took some time to move them. Morgan made a show of landing is men for a land attack and the Spanish moved their cannons to repel it. Actually, Morgan spent the day landing the same force. They would be rowed to shore then get into the water and hold onto the far side of the longboat then repeat. That night the Spanish expected an attack but Morgan's fleet raised anchor and floated past the fort. When they got to the open ocean they found a Spanish anti-piracy fleet of three warships waiting for them. The made one of their ships into a fireship with hollowed out logs full of powder that looked like the crew. The fireship's crew used grappling hooks to fasten onto the Spanish flagship and sink it. The second Spanish ship ran aground and they took the third one. All of this was so brilliant that Rafael Sabatini used most of it in The Adventures of Captain Blood. Mark

The woman who is being married on the Santa Maria on the 19th would like a few (up to four) pirates to try to kidnap her and be driven off by her husband. Do I have any volunteers? Mark

There is nothing "official" going on Friday night, but we do have the ship Friday night mostly for the benefit of those coming from further abroad. This will give those traveling the option of arriving Friday night, and be well rested for Saturday.... Or at least give them the option of being present early and not exhausted from a long drive Very early Saturday morning. However un-officially, since we do have the ship... We can gather on it Friday evening for some socialization or what not. The last I heard, the Saturday night wedding will be rehearsing Friday so we will have to work around that. I'll verify that this is still going on and what time. Mark

I have a couple of snaphaunces and a Swedish Snaplock which is similar but less complicated. The sear is just an L-shaped piece of steel that is beveled to let the cock slip past. I'm not sure about the small bar. There is one that goes from the inside piece of the cock and pushes the pan cover open. Is that what you mean? Mark

Back to the original question, there is the very modern issue of asymmetrical force. During the Golden Age of Buccaneers, Morgan and company coul pick and choose their targets. Spain didn't have that luxury. They had to defend all of their colonies, spreading their resources across the Caribbean. Morgan could mass enough people to take a major city but the Spanish had no idea where to mass their defenses. And if they did concentrate their defenses in one place, Morgan could attack elsewhere. Later, during the Golden Age of Piracy, it was harder to raise fleets of raiders so most attacks were ship-to-ship. The Spanish tried to minimize their losses by using the Plate Fleets - convoys with warships to provide protection. This helped some but pirates would pick off stragglers. Also, a lot of Spanish shipping was on smaller merchant ships that could not afford to wait for a convoy. These had minimal crew and the owners often shorted them on cannons. Pirate crews were normally much larger and pirate ships carried as many cannons as they could get their hands on. When given a choice between almost certain death and surrendering someone else's ship, the crews most often surrendered. On the other hand, if a ship looked too strong, then pirates wouldn't even attack. I think that someone already mentioned that. Mark

Dogs on ships reminds me of the last verse of the Irish Rover: We had sailed seven years when the measles broke out And the ship lost it's way in a fog. And that whale of the crew was reduced down to two, Just meself and the captain's old dog. Then the ship struck a rock, oh Lord what a shock The bulkhead was turned right over Turned nine times around, and the poor dog was drowned I'm the last of the Irish Rover Mark

As long as you are making corrections - Firefly's interior is not stained. It is the natural color of the wood that it is made from (cedar hull, mahogany seats, oak ribs). Mark

You are getting pretty far afield here. Yes, Spain knew about the plots and promised support to the Catholics, but the French were also involved and the plotters were native English. The Throckmorton Plot in particular involved a French invasion with Spanish financing. Your original point was that the Spanish were worse than the rest of Europe (at least I said that reports of their evil were exagerated and you disagreed). If multiple countries were involved then the Spanish were not exceptional. Elizabeth's on father engaged in this sort of plot. He and the Holy Roman Emperor were going to invade France and divide it between them with Mary and Elizabeth marrying the Hapsburgs. Then there was the successful plot to overthrow James II and replace him with his daughter and her husband (Mary and William). No Spanish in that plot. Mark

Technically, the Armada was defeated by the English but it was destroyed by nature. The goal of the Armada was to destroy the English fleet then to escort the actual landing force across the Channel on barges. They failed in this and took shelter at Gravelines. The English forced them out of that port by using fireships. Many Spanish ships cut their anchor lines in order to keep away from the fireships. This meant that they were without anchors when the storm took them. BTW, Morgan used a fireship against the Spanish at Maricaibo, answering the original question - better tactics. Mark

Yes, but after the war began. Am I missing the point? It depends on when you count hostilities as beginning. It was an undeclared war. Wikipedia gives Drake's attack on Saint Augustine is given as the opening of hostilities. This site puts the start in 1587 with the raid of Cadiz and the burning of the original Armada. The BBC simply gives 1885 as the opening of hostilities. That brings us back to Drake being the opening attack. This one also names Drake's raid as the start of the war but also mentions the English aiding the Dutch against the Spanish the same year. This puts an interesting twist on Hawkins' original point that the Spanish tried to remove the anointed ruler of England. Yes, Spain was trying to put a Catholic on the throne but it does not appear that the fired the opening shots in the war. The Sea Hawks were engaging in acts of war and Elizabeth encouraged them. Spain wanted Drake hung for piracy but Elizabeth knighted him on his own ship. This attitude continues today. Look at the movie the Sea Hawk. Here's an English captain raiding Spanish shipping. His excuse? The Spanish stole the gold from the Indians so it is ok to steal it from them. Mark

Hostilities may have already started but the founding of Roanoke and the sacking of Saint Augustine happened well before the Spanish Armada sailed. Piratical side note - Drake was a strong supporter of Roanoke. When he sacked Saint Augustine, he took as many windows as possible figuring that Roanoke could use them. He was expecting a sizable settlement of 300 men. When he got there he found that it was only 101 and their food was in short supply. It turned out that their main supply ship had run aground, ruining most of the food so the size of the colony was reduced. The colony was "lost" because of the Armada. Elizabeth refused to allow any ships to leave England to resupply the colony. She wanted every ship available to fight the Armada. The next year there were rumors of a new Armada so she extended the restriction. Eventually Governor White was able to hire a privateer to make a side-trip to look in on the colony. The captain was killed when high seas overturned the ship's boat and the new captain was in too much of a hurry to hunt Spanish gold to stay to look for the colonists any longer. There were no other attempts to find the colony.

There are no saints on either side. Prior to the Armada, Elizabeth encouraged piracy against Spanish colonies. The Roanoke colony had significant support from the Sea Dogs who planned on using it as a base against the Spanish. Drake sacked Saint Augustine before the Armada. The Spanish tried to remove the anointed Queen of England. Sixty years later the Puritans did just that. Most of the other wars may have used religion as as excuse but were more about good old fashioned conquest. That's why England allied with Catholic Spain against the protestant Dutch in the Trade Wars. The point is that, coming from an English heritage, we tend to see history as one-sided with the Spanish always being evil. If you hang out with the Irish then you find that they see England as always being the evil ones. Just Thursday I heard someone reciting an anti-King William (and Mary) poem. Mark

But Columbus was Italian! Actually, he was a pretty hands-off governor, preferring to leave his post and go exploring any time a tough decision needed to be made. He was relieved of his post after only a few years. The Columbus=Hitler thing comes as an offshoot of the Black Legend. Since Columbus brought the Spanish, he must be responsible for everything that the Spanish did. Now, if you want to talk about cruel empires, let's talk about the Aztecs. Mark

The Spanish government started started granting rights to the natives in the early 1500s. Of course the colonial government ignored them but they did make the effort. The Spanish tended to conquer native populations and merge with them. People of native ancestry make up a large proportion of countries that are former Spanish colonies. Former English colonies have tiny native populations. The French traded with the natives but didn't try to conquer them. The established a few cities but they spent more effort on trade. They were surprisingly well-traveled. Much of the French activity was along the Mississippi. The English and Dutch thought that they were being more humane - they lived separate from the Indians and made no attempt to conquer them. This failed once the English started coming over in numbers and needed more land. Peaceful co-existence turned into displacement. There was still a a strong coexistence group until the massacre of 1622. After that the Virginia colonists were pretty much anti-Indian. In New England, the English couldn't raise tobacco and the land was harder to farm so there was less population pressure. Relations were pretty good until the 1670s. Of course, all of this is an over-simplification but you get the idea. Mark

Not only did they use field carriages, they did not standardize the bore. Each cannon had its own store of balls which would be too loose or two large for the other cannons. This is a boon for archeologists who can identify shipwrecks by the mix of guns they carried. The Armada relied on soldiers. They had a higher proportion of soldiers than sailors. On the other hand, the English had more sailors than soldier. The Spanish planned on boarding. The English literally sailed rings around the Spanish and relied on cannons. The Spanish militia defending Panama was poorly trained and deserted. They also placed too much faith in a herd of cattle - the planned on disrupting Morgan's men with a stampede. It didn't work. On the other hand, to the English and Americans, the Spanish were the boogey men, a lot like the Nazis in modern fiction - someone evil who had to lose. There is an entire body of folklore known as the Black Legend about Spanish evils. This includes the Spanish Inquisition (never as bad as you hear) and abuses against Indians (no worse than other countries). The Back Legend was used to justify colonizing American lands that Spain claimed (the forfeited their claims by being evil) and the GAoP (they stole their gold from the Indians so it was ok to steal from them). Mark

We tried to get in, too. Same result. I hear from someone who supplied some of their household goods that they specifically wanted people who had no idea what they were getting into. I talked with someone at Jamestown who said that the project started with a producer calling Williamsburg wanting to do early 17th century. We thought that Pioneer House was the best of the series with Colonial House second. Texas Ranch House really sucked. It's ending left such a bad taste that it killed the series. There were also some British ones that were boring. BTW, the really silly spots - the issue long bows instead of muskets to the colonists. I'm guessing that the British producers were scared of guns. The ship they use was a copy of the Nina. Mark

I think that the new instruments were an outgrowth of new manufacturing techniques. "Brass" instruments made from wood go back well into the middle ages but brass tubing suddenly became cheaper allowing for the louder brass instruments to be made. At the same time, precision mass production allowed the valves in brass instruments. The same is true for the reeds in the concertina. Mark

To expand on what Micky already said - there is no place to store sleeping bags and such during the day except in your car. At night we all share the decks. There is only one cabin and the hold is full of cement block ballast so most people sleep on the main deck. People are welcome to bring items to display to the public. If you do bring something, be prepared to answer questions during tours. As always, if you are asked something specific about the ship. either defer to a guide or refer people to me. It would be nice to have a better idea ahead of time who is bringing what food and what will need to be cooked. We can use the firebox which has enough room for two pots. I have a brazier that we can use if we need more fire than that. Mark

Do you have a source that matchlocks were not used by the buccaneers for hunting? A. Konstam: In the Caribbean, winds blow very steadyly. So the buccaneers would approach their prey from the leeward side, where the smell of the matches would be blown away from their prey. It probably didn't hurt to be poaching domestic cattle rather than hunting wild game... I've been firing matchlocks for 25 years so I can offer a few person observations on this. First, there were lighter-weight matchlocks. The one described above would be a military musket. I have one that I use for live fire. It weights something like 17 pounds and is equivalent to a 12 gage. It shoots very true - all that weight helps - but it is literally a pain to carry. It bruises my shoulder. Lighter ones called calivers were also used. These were in the 18-20 gage range. The military preferred full muskets because of its superior range and penetrating power but the colonists prefered calivers because of the lighter weight. They dont' take much longer to load. The main difference is the need to try your match. This takes a couple of seconds more than cocking a flint piece. They are also quicker and smoother to fire. There is no click-bang. Just a bang. I know people who hunt with matchlocks. As long as you are downwind, the smell of the match isn't a problem. The matchlock has a couple of major problems for boucaiers. The first is that you have to light the match before you can fire. You can't carry it cocked indefinitely. This leads to the second problem - match cord. Slow match burns around a foot an hour, faster if it is windy. If you are going to spend eight hours hunting you will need eight feet of match. If you are going hunting daily then you will need up to 60 feet of match a week. You could go through a mile or two a year. This wasn't a problem for the military. They only lit their matches for battles. Guards often carried flint pieces to conserve match and so that they wouldn't be seen in the dark. In the colonies, this was a lot of rope to burn up, especially since it all had to be imported. Given that, the extra expense for a flint piece would pay for itself pretty fast. Mark

Jennie think that it looks like a 19th century-style rose instead of an 18th century one. Mark

I can answer a few - 1. The first suttler's tent is Nate's http://www.taylor-rosehistorical.com/ 4. The "cool girl" is Suzanne. 8. The "geek" is Jessica (aka Kate). Mark