Elena

Herzlich Wilkommen, Mein Herr! And a warm welcome to Madame Mayhem! What country are you from, Madame? I am glad that you, Beer Belly Bellamy, are a good representative of European pyracy! Warm greetings from the Danube... the river-maritime Danube and its surroundings! And, maybe, a dedication of a sea shanty by Hannes Wader... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWhYlEY03bc

Belated thank you to all. And I have something to say, as they said "I have no permission to answer to hidden topics" when I posted in the thread about the future of the Pyracy,com site. I'll post it here, with the hopes that someone with permissions will repost it for me there. I do come here about weekly and read the topics in Twill and a few others. I love also "El lobo del mar" story. I am not too active in saying my opinion because the others' opinions are more qualified, most often, than mine. When I searched for something and I didn't know where and how to search, you have always helped me. People here were linked and thanked in my site's Monthly Chronicles (especially Mission and Foxe, but not only). Threads here are linked for historical reference. (I remember the one on money and costs, for example). When I lacked ideas or I had an insufficiently refined idea, you helped me with your direct knowledge. I thank you very much. All these couldn't be achieved on FB and I agree with those who say that a FB group is totally different than a forum, and they should co-exist both. I would like the site to keep existing, and to find here my friends every time I have a short time to read something or a question to ask. Unfortunately, I have no technical knowledge at all. My site is free-hosted on jcink, and I wasn't the one to code, skin or do graphics. I am into writing, this is what I can do.

Glad you did! I had started worrying it got lost.

Since the "Caribbean Siren" got sunk (and soon the "Twilight Shark" will have the same fate) this is the "Rising Sun"s' flag (made by @Swashbuckler 1700) He made also the flag for the French privateer ship "La Chanson", which will be the focus after the "Twilight Shark" gets sunk: With all my thanks and warmest appreciation for him.

We are some here who like writing piratical adventures, and there are some reputed historians who can answer any question.

Many happy returns and lots of exciting adventures!

I have no idea if my present, mailed on 2-nd of December, has arrived or not. But I received an envelope with some little negative photos (or photo film cuts, how to call it?) and no explanation. I don't know what they are, how to look at them in order to see them properly or... anything. They aren't diapositive dimensions either, I think 2 or 3 put together would make the dimension of a diapositive. So... please, Secret Santa, I need directions of use!

May all your wishes come true! MANY HAPPY RETURNS!

Not deserters, but they were free to jump ship or to retire after having served a while and paying their share to the common coffers - if I remember well from the Articles of Agreement I have seen published, it was to have contributed 1,000 pieces of eight. I think each ship had their own articles. They were more or less similar, but up to a point.

In French, it is said "to marry the widow with wooden legs" (marrier la veuve aux jambes de bois) - because the noose is the widow of the last hanged. I found it in Prospere Merimee's books and in another book about the French Revolution.

Thank you both, Royal James and Fox! It is interesting and it proves my point, that the leaders' personalities make remain around them people with more or less similar principles. Being partners due to common interests, but each of them having his own ship to command how he thought appropriate, is the most understandable thing.

As usual, when I have a divergence of opinion on my site, I come here to impartial judges. I am talking both about the historical pirates that you have seen described in chronicles and about the somehow fictional, but not fantastic ones in Daniel Defoe's, Walter Scott's, Raphael Sabbattini's novels, etc. (In my mind, there is a difference between historical fiction, which goes beyond chronicles but relates about people and facts which might have been possible even if they hadn't exactly happened or we can't know if they happened, and historical fantasy, which twists historical facts, physics laws and the time's way of seeing, such as "Pyratica" or other stories with pretty lady captains...) We know about Blackbeard, Vane and some others that they were very cruel. We know what they had done to their crewmates, and how they tortured their victims to tell where they had hidden the valuables. But... were necessarily all the captains and crews this way? Evil and bloodthirsty just because they were pirates? I think some were really bloodthirsty and cruel, while others were simply rebels who found themselves at odds with law and had no other solution to survive than turning pirates. The Jacobites, for example, as it was a discussion here about Jacobite pirates a while ago. Or somebody who got wanted for a reason or another, and couldn't prove his innocence (we can remember, about some quick trials when it was about commoners, "Black Velvet band", for example, how the lad who looked after the beautiful girl got tried as accomplice to stealing and got "seven years penal transportation/ Far away to Van Diemen's land" - ie Tasmania). Or privateers who had first a commission, then it happened to take the wrong ship... and it was no way of return. I think that turning pirate didn't mean for ALL of them turning really cruel. Some avoided a fight when they could, some didn't kill everybody aboard, but if they didn't need the ship which had surrendered, they set them free, albeit with an empty ship. Fighting the opposers is one, and killing unnecessarily is something else. Maybe, if I am rambling enough not to make any sense, my point is that there weren't only pirates like Levasseur/ La Buse, there were some like Captain Blood too And birds of a feather flew together - their crew had to obey their laws. A cruel captain was surrounded by cutthroats, while others, a little more gentlemanly, were surrounded by rebels and outlaws like them, but the too evil ones wouldn't have resisted with them. What do you think?

Popular games of cards

You have come to the right place with it! The honourable company of reenactors and history fans of the Age of Sail period is welcoming and helpful. I have also asked the strangest questions in the 4 years I have been a member of the Pub (especially because English is not my mother tongue and sometimes I'd look for things on the internet myself... but I am not sure how to formulate a proper google search in order to find what I want to know), and I have always received wonderful answers. So yes, a warm welcome from another aspiring writer and pirate at heart!

I'm in too. PM will follow.

Thank you very much! Extremely useful! <3

I heard that when a sailor died in battle, it was common to sell his things for auction among the crew. Was it customary even if the sailor had left a will? And what could have been in his trunk, what did they find after his death?

THE FIRES OF LOVE AND INTRIGUE Maribel had told Carmen the story of her family in exchange of Carmen’s story, and how her brother Chema got to be sold to a smuggler who brought him somewhere to the Spanish Main. Maribel had promised her to read her the cards for the King of clubs Jose Maria, in her room, in deep secret. ”Why are you keeping it secret?” Carmen asked, naively. ”Because some people are afraid of what they don’t understand. Exactly how it was with your accusation, in the first day, that I poisoned you, when in truth you simply weren’t accustomed to the taste of the spiced coffee with cardamom. But what if people believed you and thought that I use poisons? They know I am into healing plants, so it would be only a next step, leading to an official prosecution. And having an ancestor who had been burnt at stake for witchcraft, I have to be careful with it.” ”Was she really a witch?” the younger woman was fascinated. ”No, she was not. She was no different than me, having the Gypsy gift of fortune reading, and the knowledge of healing plants. But it took loving the wrong man and getting the wrong enemies therefore, to be denounced as a witch and judged accordingly.” Carmen looked at her fascinated. ”Tell me her story, please, if you know it. I don’t know about any relatives except my mother, who had been separated from her parents at an early age.” Why not? A story more, to a girl who liked stories… nothing wrong with it. And the innkeeper understood what exactly could mean, for a slave, “separated from her parents at an early age.” She had seen other children sold without their parents… So, Maribel started: ”At twenty, Jacinta was a young widow. Her husband had died of lung fever almost one year ago, leaving her to care for three children. Barnabe was four years old, Jacinto was two and Marisol was still a baby. The coins caught in her hair were sounding from time to time, equally like the bracelets at her wrists, and the flower in her hair was telling her name. With the baby caught in a shawl around her hip and the two little boys holding on her many petticoats, she was reading the curious’s fortune at the fair when Don Pedro Nunez de Villavicencio, a young noble man, happened to pass by. Everybody in Sevilla knew him, as his father was an Admiral and he was supposed to follow in the old man’s steps. Only that the young man showed more inclination for painting than for military studies. Actually that was why he was now at the fair, looking for sights worth painting from memory and for interesting faces who would benefit of a few coins to pose for the painter for more detailed scenes. His friend was the known, older Murillo, who was in the process of setting in Sevilla an Academy of Arts. But Jacinta didn’t know him. Well, she might have heard about his name somewhere, or not even. She was not too often in the town, except fairs and festivals where her skills could get handy in making more money for her family. She read his palm, and she found there a long successful life, with the line of art very pronounced, with no marriage and with a heartbreak. He smiled at the prediction of no marriage, since his father was trying to convince him to get married to a young lady of his choice, and the painter was not interested. He looked at her better, and not only her beauty, but some unusual facial traits inspired him, and he asked her in many ways until he convinced her to let herself drawn some next day. While he was completing a painting with her as the model, love was growing in both hearts. He didn’t care that she was a widow with children, he didn’t care that her origins were humble. He loved her and he wanted her by his side; she loved him and she ultimately accepted to be his mistress. Don Pedro bought her a house in a middle-class neighbourhood – or, actually, the house was his, he used it as a painting studio, but she was the one who was actually living there with her children and with a twelve years old niece who helped her take care of the children and of the household. He was coming almost every day to visit her and to paint. Sometimes his friends, the painters, came too, in order to see a picture or another, and she was the good, silent servant who brought them refreshments. She was happy with her life, with his love, with him asking her and the boys sometimes to be his models for new paintings. But how long could this happiness last? Her family – or rather the in-laws she was living with, according to their people’s traditions - was not too pleased with what was going on. However, this was an opportunity she couldn’t deny; it meant the children were raised in a moderate wealth and that she could help her family from her new position, so they were ready to close their eyes and to pretend it wasn’t happening. Unlike in other cases, she had no trouble from them, as her father-in-law understood that some day the nobleman would marry or find a younger mistress, and she was to return to them, as there was no other place she could go. If she was smart, she could raise some dowry in order to marry again afterwards, he mused. The Admiral de Villavicencio couldn’t accept what was going on. Having a mistress… well, it was something normal for a young man, but being so attached of her that he didn’t want to marry as his father wanted him to, with a respectable noble lady with a good dowry, and whose father would have meant a good alliance for the Admiral’s interests? This was inconceivable! Besides, he was sure that the Gypsy woman had charmed him to keep him with her – how else could the old man explain his son’s attraction to a widow with three children, when he could have a younger, prettier woman, or as many as he wanted? If his son didn’t want to pursue the military carreer he was destined to, preferring to paint and to gallivant with a Gypsy woman, something had to be done about this. If he could get the woman out of his son’s life, then he would obey his father – or at least this was the Admiral’s opinion. And thinking how to do it for good, he got soon the best idea: he paid a few men and women with a good reputation in society to denounce Jacinta to the Inquisition as a witch. They declared she had read them their fortune, some of them declared also that she had stated that the Devil himself was her lover. And the Inquisition wasn’t sleeping when a witch was denounced… The niece happened not to be at home when the guards sent by the Inquisition took Jacinta, so only the widow and her baby were taken. When she arrived to an empty home and found out what had happened, she returned with the two boys to her family. Jacinta was tortured under the accusation of witchcraft, to which blasphemy was added too, when she had said that she loved don Pedro and their love had no sin. The Church happened to think otherwise. Fornication was a sin, so her stance was a blasphemy against the Ten Commandments. Then, they started to look for evidence that she was a witch – and when the Inquisition looked for evidence, they were bound to find it, by misinterpreting everything. She had a pigmented birthmark in the shape of a cherry, which was regarded as a mark of the Devil; she had cards and bones to read fortune; she had a cat she cherished, and cats, no matter that it wasn’t black, were cherished by the Devil; she had been denounced by blemishless members of the society and by another witch during the interrogation… What was easier than making a tortured woman to tell exactly what the torturers wanted to hear, when the clerk was there to note the confession? Besides, the suffering under torture she had endured was offering more “evidence” of demonic possession, in the Inquisition’s opinion, such as blasphemies uttered to the torturers, uncontrollable spasms, and, for a woman whose mother tongue was not Spanish, “speaking in tongues”, which meant saying, in delirious pain, words the torturers couldn’t understand. Exactly how the other witch had been tortured to denounce her, Jacinta also, under tortures, admitted all the accusations, including having slept with a demon who took the shape of Don Pedro Nunez de Villavicencio, whom everybody knew to be a pillar of the society… Good finding, nothing to say! All these were grounds to declare her a witch, and being Gypsy meant from the start that she would be condemned. And yes, she got condemned for witchcraft and blasphemy, to be burnt at stake. The confession of her sins and the alleged repenting had to take the form of a ritual of public penance for condemned heretics; this is why it got to me something of what had been said. Her baby, little Marisol, had been taken from her and given to nuns to properly raise her, which was something common for the suspect women before being subjected to torture. Nobody could learn afterwards what happened with her. If she survived childhood, she might have become a nun at her turn, taught to pray for the soul of her heretic mother. But the two boys remained with the family. Among the great number of children who were there, belonging to several sisters-in-law, nobody except the family could say who were Jacinta’s. And the authorities didn’t care about two Gypsy boys, anyway. The witch was away from the path of the admiral’s family. One would think that don Pedro Nunez de Villavicencio, the noble painter, got himself exempted of the scandal with the demon confession trick, but he didn’t. The town was still gossiping and wondering what had really happened. The Inquisition trial didn’t fool most people; they knew the Gypsy beauty had to be removed in order for the man to follow his path in the society. Nevertheless, he couldn’t remain in Sevilla either. Not only the people’s gossips, but the shadows of his love and his cowardice hanged heavily on his conscience. In that very year, 1661, he joined the order of the Knights of Saint John, an military order of monks fighters, pronouncing his vows of chastity and poverty, together with repenting for all the previous sins. He left for Malta in the service of the order, spending many years abroad. He had become a known painter, as far as I heard, and he returned, in his old age, to die in Sevilla. Several of his paintings had been given to the king and his court. I wonder if those where Jacinta had served as model too, and I wonder sometimes how it was for him to have his lover executed in front of his eyes and he not able to show any grief. How much he had seen her in his dreams afterwards, and if he had painted her from memory afterwards too.” ”I would have been curious about this too,” Carmen admitted. ”If he confronted his father and he didn’t want to get married or to give her up, then it meant he truly loved her. And the fact that he wanted no other woman afterwards, is also a sign in the same direction. It is a sad love story which has impressed me a lot, one worth a song,” she expressed her admiration as well as she was able to. Carmen figured out that when the painter had returned, older and wiser, he didn’t want to stir up the scandal back. Besides, he might have loved the woman, but since they hadn’t got children of their own, he wasn’t curious to learn about two boys he had no connection with. Maribel guessed her thought and continued the story in her own way: ”…Nevertheless, at that time my family was not there anymore, they had left for Granada. Little Barnabe Heredia had grown into a strong man, and his uncles had taught him both how to raise and train horses and how to fight. In Granada, Gypsies were good at this. At eighteen, he got married to a young girl he had been promised to for a while, Mariquita, and they got ten children. There were several boys among them, but the oldest girl was Maria Salome, my mother. All the women of the family, who were taught to read cards and palms, were also taught to be careful where they do it and not to flaunt it in public, unless they want to end like poor Jacinta,” Maribel ended her story with a sigh. Carmen had understood her reasons already, and something more as well: “Maybe this is why your grandfather had understood and he had welcomed your father when his family disowned him. He didn’t want to lose his daughter and he had thought they were safer this way, under the eyes of the whole family,” the younger woman concluded. This was a good point she had never considered. ”Now, it’s time to come back to the cards, and to your brother…”, Maribel said, taking them from the table and shuffling them, while saying the traditional invocation words. – THE END –

INHERITING A MISSION John Henry Davis was a man in his early sixties. If he had been younger, he would have been serving in the war, on any of His Majesty’s Ships deployed in the European seas, in the Atlantic or in the Pacific, as he was a reputed sailing master. The wars were never ending, requiring new blood aboard the ships, and he had done his share. Now, he was teaching at the Royal Naval Academy. Better than staying at home and longing for the sea. Unfortunately, his late wife had given him only daughters, to raise a dowry for and to marry them well. Once this was done – and he had found for all three of them landlubbers, so that they wouldn’t know what loneliness is and, hopefully, neither early widowhood – what remained in store for him, than to keep living how a lifetime at sea had taught him? Actually it was in his blood, and he was carrying also the sadness of being the last of the line of the famous explorer John Davis, highly esteemed by Queen Bess. Now, the years of specialized studies allowed a young man to take his exams sooner, but not everybody liked the midshipmen by order, graduates of the Royal Naval Academy, no matter how good their teachers were. When John Henry Davis had taken to sea, there was no Academy yet. It had been set up when he was already in his thirties, and some years ago he wouldn’t have thought that he would become a teacher. He had been sent to sea at twelve, like all his ancestors, to make his apprenticeship under his uncle’s command. He had taken the lieutenant exams at eighteen, like most young officers, and before thirty he was already post captain. He knew what to do with the backstaff invented by his explorer ancestor (and called Davis’ quadrant for this reason) better than any of the sailing masters. But a professor needed to attend the presentation of new technology too. This is what he had done this morning. The sextant presented at the conference today, in 1757, by a certain John Bird, was impressive, and the longitude watch exhibited by John Harrison was even more extraordinary. He was experienced enough to understand his importance, and he explained it to young Peter Melville, one of the students of the Academy he was mentoring closely. The fourteen years old was, from his Scottish mother’s side, a distant relative of his, and he got persuaded to take him under his patronage. This helped the boy get into the Naval Academy, even if his father was a Dutch noble. The boy was looking at him in wonder, asking more about the new inventions presented: “Why is the sextant better than the octant which I saw aboard the HMS Dover? Because I can see its advantages compared to the backstaff you taught me to use.” “It allows studying directly the stars, unlike the other instruments you mentioned, Henry. This allows excellent precision. However, unlike the backstaff, the sextant allows direct observations of stars. This permits the use of the sextant at night when a backstaff is difficult to use. Besides, for solar observations, filters allow direct observation of the sun. And it is far more accurate, since the only error can be given by the angular accuracy of the instrument, while all the others had the quadrant dimensions as main source of errors. But the main advantages are that it can be used well at night too, unlike the previous navigation instruments. Have you used the backstaff while at sea?” “Not yet, only in the Academy,” the boy confessed, slightly ashamed. “But I guess it is more difficult when the waves are bigger.” “True. The sextant is easier to use in these circumstances too, because it doesn’t require a steady aim like the backstaff and the octant. The images of the horizon and of the Sun – or Northern Star, if you do the measurement at night – are moving with the ship, but as long as your sight is good and you can establish for sure when the sun or star touches the horizon, your accuracy is guarranteed.” Each word of the explanation pained him, exactly because he could see its importance. It would spread. His ancestor’s work, considered revolutionary compared to the cross-staff and astrolabe used by Marco Polo, by those who had discovered the New World and the route to the Indies, was useful until now; from now, it would be in vain. The boy’s curiosity passed to the longitude watch. “But, Sir, the Board of Longitude is trying for forty years to award prizes and stimulate research on the calculation of longitude, and everybody, including you, said that it won’t be succeeded, that the longitude can’t be ascertained! Why is it possible with this mariner’s watch?” “We have to see again how it functions exactly. I admit that I hadn’t understood from this presentation as much, or probably Mr. Harrison was glossing over it on purpose, not to divulge too much of his discovery,” he answered sincerely. It wasn’t only about his ancestor’s discovery. Not anymore. It was now about his own usefulness. How long would he be able to teach henceforth? How long his own knowledge of a good captain and navigator would be relevant? “My dear Henry, we are passing to a new era, which you are witnessing. The next discoveries will be yours. You have to learn both from me and from what the scientists had shown you today, then go further them and make your own discoveries. My ancestor, Captain Davis, was not entirely content on how the rutters, astrolabe and cross-staff functioned; after him, others perfected the quadrant into the octant and other instruments. What was deemed impossible in Marco Polo’s time, now is. What is impossible now, it is up to you to make it possible, don’t forget this! This is your mission in life!” “It’s a difficult mission, Sir, but I promise to take the challenge!” Captain John Henry Davies could die in peace; despite having only daughters, there was somebody who had promised to take his heritage, his mission further. Little did he know that his little protégé wouldn’t keep his word in the field of discoveries, but, with his studies here and with the upcoming experience, he would become rear admiral of his father’s country, Peter Melville van Carnbée. In exchange, he would pass further the mission to his own grandson, a renowned cartographer and geographer, who had also been in the Dutch Navy. - THE END -

Thank you very much. You come all with good ideas! I know that I always find help with you for the regular, less adventurous scenes

Which were the sailors' duties when at anchor? Usually I can find on the net only the part for at sea. Besides scrubbing the deck... what else was to do when in port? I know that the warrant officers and their mates were busy with inventory, resupplying (each one on his line of work), repairing what needed repairs. But what were the sailors to do?

Thank you very much! I fully agree with you, and this is exactly why I asked in the "Shipyard", for somebody who had seen it. Because my characters are going to steal, among other things, a ship's figurehead as well... (The story is longer - the privateers were cheated by the authorities and given half the sum deserved for bringing a Spanish prize ship. So the captain plotted a revenge... which includes a small volunteers team sinking the ship in the harbour after emptying it of anything valuable. Figurehead included). And yes, no one would suspect the privateers, who set sail one day before... So Santa Maria de Guadalupe will be caught with lines on the frigate .