Brit.Privateer

I forget we had that brief discussion on volume 2 just over a year ago. Rogozinski - the list of people who have written on pirate history will never end. Just last week I found another guy to add to my list - was someone with BA in history writing books concerning piracy around South Carolina and another book on Stede Bonnet (he operates out of a independent little publisher out of Charleston, SC). I don't know why I walked by Rogozinski's book before (might have to do with that when I footnote-mined the more academic and better known books on pirate history, he might have not been footnoted much), but I just might put it on my list now. Granted, I just looked up a review on his book by Kris Lane of the College of William and Mary, and I think these pull quotes give me a good idea what to expect: "To offset the myth of the pirate as a buffoon or drooling pyschopath, Rogozinski offers only somewhat less convincing counter-myths, or at least gross generalizations. We are told that pirates were "just like other men," yet that - in Madagascar at least - they also managed to be colorblind quasi-communists and sexual libertarians." "Rogozinski favors repetition and hyperbole over evidence and reasoned argument. Many modern students of pirate life would wish the hearty rogues of the Great Age to have been glamorous, progressive, and rebellious all at once, but in striving to ground this image in history the book comes off instead as a jumble of pedantic asides and narrative fragments." This guy appears to share the same school of thought in pirate history that Gabriel Kuhn described as "radical pirate scholars." This group includes Christopher HIll, Marcus Rediker Peter Lamborn Wilson, Stephen Snelders, and Chris Land. (If you are wondering what other schools of thought there are, Kuhn only proposes the "non-radical scholars" and uses Robert C. Ritche, David Cordingly, Angus Konstam, and Peter Earle as examples). I think Kuhn sums up the motivation to the radical scholars' conclusions, "...the political intepretation of golden age piracy matters less than its contemporary political adaptation." Charles Grey's work - I got his book, but that book did not include a bibliography or footnotes (probably because the standards for having such things had not been officially established yet), and at the time I was looking at his stuff, I was primarily on the hunt for primary sources. But, Grey did leave notes on his sources in the The Indian Antiquary publication from 1923-1928, called "Notes on piracy in eastern waters." In those, he actually lists sources. You're better off trying to access the journals themselves - I say this since a separate publication that reprinted all these notes did come out, but good luck getting a hold of the maybe 2 dozen copies of that reprint that exist throughout the libraries in the entire world. Thanks Fox for the additional comments on the Indian Ocean pirates. That research you did while writing your work on Henry Every shows. I've not had a chance to work with the Indian Ocean pirates much. The ideal place to live in terms of where documents relating to pirates are kept is the U.K., not the U.S. (though we have quite a bit, but I always feel we are behind here in the U.S. so we don't have the Archives in London, not to mention what other treasures reside in the archives of other western European countries - something that is only now starting to be studied significantly). As Fox says, Rogozinski and Grey have done work on this subject, but both have issues and Grey's stuff isn't readily accessible (probably has something to do with being published almost a centry ago). New efforts are needed. Something on the lines of what Robert Ritche did with Captain Kidd is the ideal. Mr Bandlesworth, I'm glad to hear that you are interested in learning on how to do research into this subject. I think several people here and myself would be more than happy to answer any questions about doing research (we could discuss the subject forever). I hope to see more posts from you that might instigate more intriguing discussions such as this.

Let me get out my Schonhorn Edited Edition of General History and let's see what he has to say about this. All of these things you asked about are featured in the second volume of Johnson's work, the less reputable volume. In addition, these particular pirates you ask about are all involved with the Madagascar pirates, which Johnson takes a lot of liberties with overall (this volume did publish a completely ficitonal story relating to Captain Mission and his operations out of Madagascar). I don't think we will find out anything about those French pirates since, according to Schonhorn's research, it's hard to find anything documentation on Thomas White outside of Johnson's history for the early part of his career. Since Read is in the early part of that career as well, it is again difficult to document him too. Hopes for knowing more about Inless are about the same. Overall, the pirates of Madagascar, and especially those who operated in the 1698-1713 period, are not that well researched. They don't get a lot of attention since people are attracted to pirates during the 1690s and 1710s-1720s. Those periods had more pirates numerically and the famous heists that took large amounts of money took place at this time. Henry Every and Captain Kidd are the more interesting stories to the general public and historians - even the pirates that operated in the Indian Ocean in the 1720s get more attention. The reason that several of the chapters in volume 2 featured all of these chapters about pirates that aren't as noteworthy and operated in the Indian Ocean roughly around the first decade of the eighteenth century comes down to these two things: 1) Volume 2 was a rush job in comparison to Volume 1, and was being pushed to try and make a few more quick bucks from the success of Volume 1 and their 4 editions - ergo Johnson scrounged for any stories he could find 2) Madagascar pirates were popular since the stories of Henry Avery had spun out to legendary status and develops this whole idea that some huge pirate empire resided in Madagascar (Woodes Rogers found something drastically less impressive when he arrived), so he took a shot at exploiting this interest by throwing in these accounts/stories. It would probably require some new research to increase our knowledge on these pirates. Someone would have to scrape some archives and really obscure sources to expand the stories of these pirates. If a historian did this job, it would be something drastically new and different though (rather than, say, another book on Blackbeard). Sorry I couldn't come up with a better answer, but that's what I have. I see this is your first post, what drew you here and what drew you to wanting to find out more about these very specific pirates?

My favourite, Nathaniel Butler, said his preferred armour at sea was a good buff jerkin. There's no reason that a buff coat would have been any less hardy in salt water than any other item of leather clothing, including shoes, which have survived in numerous shipwrecks for hundreds of years. Bear in mid though that a buff coat is not just leather, it's LEATHER. Really thick. Really really thick. Some proper reconstructions I've seen stand up by themselves, though some period artistic representations suggest a more supple (but no thinner) leather in use. http://www.royalarmouries.org/learning/online-learning/littlecote-house-module/explore-littlecote-house-without-flash/great-hall-in-littlecote-house/buff-coats-and-baldricks It appears that we are talking about a few periods different periods here. Now, I mainly concentrate on the later period of the late 17th and early 18th century. The references to buff coats appear to come from the English Civil War period. Now, besides caps, breeches, shoes, and the pockets of some garments (and the possibility of turning animal skins into clothing, but the only maritime sailor reference for the later period that I have is Alexander Selkirk, and that was an exceptional case); I have yet to find references to any other leather clothes for sailors of the later period I mentioned previously. Now, I would be real interested to see if other refernces could be found to anything else (the buff coats are kind of interesting), but for now I have no reason to think that there is anything else that would be added to that list for the later period for maritime use.

Interesting quote, especially how it's described this leather as being washable as linen (though it's not like we are dealing with cow hide here), but a question: Is this a discussion of maritime people in the Atlantic world wearing leather clothes? If so, I think we have done that on other parts of the forum (though I don't think it's had it's own thread). We can document their existence (you have to look at deceased sailor's inventories of the period). In particular, leather breeches are listed on several occasions as being owned by sailors (as for other articles of maritime clothing outside of caps/hats and shoes, other references in period sources have eluded me thus far), but the problem is that we have not found any pictures/drawings, written descricptions, or archaeological finds that describe the kind of leather used or how they would have been constructed. If this just for leather clothing as a whole, I think other examples can be found of leather clothing used on land. What immediately comes to mind are leather aprons used in a few professions. The quote actually reminds me of the description of clothes made of goat skins in Robinson Crusoe.

To answer the original question: While there are other options, and they have already been discussed on this thread, here is another one for your consideration: PROB 32/58/121 "A true and perfect Inventory of...John Matthews late of the Burrough of St Ives in the County of Cornwall Marriner deced..." in the list of his possessions and their value, the first thing listed is: "his Purse Girdle and wearing Apparell,15 shillings" Date at the bottom of the document for when this was written is 2 July 1714 The emphasis in the quote above is mine. As for obtaining money, barter, and trade - I can attest to period documents referring to pawn shops and sailors using them in several documents (as mentioned above). Even British Navy Lieutenants use the pawn shop. There was a huge market during this period for second hand clothing. This is how the lower class got their hands on nicer clothing (otherwise they couldn't afford it, and manufacturers of clothing/tailors had yet to start making large amounts of more basic and cheaper versions of popular fassions (though there are some attempts, printed cottons from India often playing a role)). Sailors are recorded selling their clothes to the point of being made part of their characature for the GAOP period. Why did they? Sometimes, they were stuck in a port and didn't have any other means of obtaining money for getting home. Other times, it was to get a drink down in Shadwell at the old drinking establishment. And other times, as referrenced by others already, it was to obtain things from natives in foreign lands, including food. But I feel like I'm getting off topic with the clothing discussion. For obtaining money, it became harder as you got into colonies and marginal regions. Eventually, this is why colonies tried for paper script, but that is its own barrel of issues. Also, this is why non-British coinage was accepted in British colonies. Also, as others pointed out, we have to specify the question here. Which one are we trying to answer: >Where did common sailors keep their money on their person (this is the one I tried to answer)? >Where did common sailors store their money for safe keeping? >Where did pirates keep their money on their person? >Where did pirates store their money for safe keeping? How did division of plunder influence this? Hope something here helps you all in answering your question.

I would be carefull about the images from the "The Vinkhuijzen collection of military uniforms" (the ones linked from the digital galleries at New York) in terms of saying they are period images. The book itself is from 1910 and all the illustrations appear to be done by the same artist (just can't find a name for the artist). They are not period images (which made me sad when I figured that out).

I didn't see this posted on the site before (did a search and nothing came up). Also, if this is the wrong spot for it (or if I missed it somehow and this is a repost), moderate this as needed. There is a new Documentary on the recently found wreck of Henry Morgan's vessel. It's called "The Unsinkable Henry Morgan": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZhfKpaCZWM

Just one quick question and a couple of comment. For List of Regulations and Instructions relating to Service at Sea, where is the 1730 version? I only can find 1731 (or do you all mean 1731?). My next thought relating to this question of swabbing and sandstones/holystones is this - is there anything else they could have used back then (and can be documented to have been used) to keep the deck smoother so as to minimize roughness and splinters from the deck? If there was not as an effective way to keep the decks smooth back then as in later in the 18th and into the 19th centuries, is this a possible reason why documentation for men going barefoot during the GAOP is so scarce? Is this why throughout most of the 17th century that captains petitioned and complained of shoe shortages for their men? Is this why the Dutch maritime painters of the late 17th and early 18th centuries came over to England and actually depicted sailors wearing shoes while up in the rigging? It would explain a lot about the lack of barefoot descriptions. I think the next step that I can take is to try and approach this from an archaeological approach and see what my colleagues in maritime archaeology have turned up on the subject. Also, scouring rod, now I'm starting to question myself on the use of that in the 18th century (I don't think I said they used the term in the 19th century). It was a long time ago that I did research on cleaning methods for firearms of the 17th and 18th centuries, though I am now intrigued to try again. I would think we would have a thread for period correct methods of gun cleaning somewhere on this forum already. If I can't find one in the next few days, I may start one.

With the whole swab thing in here now, that made me think of something else. For cleaning weaponry in the 19th century, a variety of cleathing methods can be recorded - including sand, brick dust, ash, and emory paper. Many of these methods can be traced back to the 18th century as well, except emory paper - simple emory sand was used. Also, things called scowering rods were used as well. What am I getting at? Well, is it possible that instead of in stone form, could they have just put sand on the deck and swabbed it into the deck or something like that - kind of like how before the invention of emory paper they just used loose emory sand? It would be great if we could document something about deck cleaning methods before later part of the 18th century. But, as stated previously, it was so mundane that people seldom wrote about it, so who knows how long until someone stumbles upon an account of it.

Well, one way to try and approach this is - since the name holystone may have not come about until the 1770s, what about the use of sandstone in general? The Online Etymology Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary agree that the term sandstone goes back to the 1660s. Let's see if anyone can take that and find another piece of the puzzle.

Wow, this is the first time I remember anyone on the forums giving me a happy birthday, thank you.

It sounds like he is more referring to the tendency of 16th and early 17th century ships to build additional cabins on the deck of a vessel, though he could also be referring to the use of cabins in general as being unhealthy. I remember reading about the Spanish tendency towards building cabins high up in the book Spain's Men of the Sea. The biggest problem is overburdening the ship and making it top heavy to the point of capsizing. Okay, now for the development of hammock netting. According to Lavery's Arming and Fitting of English Men of War (which actually quotes the above from Boteler's Dialogues), on pg 245, it says that some of the first solid documentation for them came in the 1740s, though it is possible some small use of them existed in the 1730s. They were in gereal use on British naval ships by the 1750s. The greater purpose for them was to develop protective barricades for the men, even though they were not good as closed wooden railings as typical in the waist (but better than the experiments with "arming cloth"). It says that the hammocks were typically stowed under the quarterdeck otherwise. It doesn't elaborate how far that tradition went back. As for the naval tendency for rolling up and stowing away hammocks, it doesn't have much detail. It says that it was common procedure for sailors to roll up and pack their hammocks when a sailor was on duty. Beyond that, it doesn't say if and when they stowed them besides during battle. The general idea I get is that the navy tended to wards keeping a ship relatively ready for combat during regular duty hours, which by the mid eighteenth century meant stowing the hammocks in netting when not sleeping in it. As for before 1740, kind of unclear, but we can at least say the navy tended towards not hanging them up during the day.

I think the question of clearing for battle depends on what service and what time period we are talking about. As you spotted, with Navy versus civilian, it is essencial to keep a ship clear for action at any time, while a civilian vessel does not have that. As for sleeping during the day, when sailors were not on duty, they would take naps when they could. Quite a few watch systems set things up so that the average sailor would get 4 hours of sleep per night (on a normal night that didn't require everyone to do something on deck). While it is possible for some people to operate on four hours a day, some can't - so they tried to sneek in naps wherever the could. But napping/sleeping didn't require a hammock. Before hammocks, people slept on the decks and sometimes on top of large sea chests. Now, back to those hammocks. One thing I am going to have to do is look up when hammock netting came around and the whole routine of stowing away hammocks. It might help with all this. One thing that sticks in my mind is that the advantage of not having hammocks stowed but not hung up is that with the hammocks down, sailors could at least access them for the bedding in it and odd items they may keep in there (like spare clothing). As for the orlop deck references you made (the guns on the orlop deck, a variety of decks being called orlop), could I see some sources on that?

I just went and looked over the diary, briefly. The "London Merchant" appears to be a civilian vessel (or at least the lists of navy vessels don't show such a vessel present in the 1670s - except a hired vessel in a very brief service to the Navy four years earlier, listed to have been 87' length of keel by 28' 9" breadth, 382 tons burthen, crew compliment of 180, 48 guns http://threedecks.or...w_ship&id=12103 ). Maybe I am reading what you are saying wrong, but chain plates are usually bolted outside onto the hull and not on a deck. If they were to correspond to a deck, it would be a main or gun deck on larger vessels (which the London Merchant would be), and on small ones (we are talking less than 100 tons), it would end up being the orlop. It just sounds like the hammocks were being stowed down below, probably into the hold. I've read several other descriptions from this period concerning getting ready for action, and they often note simply sending chests and hammocks below, especially since hammock netting wasn't around yet (which can be attributed to the hammock only being largely adopted in the second half of the seventeenth century). Since it seems important enough to note that the hammocks had to be struck down for action, it sounds like they are verifying there was a gun deck (you would need one if there are 48 guns). Since it's a merchant vessel, the deck was probably crowded with more than just guns. In a merchant vessel, you tried to get all the room you can get for cargo (ergo profit). So, the crew more than likely stayed there (if there wasn't enough room in the forecastle, if there was a forecastle of note). There might of been some compartments for passengers there, and some bulkheads for assisting in the storage of some cargo as well. On a merchant vessel, it wasn't crucial for all the guns to be in a nice, uniterrupted line. This might explain why some (not all, as noted in the text itself) got stowed amidships near the main chains. If Cowel was trying to say it was unusal to stow some chests in this area, it is understandable since navy vessels would not do this for the purpose of allowing as clean a sweep fore and aft on the gun deck. Hopefully that clears up some things.

I think some context to the story would help here. What size of ship is this? Is it civilian or military? When I read the quote, I don't get the impression that the bammocks are necessarily going up to the main deck. As for the chests, to me one potential reading of it is that they are being stacked and stowed on the part of the deck where the mainmast is (in addition to where the boats are and other places) and not actually on the external part of the ship near the chain plates. Can't say much more until I get some context, but based on what I see, I am guessing this is a civilian ship.

Man, Brown University keeps on putting stuff up on that digital library collection. They must be putting up things much more frequently than I thought (must be some busy employees or graduate students over there). Well, as for the whole question of when it's okay to use what evidence when, it's not the easiest question to answer. If your goal is to try and get an idea of what sailors looked like during the Golden Age of Piracy, I would generally cut things off at the year 1740, for after that date you get a flood of illustrations and paintings presenting sailors during The War of Jenkin's Ear (or King George's War), which I don't think will present trends of 20+ years previous. I'm still trying to determine if there is a tangible relationship between the occurence of wars and the changing of sailors fashions during this period. In general, just be careful about trends in sailor's clothing. A lot of people around here seem to assume that "They did it later in the 18th century..." or "They did it i the 1750s and 1740s..." so "...therefore, they probably did it during the GAOP." Well, I hold to N.A.M. Rodger's observations that too many historians up until recently assumed the same thing about the conduct of the Navy overall through the 18th century. Yes, many things had similarities over the course of the 18th century, just like a car in the 1960s will share similarities with a car today in the sense that they both have 4 wheels, axels, a trunk, and windshield, etc...but there were also tons of differences too. Using our car analogy, 1960s car had real steel bodies in much different shapes than today's plastic bodies, etc... For clothing, it's the same thing. Hat styles change 4-5 times over the course of 1680-1815 by my count (and each time the primary hat style changes, there are always a number who wear a couple other distinct styles). Sailors go from wearing predominately breeches to trousers (and the use of slop breeches or wide kneed breeches thrown into the mix), the length of trousers changed over time (to being up around the calf to sitting on top of the shoes), the cut of skirts on jackets and waistcoats gets shorter over the time to the point of requiring a change in the construction of the breech's/trouser's fly. Shoes goes from mainly buckle to mainly shoe laces (among other things). Even the popularity of particular colors changes; blue is much more popular in 1800 than it was in 1700 for maritime clothing (though blue was worn in good numbers). And then there is the matter of what sailors wore while on the job vs. not working vs. on shore leave. Maritime clothing isn't the easiest thing to study because of scarcity of sources. You have to search high and low to find out new data. It wasn't until recently that people could pull together enough data and images to make reasonable generalized comments on maritime clothing during particular periods of time like the GAOP. If you wanted to get images and data, until the past 10-15 years, you more than likely had to go to quite a few libraries and archives and dig for tons of hours to find just a few scraps of data or period images (which relagated the job to mostly historians to doing it, for not many people beyond historians and archivists had the time and money to do such digging). Who knows what will come up in the next few years as more and more things get added to various digital archives online. Also, it is getting easier to obtain previous people's research. That's the key to the game, find what has been previously written and discovered and then trying to add to it. Previously, doing that went at a snail's pace, now with modern techology we can crawl (and maybe get walking by decade's end).

I've been doing quite a bit of research into maritime clothing during the 1680-1740 as of lately, and I have been searching for the origins of this picture. I have looked through all the various editions of Rodger's Cruising Voyage Round the World up to 1740 and have not found this image in any of them. I've even engaged a couple other people in helping me finding the origins of this picture, but to no avail. I think there is a thread somewhere around here or at the Brethren's forum that states that this image comes from the 1760s. I wish I could find that thread, but anyway, I would more than likely agree with them. As far as I can tell, this image is not period. While it portrays an event in the 1710s, the illustration came from some decade well beyond it. I post this now because I see so many people still post this as evidence for period attire. I wouldn't use this one, since from what I can find, it is no where a period representation of the event. I have found that quite a few publications mistakenly date illustrations to the event or person that is depicted (and not from when it was made). This is especially true in those late 19th and early 20th century publications that helped quite a few people set foundations for martime history and maritime clothing. Moral of the story: Be carefull what you use for evidence. Have the artist, year it was made, and the book it came in if it was part of a book.

The first thing that came to mind was maybe one of the chainplates that hold the chains attached to the shrouds of a mast, like here: http://www.stockphotoshowcase.com/wp-content/uploads/constellation-sternchains.jpg Would that work?

It's the Patrick Hand Original™ Planter's Hat! (Almost.) I remember stumbling on this picture before. While I wasn't searching for the clothing stuff, the box/chest in the background shows some great period examples of the narrow and small dovetails used at the time. As for the clothing, first thing I thought was "Rip Van Winkle's Militia Service Uniform."

I forget about that sampling he did. I should have specified before that I was referring to images of sailors, but let's work with this. Based on the sources for the survey, of the 82 shirts listed there, 76 of them come from the 204 shirts listed in the Joseph Haycock Slop Shop inventory of 1699. I do wonder where the other 6 references came from? While striped shirts were around, I wouldn't say they were the norm, for I see references to single-colored shirts and the checker/speckled than I do stripes.

Never assume that just because the Navy or sailors did particular things in the Napoleonic era that they also did it 100 years previous. Plenty of maritime historians have done this, as pointed out by N.A.M. Rodgers in The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy. Many do this because it's easy to do. The late 18th and early 19th century has a bounty of documentation and images available, so many people in literature, film, and even history studies have relied on them for earlier periods, just assuming that things had always been the same. As for the striped shirt being horizontal, no evidence indicates horizontal stripes being in vogue at this time. Just like other fashions, stripes came in and out of fashion over time, as did their orientation. During the GAOP, it was vertical stripes. As for being on shirts, the documentation concerning shirts of this period talk much about plain shirts of one color and checked (or "speckled") shirts. Rarely does stripes on shirts come up (in fact, the Spanish document is the only one that immediately comes to mind that mentions any striped shirts during this period).

I was doing some clothing research and I finally figured out where these pics came from, H.-L. Duhamel du Monceau's, Traité général des pesches, 1772. http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/hist/lifelines/liroh07e.shtml www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/hist/lifelines/licog18e.shtml Unfortunately not GAOP, but still cool stuff.

When I get some time a few days from now, I'll get out my notes on musket blacking. As for civilian ships having weapons, from what I've read, most every ship had its small cash of arms for basic defense. On small vessels, the whole ship's armament could be contained within one arms chest and kept in the captain's cabin. One surviving example of a merchant arms chest from about 1800 held something like 8 muskets, 8 pistols, and 8 stirrup-hilt cutlasses (I will get more details on this specific one when I post again a few days from now). This chest actually was designed to be slid under the captain's bed and the edge of the box to be used as a step. Any vessel engaging in the slave trade would definately have a sizable crew armament since they had to contend with possible slave revolts. For any merchant vessel during this time, carrying some weapons on board was the norm, and for one not to carry some weapons would be extremely exceptional. While it is understandable that a merchant might be cheap in investing into carriaged guns, for a merchant to not invest in at least a few muskets would be insane for that time. Gentlemen traveling on country roads during this era felt that it was necessary to arm themselves and the couple of servants/men going with them - why wouldn't they do the same at sea with a large cargo of goods that they just invested much money into? The one questionable area may be with small boats, such as fishermen and watermen. As for the kind of weaponry, that might vary from ship to ship. Muskets are your base line since not only can they be used to hunt in a survival situation, but from a strategic standpoint they give the crew a chance to hit a target from a distance (and if worse comes to worse, it becomes a club). Pistols and cutlass on the other hand, lets just say there would be more muskets to either pistols or cutlasses in ratio. Not even the British Navy at the time issued many more muskets to pistols. In 1684, the allowance on English Royal Navy ships was 40 muskets and 6 musketoons to 6 pistols on a 32-gun English Royal Navy warship (the overall regulations had roughly one musket for each cannon). The 1677 a Royal Navy Ordnance decreed that the ratio of naval swords was to be one for every roughly five to six men. As time progressed, the numbers of weapons generally doubled (having to do with a combination of growing navy size and growing production of naval weapons - the late seventeenth century marked pretty much the first large boom in naval specific armament, especially for pistols). Generally, a lot of the numbers here doubled by 1800 (so two muskets per cannon instead of one for example). Does that mean that Navy Ship possibly carried more (either through requests or a captain's personal purchase), yes. But the regulations at least tell us a lot about the mindset of the period. Back to the civilians. From what I've seen, since cutlass and pistol are more specialized for boarding, fewer of them are purchased as a result compared to muskets. Another consideration for the cutlass, not many men are trained in how to use cutlasses at sea. I suspect that cutlasses became a permanent part of naval armament at sea because if combat did happen sea, the confining environment a ship is makes a cutlass quite usefull - otherwise the cutlass would have went the same way as hangers did for infantry during the eighteenth century. More to come a few days from now.

Hey look, here is an example of a pair Sarah Juniper made recently. They are based on the 1706 Admiralty Slop Contracts, which are as follows: "Double Sold Shoes, round Toes, at the Rate of Four Shillings per pair. Brass Buckles with Iron Tongues at the Rate ofThree Pence per pair." They use "neats" leather (which means cow leather) as later contracts specify. The Album for the shoes is here: http://pyracy.com/in...-sarah-juniper/ (would post a picture here, but it appears to cause the thread to have an internal server error)