Mission

Didn't I just link to the Pirate Nationalities (Origins) thread a few days ago? You'll find more collected data on pirate nationalities there than I've ever seen anywhere else. Go study it and you can report back your findings. If you want an MS Excel version of the list, you'll find it on my website.

It doesn't taste like much of anything to me. Of course, the only hard tack I've had had to be soaked for quite a long time in broth before you could even begin to eat it. True to their name they are incredibly hard and nearly impervious to all liquids. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find that the cobblestone streets in Europe are laid upon a foundation of ship's biscuits.

What a nice jacket; I really like the look of it. You should take a photo without all the hardware on so's we can appreciate the craftsmanship.

The more complex the equation, the better. (Although change in post rate could be due to a number of extenuating circumstances which do not include quality.) With such an equation, people could go in and out of different levels of poster quality. Trying to remain at a certain level/poster symbol would be like trying to keep your gold frequent flier status from year-to-year.

It's been awhile since I did one of these, but I found this nice small trepanning set up for auction on eBay and I thought I'd do my best to share the details of it for those of you with $2K to spend on such a lovely set. (Plus I just felt like doing this.) This may or may not be a GAoP-era set, but I think it's reasonably close if it isn't. I'd guess it not being much newer than 1760s or 70s in any case. (But I am guessing.) The auction reads: "We are offering a fine 18th-century trepanning set in its original fish skin covered case. One instrument is missing and the scalpel is an early-19th-century replacement but o/w this set is in vg condition noting that the exterior wooden base of the case has a crack running across it--the case remains completetly tight and sound." Below is the fish skin covered case. Look at those hinges and that handle! Good stuff. And here is the set of trepanning instruments inside the case. The letters are to compare this image with the ones following. I will detail the instruments that latter photos. The Trepanning equipment: A ) The Trepan Handle - used to hold the three Cutting Heads. B ) The Large Trepan Cutting Head - part of the reason I know these are earlier era trepans is because the cutting tools have no way to stop them from going in too far. Later-era tools were either tapered - 'Galt' style - or had lips - crown style - to stop them from going in too far and damaging the brain. C ) A Key - used to remove the guiding point that is located inside the two round cutting heads. The point would be driven into the skull until the teeth of the round cutting heads started to bite into the skull and then this key would be used to remove the point so that it didn't damage the brain as the teeth of the round cutting heads did their work. D ) The Medium Trepan Cutting Head. If you look in the large triangular gap, you can see the guiding point inside the tool. E ) A Spade-Shaped Cutting Tool. This could be used to make an indentation in the bony skull to guide the point located in the round cutting heads. The ancillary instruments used during a trepanation: F ) The Bone Dust Brush used to whisk away bone dust during the operation so that it didn't fall into the brain once the skull had been drilled through. G ) A Lenticular - used to smooth the edge of the circular cut in the skull. The bottom is rounded to prevent damage to the brain while the sides are sharp so that they can scrape and file the edge of the often ragged cut through the skull. Notice that the rounded end also has a cup shape to catch filed off bone chippings and dust. H ) Another Style of Lenticular - this one is a bit simpler in design, but was designed to get in closer. From what I can tell, this is a later period design, although still accurate to GAoP and before. I ) An Elevator - used as a lever to pry up the edges of the circular bone after it was cut through. J ) A scalpel for "cutting the hairy scalp" as one author puts it. As the description reveals, this is a 19th century scalpel, not the one that originally came with this set. Notice the difference in the wood of the handle.

Stynky would probably be more than happy to let you set up the formula, so long as he didn't have to do anything other than plug it in. Optimal post rate per day? That would have to be a parabolic curve - 'the frowny type' as it's called in the heady cloistered halls of the world of maths.

If we had to have symbols for something, I'd almost prefer it be the join date. Although I'm sure that you'll agree with me that neither of these things necessarily indicate the quality of a poster. There are hundreds of times more people that joined in the (relatively) distant past that have since disappeared. (Maybe you need something that combines the two. I suggest we base the poster symbol - if we must have it - on a complex formula featuring differential calculus to determine the rate of posting compared to the join date.)

You know, we're sort of better off without them in a way. Post counting is not something that should really be encouraged. (Although i do love the little skull. That's why I keep getting my post count set backwards so he always appears under my avatar. I have no clue what my real post count is.)

You know, it's too bad when we were making that list of Pirate Nationalities (Origins) over at the Pirateinfo forum that we didn't indicate which were the captains and what their years of activity were. (And their date of death, original sources where they were found, ships taken, life histories, major prosthetics, whether they owned a parrot or not...&c. )

Happy birthday, Patick! A man whose hat will live in infamy.

Yep, that's the one. I had it in my head that it was from Hamilton, but I think I may have confused it with the story of the pirates capturing a ship full of horses in the East Indies and then burning it with the horses still on it. I've read so many pirate history books and articles in the past two or three months that I can't keep 'em straight. This is why I always take notes on the surgery-related stuff.

Perzactly. I wish I had written it down in my thread on Hamilton (If it was indeed from Hamilton.) I was being scolded for including pirate info that didn't seem to square with other historic sources, so I got all gun shy when I came across info on the pirates.

So, according to J.R., my website was pretty much right after all - even though I pulled those dates out of my...ear. (Either that or I got them out of a discussion at the Pirateinfo site with Ed. ) Use more smilies.

I think Blackjohn and his group were the driving force behind keeping the event historical in nature. When he left, the event changed to meet the needs of those who were willing to organize it. In truth, the evening festivities when I was there were filled with people in fantasy pirate garb (as you will notice when you read the third page of the Surgeon's Journal for that event linked in the first post), so the event was already split in a way.

Oh, I understood. I just wanted to be clear on how I'd come up with that info. I personally think it's funny that no one can agree. It's yet another example of how hard it is to pin things down when you're talking about stuff that happened so long ago. It's like you can't comfortably participate in discussions about the finer points of this topic unless you can accept ambiguity.

I don't know if I'd call them experts - they're just the top bunch of websites that come up with an answer when you was Google when the Golden Age of Piracy occurred. One way I suppose you could define it is to look at all the pirates in the two books of the History of the Pirates that Johnson wrote and see when the first one went a-pirating (excluding the ones clearly outside the golden age like those who captured Caesar) and when the last one got caught. Although, even then, I think Foxe may have documented examples of pirates that aren't included in those books. (See? Fuzzy.) Swashbuckler1700 brings up a good point (and one Wikipedia sort of agrees with when you read the fine print): there were the buccaneers and there were the pirates. They're not really the same thing. Wiki goes a step further and defines a third period (just to confuse things): Curiously, this doesn't completely agree with their statement that "the Golden Age of Piracy spans from the 1650s to the 1730s".

It's one of those things that will never be pinpointed unless an expert like J.R. Moore comes along and tells us how it should be defined.

This is one of SB1700's pet topics based on pm discussions we've had due to the fact that he doesn't think I defined it right on my website. (I sort of plucked them out of the air, so I know I'm wrong. OTOH, there is little agreement on this by anyone, so I know I'm right. ("Truly, you have a dizzying intellect." "Wait till I get going!") Now, where was I?) The Golden Age of Piracy took place sometime around the turn of the 17th/18th centuries, but the edges are incredibly ragged. Everyone defines it differently based on whatever episode of piracy that occurred around that time that they want to focus upon and based on the fact that they want that year to end in a 5 or a 0 because it looks cleaner that way. (OTOH, it's the kind of picayune bit of nonsense we sometimes get into shockingly silly tussels over, so here we go...) A quick Google search produces the following results from the first page: Wikipedia: "In its broadest accepted definition, the Golden Age of Piracy spans from the 1650s to the 1730s..." The UnMuseum: "This period started soon after the discovery of the New World and continued for about 250 years." The Pirate Encyclopedia: "The Golden Age of Piracy covers the time period around the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth - from about 1690-1730, particularly." Cindy Vallar's Site: "The height of plundering lasted about a decade from 1715-1725" Reefs, Wrecks and Rascals: "the era lasted from around 1700 until 1730" Wisegeek: "The Golden Age of Piracy was a period between roughly 1650 and 1720 when piracy on the Atlantic Ocean reached astounding levels." Chacha.com: "Piracy was widespread from the 15th to the 18th Century AD." Angus Konstam's Pirate Blog: "The so-called Golden Age of Piracy was a phrase coined by pirate novelists and historians to describe the period from between 1695 and 1730, when all the best-known pirates were in business." About.com: "the so-called "Golden Age" of Piracy, which lasted roughly from 1700 to 1725" Viola! None of the top rated sites for this question agree with one another. You may as well try to catch a will-o-wisp as try and define the dates accurately.

Actually, if you are a fan of the Pyracy Pub Facebook page, forum-owner Stynky mentioned he was changing some stuff. "A new coat of paint" is what he called it. Although he's be modifying bits and pieces here and there for the past few months.

Just a thought, but the presence of boots on a ship doesn't necessarily mean they were worn there. I do recall an account of pirates riding horses back and forth on the deck of a captured ship (which I believe may be from Alexander Hamilton's A new account of the East Indies, 17th-18th century but I didn't record it in my notes because it is not germane to my subject.) Although they eventually got mad at the ship's crew for not having proper riding gear for them to practice their new sport so they punished them in some form or another.

No, you got everything in there. I would have posted the details had there been more. This reads like a movie script... "About 10, [Pirate captain] Cornelius came up with them [an African Company slaving ship containing Robert Williams], and being hailed, answered he was a man of war, in search of pirates, and bid them send their boat on board; but they refusig to trust him, though he had English colours and pendant flying, the pirate fired a broadside, and they began a running fight of about 10 hours, in which time the negroes discharged their arms so smartly, that Cornelius never durst attempt to board. About 8 at night the ship blew up abaft. They immediately cut the lashings of the long-boat, but the ship going down, they had not time to get her out, and barely enough to launch the yawl, which lay on the forecastle. The ship went down on one side, and Robert Williams running on the other, was hooked by the mizen-truss, and was carried down with her; but having his knife in his hand, and a, great presence of mind, he cut the waistband of his trowsers, where he was caught, got clear, and swam after the boat, into which about 16 had gotten, and either knocked those on the head, or cut off their hands, who laid hold on it; however, with much entreaty, he was permitted to lay one hand on to ease him. They made to the pirate, who refused to receive them, without they would enter with him : which, to save their lives, they all agreed to, and were then civilly received, and dry clothes given them. These and one negro were all the souls saved." (Captain Charles Johnson, The History of the Pirates (aka. Vol II of The General History), 1834 Edition, p. 161) I take it the ship would have blown up because they hit the powder magazine?

You've got red on you.

So if all these were from the hanging, the pirates actually sort of won based on the death count. I wonder what 'Overlaid' means?

It's very lush-looking, but indeed slow-loading, not to mention quite long at 150 pages. The graphics were neat, but they also made it kind of hard for me to read the text unless I blew it up. Fortunately the interface is quite intuitive once the page finally loads.

June 22 - 24.