John Maddox Roberts

Buccaneers usually operated under "letters of marque" as privateers in the employ of England, Holland, Denmark, France or whoever else was at war with Spain, and plundered only (supposedly) Spanish ships and settlements. Technically, this spared them the onus of piracy and gave them the protection of the laws of war. The Spanish, understandably, considered them nothing but pirates.

Flinters continued to be made well into the 20th century for trade in Africa and Asia, maybe Latin America as well. In the far reaches of the world, cartridges were rare and expensive and even caps could be hard to find, but flint and powder were to be had everywhere.

When I was a teenager in Richardson Texas in the early 60s, there was a fabulous establishment in Dallas across the street from the SMU campus called Jackson Arms - strictly an antique arms shop. I went in there one day and there was a whole rack of 1860 cutlasses they'd bought, a dozen of them at least. I lusted for one, but couldn't pony up the big money - a whole $25. Next to them were as many French cutlasses of the same vintage, at the same price. Ah, the poverty of youth.

Was it Karen who lived near you? At a class reunion in 2000 a classmate whe knew the O'briens well told me Karen was a State Historian in Louisiana.

For a great overview of the early days of the Buccaneers (as distinct from pirates proper) you can't do better than John Masefield's "On the Spanish Main," a bit hard to find but worth the search. It draws heavily on Exquemilin but on other historians as well. This was in the pre-Jolly Roger, whup-the-Spaniards days and the Buccaneers (early-mid 17th century) were an even rougher lot that the pirates of the Golden Age (roughly 1690s-1730s).

Capnwilliam: It was Tamara, the third sister. I met Alice, the eldest, at a science fiction convention a few years ago. We work with the same editor at Berkeley/Ace. The fourth, Karen, I've never met. The school was Richardson High School, in Richardson, Texas. Getting on 40 years ago now, hard as it is to believe. Anne and Stan worked on the school paper, as did Tamara. She now lives out in the SF Bay area and has published some books of poetry. Haven't seen her since 1971, more's the pity.

I read long ago (I no longer remember where) that boarding axes were used by boarders to cut up the rigging and steering gear of the boarded ship. The idea being that if the boarders were driven back to their own ship or a warship hove over the horizon and they had to make a fast getaway, the other ship couldn't give chase. If the ship was carried successfully, the captured crew could always be set to repair the damage.

In James Clavell's 1960s novel of the Opium Wars, "Tai Pan," he mentions sailors using "fighting irons" in deck combat. They are described as jointed iron flails and seem to resemble the kau sin ke, the Chinese steel whip that is still preserved as a rather obscure martial arts weapon. The only similar weapon I have seen pictured is from an old French fencing manual where it is called a "fleaux brisee" (picture an accent over the first e in the second word), where it looks like an agricultural implement and may well be made of wood. Has anyone heard of such a weapon used in Asian waters duing the early 19th century, or is this pure imagination on Clavell's part? He could be pretty inaccurate in matters of weaponry.

Thank'ee, mate. Looks like they're gonna get some o' me doubloons.

P'raps this belongs in another thread, but since Loyalist Arms and the quality of their wares has come up: has anybody had experience of their cutlasses? They look fine and the prices can't be beat, but are they battle-worthy? I.e. made of good steel with a tang thick enough to resist snapping at the hilt? Or are they for display only? Also, since they ship from Canada, do the flintlocks have to be vented before they'll fire?

RumbaRue: Just as a bit of personal trivia: I went to the same high school as Anne Rice. She was class of '59, I was class of '65. I used to date one of her younger sisters. In '67 I visited that sister in San Francisco and we were going to visit Anne over in Berkeley, but never got around to it. So I missed my chance to meet her back when she was just Mrs. Stan Rice, before she became queen of the vampires.

Actually, Tyrone Power and Rathbone weren't the only actors who could fence. Cornel Wilde and Tony Curtis were both Olympic-quality fencers. Problem was, they didn't look especially great fencing in front of the camera, whereas Flynn and Rathbone always looked great. Screen presence counts for a lot in that business.

I was in a local Borders Books yesterday and saw a new Osprey title: "Pirate Ships 16..?-17..?" (forgot the dates). I was in too big a rush to give it a look-over. Has anyone read it and is it worth buying?

We've all seen that Golden Hind replica in the movies. It was the Erasmus of Rotterdam in "Shogun" and the Blarney Cock in "Swashbuckler. I saw it in London in '73, floating just off the Tower. I thought, "That's cute. Somebody's build a 1/4 scale model of an Elizabethan ship." Only to learn that it was a full-sized replica of Drakes Golden Hind. You have to see one to understand how small those ships were.

Admiral Xero: See thread "Origins of Dead Man's Chest" just a ways down the page.

Arr, Royaliste, I lost all mine many a year ago. Ain't it a shame when your mom tosses out all your comix just because you're 22 and awa' at college?

Anybody here remember the underground comix artist S. Clay Wilson? He was best known for the Checkered Demon, but he also drew a lot of comix with pirate themes. Recall, this was the late 60's in the golden age of unbelievably depraved and perverted comix. I recall especially his series about "Captain Pissgums and his Pervert Pirates," set aboard the good ship "Foaming Crank." This should give you an idea of the general tenor of the comix. Come to think of it, they may have been more historically accurate than most depictions of the Brotherhood. They just don't make 'em like that anymore.

First line "As I was walkin' down Paradise Street" : Paradise Street was the waterfront thoroughfare of Liverpool.

Idle: You're blind Cleese: But I 'ave acute 'earing. Idle: I don't care about your jewelry!

Just got the latest Museum Replicas Limited catalog, and it has pirates on the cover, a first for MRL as far as I know. Cutlass, rapier and flintlocks on view.

I wandered into a little used bookstore today and found a treasure: John Masefield's "On the Spanish Main," a wonderful book about the Buccaneers. I'd only seen it as a library edition years ago. Strange that I've never seen it mentioned in this forum or on several extensive pirate reading lists. Maybe it's just rare. Masefield is the poet who wrote "Sea Fever." You know that one: "I must go down to the sea again---"

Salty Dave: The original Queen Annes had what were called "turn off" barrels. They had a standing threaded breech and a threaded barrel. You filled the breech with powder, placed a ball on top of it, then screwed the barrel on. No ramming was necessary, so no ramrod was provided. Modern replicas have conventional one-piece breech and barrel, so you have to carry a ramrod separately. I just bought one for a .50 caliber muzzle loading rifle and cut it to length. To get an authentic Queen Anne with a screw-on barrel you'd probably have to commission one from a gunsmith, and that would not be cheap.

Snuff was associated with the upper classes because of the popularity of extremely ornate snuff boxes, often made by the finest jewelers of the day. They were traditional gift items for the wealthy, often of solid gold, jeweled and enamelled. Bachelors often had pornographic miniatures painted inside the lids. There was a whole ritual involving the box, withdrawing a pinch and placing it on the web of the hand, snuffing, withdrawing a handkerchief from a sleeve, flourishing it and then sneezing into it. It was probably the only time in history when sneezing was an elegant accomplishment. See the great old movie "Tom Jones" for an example of an unpracticed snuffer getting it wrong. Common people used snuff, too, but had to be content with wood or tin boxes and their sneezes probably wasn't very elegant.

A bit of "Crimson Pirate" trivia: its original title was "The Red Pirate," but this was the height of the McCarthy era, and Burt was called to Washington to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee about supposed Communist infiltration of the film business. The studio decided that, with this sort of publicity, they'd better not have "red" in the title. It was ironic on several levels: no real pirate would have caved so cravenly (far as I know, Burt had no say in the matter, it was the studio chiefs who caved.) Second, what sort of loon would think that linking "red" with "pirate" was somehow pro-Marxist? And we think we live in weird times. It's hard to beat the early 50's.

Saber: Burt's voiceless buddy was Nick Cravat, his partner from their circus acrobat days. Nick was also in The Flame and the Arrow with Burt, and a few others. He could speak, but wasn't comfortable with speaking roles. To compensate, he had the best body language since Lon Chaney.