Mission

Bump ahead of all the 'Goodbye Pub' threads. (This is a great topic.)

I have used links to the forum in many places - on my website, in social media, here in the Pub itself. They used to be in this form: https://pyracy.com/index.php?showtopic=10480 They are now in this form: https:// pyracy.com/topic/11787-bale-seals-company-emblems-makers-marks-trade-symbols/page/2/#comments When the mods were trying to sort topics out of the huge pile a few months ago in preparation for restarting the Pub, the old form worked. (I checked a couple at the time.) It no longer works. Can we adjust it so the old form still works? It must be able to be done because it was working before forum was restored by someone else. Otherwise, there are a shload of links here and elsewhere that no longer work even though they have the correct ID number.

It's been a minute for this topic, hasn't it just? This question comes up so often in social media that at some point after the last comment up there, I decided to create a list of sources I think are good essential. Note that the vast majority of them are primary sources from the period. I believe if you really want to read about pirates, you should go to the source first. Then you will have a firm basis if you want to delve into the modern authors comments on the original material. The best modern authors explain the context of the source material IMO. The majority just recite the facts, hopefully putting them in better order and included period sources of information not found in most other books. The worst try to 'interpret' it for you or, far worse, reinterpret it in a way that fits what actually happened so that it fits into their personal view. Anyhow, here's my list. There are a few modern sources, but the majority are from period pirates and sailors. (The non-pirate sailor's books give insight into life at sea during this time period.) http://www.piratesurgeon.com/pages/surgeon_pages/pirate_bibliography.html

I rarely use a phone and never use a tablet to surf. I am talking about a computer.

It's much better now that you've halved the banner size and allowed them to show up two across. At least you can see the structure of the forums now.

OK, it looks neat with all the nice banners, but it makes for a slog if you want to find forums past the first couple. Scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll... The Outline format wasn't exactly pretty, but it was simple and the forum layout was clear. Just MHO.

I have spent years researching historical piracy. Since most of the places I would like to visit are tied to things I have seen or read, I have a list of historically significant places I would see. In fact, I have already visited one of them... Robinson Crusoe Island, once called Más a Tierra or, in the bucaneer accounts, Juan Fernandez. I almost made it to Ile Ste. Marie (now called Nosy Boraha), Madagascar which was home to many of the East Indies pirates and the site of Adam Baldridge's pirate trading post at the turn of the 18th century, but... covid scotched that for me. I have a short list of other desired historically significant pirate destinations like these. So what's on your list?

I talked to Stynky a month or so ago and he was having some issue backing up the database so (in Stynky style) he has been putting off the closing of the forum until he can figure out the problems. Like your ghost ship, I imagine we'll just find it missing some day.

No, I honestly can't...which is the real problem with the list. It cites no sources, so there's no way to verify it. I used it for an article I wrote several years ago and people occasionally point out errors to me in my list. (This happens sporadically, so I don't remember the complaints. But, one example I do recall: Nicholas Woodall wasn't a pirate and so doesn't belong on the list.) I have been trying to go through the period sources and create my own list so I can correct the one in my on-line article, but it's a very tedious, time-consuming project because you have to read all the contemporary sources and record mentions of the ships, noting who had them, when they had them, how many men and guns the ship had (which usually changes - sometimes dramatically - during the tenure of ownership) and what type of ship it was. Some of this can be really difficult to figure out because the period documents occasionally identify ships by the wrong name, wrong ship type and wrong captain (or are sometimes given an aliases). So I wouldn't rely on this list to be accurate.

I don't know the answers, but I'm almost certain each of these things has been discussed here in the past. Use the search function, restricting your search to the appropriate forum. Most of them are probably in Captain Twill. (You may find the gunlock answer in Cacabel's Lock, Stock & Barrel forum.)

? Where did you see that? I've seen period accounts of salted pork & beef, the salting of fish, boars, seals and even penguins. But I don't recall ever seeing a mention of salted horse.

Read the version edited by Manuel Schonhorn, taking time to read the end notes for each chapter. He explains where everything came from in Johnson's book. Mostly it was newspaper accounts, public records and published court accounts. What Johnson did was sift and organize these otherwise dry, dull documents (trust me, I've read a lot of them) and the stuff he added is mostly regarded as being fictional like the story of Captain Misson, Blackbeard's supposed journal, philosophical speeches by some of the pirates and similar odds and ends. The author of these books is widely believed these days to be journalist Nathaniel Mist. Ed explains the reasoning behind this pretty well in this posting.

This may interest you. “[Roberts, philosophy] [Thomas] Sutton used to be very prophane; he happening to be in the same Irons with another Prisoner, who was more serious than ordinary, and read and pray’d often, as became his Condition; this Man, Sutton used to swear at, and ask him, what he proposed by so much Noise and Devotion? Heaven, says the other, I hope. Heaven, you Fool, says Sutton, did you ever hear of any Pyrates going thither? Give me H———ll, it’s a merrier Place: I’ll give Roberts a Salute of 13 Guns at Entrance. And when he found such ludicrous Expressions had no Effect on him, he made a formal Complaint, and requested that the Officer would either remove this Man, or take his Prayer-Book away, as a common Disturber.” (Daniel Defoe (Captain Charles Johnson), A General History of the Pyrates, Manuel Schonhorn, ed., 1999, p. 246) (There's no indication about what happened after that.)

As Foxe already explained, when you try and hunt them down, you'll find that many of the sea superstitions can only be traced back to the mid/late 18th century. I ran into that when trying to run down superstitions that we think were prevalent then when I was writing my article Dealing With the Deceased a few years back. I found the sea superstitions weren't much different than the landsmen's superstitions and a lot of the more "sea-based" myths came later. As I quoted in my article, "Writing several decades after the golden age of piracy about a shipwreck that took place in 1739, John Byron explained, That common people in general are addicted to superstitious conceits, is an observation founded on experience; and the reason is evident: but I cannot allow that common seamen are more so than others of the lower class. In the most enlightened ages of antiquity, we find it to have been the popular opinion, that the spirits of the dead were not at rest till their bodies were interred; and that they did not cease to haunt and trouble those who had neglected this duty to the departed. This is still believed by the vulgar, in most countries"