Mission

If they're digital, you can upload them directly to the Rogue's Gallery here on the forum. The upload button will appear on the far right top of the screen when you click on that hot link. Just follow the steps. (You do have to upload them one at a time, though.) If they're not digital... you have to get a scanner or take digital photos and upload them that way.

The forum software automatically converts B + ) into . I personally find it irritating, but I have tried to remember to always use numbers when making lists. Or you could use the list function, but it breaks up your text. If you actually want smiles, you can click on the little icon at the top center of the edit window and pick from a listing of them at the bottom of the screen. But the software also automatically converts certain combinations into graphic smilies and I've never figured out how to make it stop. I don't think it always comes down to greed. Perhaps you've never met a true idealist. (I've met your sister - very briefly - and I didn't really get the impression she was an idealist as I define them, although she certainly had those tendencies.) Every so often an idealist comes along and naively starts trying to change things - and occasionally succeeds. But, as I said before, idealists don't tend to see the larger picture very well because they tend to over-focus on the aspect that appeals to their altruism. As a result, they change things for the better in some ways and create new problems in other ways they didn't foresee. It's a natural hazard of being an idealist. Then the realists figure out a way around it (because if they don't things frequently come to a standstill) and the situation alters a bit, but basically go back to the way it was before the idealist got involved. Hmm. Everything does eventually come down to a sort of greed, doesn't it? It's human nature. Only the idealists think that humanity is going to change to their view and they are a minority in any population. (They have to be. Societies run by idealists would be nightmarish, no matter how popular media portrays them. Then again, so would a society without any idealists. Nature works that way.)

By your reasoning, we should date the Roberts' account to 1722. Although I think academically they tend to use the publishing date for such things lacking other datable data because there are too many imponderables otherwise. It's hard to say whether what Carter wrote was his original concept, a misspelling or spelling based on misunderstood spoken word(s). A lot of spelling I've seen in English books from this period is phonetic. If everything else in the book to which you refer is spelled correctly, you can knock out misspelling for the most part. Other than that, it's hard to say unless you find further evidence of the logic behind the term "Sallad Morgundy."

Sorry, I don't understand this statement at all. You'll have to explain. If you're referring to Matthewson's book, I haven't read it since (ironically enough) I was in college. In fact, I checked it out from the public library across the street from the university I went to. I really enjoyed the technical aspects of it. Incidentally, I am neither a surgeon nor a sir. I play surgeon at pirate events and read 17th/18th century surgical procedure manuals in my spare time. And, from my experiences in college, college students are the most naive of idealists because they're extraordinarily impressionable and have an altruism that only inexperience can maintain. Which doesn't mean it's a bad thing because they can also accomplish social change when they stay with something and get the right sort of public attention. (Although I do find that altruistic-inspired laws often go far off the intended mark when introduced into the real world. But not always.) So stay with it if you believe in it. See what you can do.

Ah, an idealist fresh off a book with an idealistic slant. Like I said originally, if you want to change it, you have to get into the politics of it. Good luck with your quest.

Yes, I understood that, which is why I pointed out that it appeared in 1726. If I understood you correctly, your reference is from 1730. As for spelling... good luck with that! I have seen the same word spelled three different ways on the same page. (The word was 'blood.')

It's specifically mentioned in the General History of the Pyrates by Johnson in 1726. "[bartholomew] Robert's Crew discerning [the British Man of War ship Swallow's] Masts over the Land, went down into the Cabin, to acquaint him of it, he being then at Breakfast with his new Guest, Captain Hill, on a savoury Dish of Solomongundy, and some of his own Beer." (Johnson, p. 270) The recipe isn't given and the spelling is a bit different, but it seems pretty clear what it is. Oddly, this is the only place I've seen it mentioned in conjunction with pirates and yet today it is closely identified with them. (I have seen them identified with 'sallat' and 'sallating' in several period docs, however.)

According to salvage laws, that's not the case. If you want to change it, you have to get into the politics of it. What interests me about that is that the impetus to find such things is the money that can be made off the find. It's a damned expensive undertaking to find a ship that's been missing for hundreds of years. (For a fascinating look into balancing profit and marine archeology, read up on the Atocha. Particularly Treasure Of The Atocha by R. Duncan Mathewson III.) If you say to the people who find them, "This belongs to ALL of us now," you take away their impetus to find it. The government (who seems to feel it should be the de facto steward of things that belong to ALL of us) certainly isn't going to spend the money and time needed to find such things. So you have to find a balance. Of course, even then what you may be doing is creating unintended results. (The government is particularly good at this - most lawmakers can't see what happens to their brilliant ideas beyond an election cycle.) If you tell salvors, "OK, you have to bring in a reputable marine archeologist to catalog the find before you can make any money on it" you're adding tremendous expense. Not just the cost of the archeologist, but more particularly in the time delay you create while the archeologist does their work. Salvors spend astonishing amounts of money per day when they are dedicated to finding something like this. Each day the archeologist spends cataloging the find costs. Plus the find becomes more public as more people get involved with it (particularly the government) and now they have to have people out there protecting the find from poachers who aren't shackled by all the byzantine rules the government is fond of creating. So now it again becomes too expensive to bother doing properly. Thus it's better to keep your find secret and sell the stuff you find on the black market - meaning few people will see the finds at all. So what's worth more to you? Having them brought up publicly or making the process too expensive resulting in 1) knowing they're out there somewhere safe from salvors and not being found or 2) thinking they're safe from salvors and actually having them truly plundered out of sight of the public gaze?

It is a neat one. Here is another one - one which I have actually been looking for for a couple of years. When I was reading The voyages and travels of Captain Nathaniel Uring, he referred to his map of the Bay of Honduras (where many episodes of piracy took place). Unfortunately, I was reading a reprint and they hadn't bothered to include the map. An online image search failed to turn it up as well - although there were several references to it in various web documents. I recently found it while reading George Francis Dow and John Henry Edmonds' book The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630-1730, so I scanned it in and cleaned it up. It actually looks like Dow and Edmonds only printed part of the map, although having never seen the original, I can't say for sure. It's not as neat as the one Wafer included in his book, but having searched so long for it, I wanted to put it out there. (Again, it's not particularly sized for printing or anything like that.)

I need to go watch M&C again to refresh my memory. I always use it to highlight the discussion on trepanning and forget to mention the parts about amputation, the use of bite sticks and other medical procedures it presents. (A fan pointed out a procedure two weekends ago that I had completely forgotten them presenting - I believe it was bullet extraction.) It's one of the better movies out there for highlighting period medical procedures. Plus I really like the doctor's character. I should just go buy it, really. As for the question... I don't watch specific movies in advance of an event. I just switch on the surgeon by setting out my instruments. Events are their own movies and I don't want to alter their tone by presetting my expectations.

I have doubts anyone with any hand weapon cut a head off in one blow with a normal weapon. It would be much tougher than movies make it look. The mere fact that the neck would move away from the blade unless it was set against a stationary object would make it extraordinarily challenging. (You could do it if you had Nemesis' Onyx Sword - but that's as fantastic as the idea that you could cut off someone's head in a single blow.) Of course, we are talking about the same event that spawned the story that the headless body swam around the ship several times.

This has been mentioned previously, but I don't believe the full quote has been included here, so I thought I'd type it in. It's from Pirates of the New England Coast by George Francis Dow and John Henry Edmonds in their chapter on John Phillips. It should have taken place in 1722 or 1723 if I read it correctly. "On board Captain Laney's schooner was a seaman named David Yaw who afterwards deposed that when the pirates came on board one of them, John Baptis, a Frenchman, 'damn'd him and kicked him in this legs and pointed to his Boots, which was a sign as this deponent understood it that he wanted his Boots, and he according pulled them off and Baptis took them.' [Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 63, leaf 383]" (Dow and Edmonds, p. 322)

I really like the style of it. If he was actually hung, his head shouldn't be erect on his neck like that, though. (I know, he's doing that in the pictures.) It's kind of fun to do quick pictures, isn't it? My only problem is that I start to do one and then I keep wanting to make it better, resulting in it not being quite as quick as I intended. Or I start out devoting a sketch book to quick pics only and then start getting more and more elaborate as I go along and pretty soon it's just another sketch book full of pictures.

I know Stynky has working on the photo gallery lately. Send him a message and ask him about it..

William, they are still using leeches in medicine today. Maggots too. (Not so much Mercury.)

I can't watch the video because I'm at work, but that is one of Thomas Sydenham's recommended cures. (Sydenham was considered one of the greatest Physicians (not Surgeons) of his time.) I have it in my notes somewhere. I don't believe anyone is religiously espousing it today.

I would love to see the look on their faces if you actually did tell them that! The reason I don't is because many such folks have an unshakable faith in their belief and will quickly find a way to excuse such things away so they can continue to expound on their central viewpoint. You can't argue with true believers which I why I find it's better to let them talk themselves out. You've no doubt heard GBS's dictum about wrestling with pigs... (Say, if the puppy thing amuses you, check out the medicines page in this month's Surgeon's Journal article on eye surgery. There's a couple of strange ones in there.) I think the real proof that the natural period cures didn't work aren't the strange ones they tried, though. It's the fact that most surgeons who list prescriptions for important medical issues usually list several very different concoctions for the same problem. If they worked, you'd only need one... maybe two at best. (I usually either pick the first one or the most bizarre one for my articles. It's hard enough to make one abbreviated Latin list of ingredients interesting, let alone five or six of them.)

Jas, it's been a long time since I read it; I'd be curious what your impression is of it when you finish.

Yes, that is the book I am thinking of. And your points are well taken. I kept trying to remember the author's name because I was pretty sure it was someone well respected in this field. I actually own it and read it a looooong time ago when I was young and impressionable. You are right that he does a good job explaining his reasoning, but I think he stretches the facts out of shape in getting there. (You know me, though... I am all for arguing with facts. ) The trouble with such books is that they lead to people thinking they were the original socialist societies while often overlooking the more capitalistic bits where they cut people up to get them to reveal their treasure, sold slaves when it was convenient and profitable and spent the money they took like... well, like drunken sailors. (Not to mention the anarchical bits like throwing cargo into the water and burning ships (sometimes) out of spite, torturing prisoners because they didn't like the take and just burning slave ships because taking care of them would be too much trouble.) You occasionally encounter people who want the pirates to be some sort of mystical apex of ancient socialism here on the Pub. I've never really had someone come up to an event who was dogmatic about that concept in particular, although I've met several people who tell me how pirates were so cool because they were fair-minded and had laws and equally distributed their plunder and so forth. (You can't fault them for that since it is right as far as it goes. At least they're not asking me about the overall governing pirate code as set down by Morgan and Bartholomew. I got one of those last weekend. *sheesh* I can't believe anyone still thinks that's based in fact.) Of course, I've noticed that several of these folks also refer to pirates as 'the original rock stars.' (Thank you Johnny for giving us that bit of legend and lore.) So I usually don't bother to talk further about the other aspects of pirate society as it seems to me that their over-focus on the warm, fuzzy aspects of pirate governance are a thread in a much larger web of misunderstanding which these folks are comfortable with.

For those of you who follow the articles from here, I just noticed that last month's article on the history of pirate surgeons wasn't properly linked. I fixed it up there, but you can also find it here.

This month's article takes a look at eye wounds and their period treatment. It also features a discussion on how that hoary old cliche the eye patch came to be associated with pirates. You can access it via this link. Comments are always welcome!

You may want to try and contact him since he hasn't been active on the Pub in over five years.

Burg fully admits his book is based on speculation in the Intro. I know this because that was the last sentence I read before tossing it aside. (I find it interesting that even today, in this age of increased acceptance of LGBT individuals in the US that the % of the population who are recognized as such is about 5-8%. I posit that it would have been lower during a time period where such behavior was so reviled, although I have no proof of that.) I believe there's another book there that I think is more insidious in its clever presentation of a mostly unprovable hypothesis as fact. It's talks about the socialist nature of the societies that pirates created. Darned if I can remember the name of it - it seems to me that it had a title that made it sound like a typical book on pirates. I believe it was much better done than Burg's book from what I heard.