Daniel

Yes, I too would like to know both the phrase and the command.

lookout belowwwwwww

I suppose that's a good one when you're falling . . .

When you go up onto a mast-head or yard you "lay aloft"; when you're going below decks you "lay below," and when you're coming up from below deck onto the upper deck you "lay topside." But what is the correct phrase for coming down from the yard or mast-head onto the upper deck?

I've seen the phrase "lay down from aloft" in Harland, but that phrase seems unduly cumbersome compared to the others. Was it generally used?

What? Missouri gave a BSE to somebody who actually knows something worth teaching? Must have been a mistake!

Congratulations on your achievement! Good luck in your job search. And when you find one, don't let the idiots in administration get under your skin. The students are all that matter.

Neat Jolly Roger you have there.

The average square rigged ship could sail about six points from the wind according to Harland; other sources vary, but six points is the most commonly given figure.

Dusting off some old trigonometry skills, I figured that if a square rigger can lie six points from the wind, then to reach an objective in the wind's eye that lies 1 nautical mile distant, the ship must cover 2.613 nautical miles to tack to it. The actual distance would be somewhat greater because of leeway. Although I understand that modern sailboats often do some of their best sailing close to the wind, I think that a square rigger sails at its very slowest on the wind. If the wind is strong enough, the leeway may be so bad that the objective is completely unreachable.

I've wondered how this fact combines with the inability to determine longitude accurately to affect navigation methods. If you are aiming at an objective to the north or south, and you set course directly toward it, you have an essentially 50% chance to arrive east or west of it. But arriving to the downwind side effectively leaves you more than 2.613 times further from your destination than arriving an equal distance upwind of it. Given that fact, I imagine an earlier 18th century navigator might deliberately "aim to miss" to the upwind side of his target, then turn and sail downwind to his mark once he reached the correct latitude.

Consider, for example, someone sailing from Martinique to Cape Verde, a frequent stopping point en route to Guinea. We've all heard of sailing on the latitude line to protect against errors in longitude estimation, but if you try to sail to Cape Verde on the latitude line, you'll be tacking against the trade winds all the way, and you'll effectively turn a 2,170 nautical mile voyage into a 5,670 mile one. On the other hand, you can sail due north to the horse latitudes at about 31 degrees North, then northeast across the horse latitudes until you reach the prevailing westerlies at about 36 degrees North, then sail east until approximately the longitude of Cape Verde. Then you point not at Cape Verde but approximately at Dakar (Africa is too big to miss, no matter how bad your longitude estimate is). Once you hit the African coast, just turn west when you've reached the latitude of Cape Verde. Total distance is about 4,283 nautical miles, a lot better than the 5,670 mile distance you travel tacking along the latitude line.

I don't know for sure if "aiming upwind" was actual Golden Age practice. One thing I do notice, though: of the various Cape Verde islands, Maio (the "Isle of May") seems to have been by far the most commonly mentioned as a stopover place by sailors coming from America. Maio is the easternmost of the major islands, and is the first one you hit if you sail from a little above Dakar on the African coast due west along the latitude line.

Look, no grappling hooks. Instead, the boarders use boat hooks! Obvious reasons, too: the boat hooks must be a lot easier to control, although they have a lot less range. Do we know any historical case where boarders use boat hooks?

Regarding attack from multiple entry points, I think that would obviously be desirable, but very difficult to do in practice. Coordinating the attacks to start simultaneously under fire would be very difficult. Look at what happened to Captain England and Captain La Buse when they tried to attack the Cassandra simultaneously; only England got close enough to board, and that attempt was bloodily repulsed. If you have only one ship, then you have to use boats to to provide multiple attack points, again very vulnerable under fire. The fact that the defenders sometimes shoot the attacker's oars to pieces (which also happened in the attack on the Cassandra) would make it even harder to coordinate the attacks. The only reasonable chance I can see for attacking from multiple directions is attack with two or more boats at night, with silence and complete surprise.

Reading Dampier, I noticed that after he and his group split from Sharp's buccaneers and landed in Panama, they had no tents. I guess there were none in the vessel, since their brother buccaneers were otherwise pretty generous, giving them flour, a launch and two canoes, and several days preparation time. Dampier mentions that they built "Hutts" each night for shelter.

Anyone know what kind of huts the buccaneers might have built? I imagine we're talking about something like a Boy Scout lean-to, as I can't imagine there being time (or energy after a long march!) to build much more. Are there any pictures? Anyone built one?

I wonder; under Austrian law was the finder allowed to keep the treasure? I'm guessing not, given that the government is giving all the interviews and the finder doesn't even want to be identified.

What if this happened in America? I think that in America the land owner usually owns whatever turns up on his land. Certainly the land ower owns all the mineral rights to oil, gold, and suchlike valuable stuff that is buried under his land, but I'm not sure if archaeological finds are treated the same way.

Contrast to medieval Europe, where King Richard the Lion Heart got himself killed fighting with one of his vassals over the right to the gold the vassal found on his land.

I've started on Dampier's A New Voyage Around the World. Meantime trying to keep my Spanish sharp by reading Don Quixote. That should keep me busy this summer.

Knowledge of sunburn goes wayyyy back. Naturally, bleeding was one of the cures, especially when you ask Galen [AD 129 – 199/217], who was the first big proponent of bleeding:

“…you know that you yourselves have often been with me when I have recommended venesection for gouty patients, or arthritics, epileptics, melancholics, or those with a history of haemoptysis, or a condition in the chest predisposing to such a disease, or scotomatics, or those who are repeatedly seized with sunanche or perpneumonia, or pleurisies, or liver diseases, or severe attacks of ophthalmia; in fact, to speak generally, with any severe disease. I say that in all such conditions phlebotomy is an essential remedy that must be applied immediately, as long as the patient’s strength and age are also taken into account." (Peter Brain, Galen on Bloodletting, p. 82)

Is "sunanche" an old word for sunburn?

Is "perpneumonia" short, or a misspelling, for "peripneumonia?"

I had to look up "scotomatic"; it's a disease that impairs part of your field of vision while leaving the rest clear. I did not know that.

I have moved Lockhouse pirate day and the Hampton Blackbeard festival to the top of my list. Although I may just go to Rock Hall too; it's close, and a little fantasy never hurt anybody.

Magnificent suggestions by both of you! I'll be plotting my course to one or two of those events!

All right, I've got May, June, July, and August off from law school. I'm just outside Washington, DC. I want to go to at least one pirate event this summer to see some of you fine folks, but I'm extremely poor, which pretty well limits me to Maryland, Virginia, and maybe North Carolina or Pennsylvania. Where should I go?

Right now I'm looking at going to the Rock Hall Pirates and Wenches Fantasy Weekend on Aug. 13 and 14. If I have enough money for gas I might go to Beaufort Pirates Invasion instead (naturally they're scheduled on the same weekend). Are there any other pirate events around my area I ought to consider?

Huzzah, Foxe! I can't wait to read it, now that I have four months of almost-free time.

Point to Dismast

Point to Wind and Water [presumably either this command or the previous - Ed.]

I can guess that "point to dismast" means aim for the mast, but what does "point to wind and water" mean? I'm embarrassingly under-researched for have a master gunner in my stories.

"Point to wind and water" means to aim at the enemy ship's waterline, that is, to sink her.

Thanks for the review, Foxe! Very interesting.

I was wondering, what is the oldest known reference to Capt. Thatch/Teach as "Blackbeard?" I know Johnson calls him by that name, but he's just called "Thatch" in the trials of Stede Bonnet and his men. Did the name "Blackbeard" ever appear before The General History of the Pirates?

John Taylor's articles? Where did you find those? I'd like to see them. Taylor could well have inherited those articles from his former captain Edward England, and that could trace them all the way back to Nassau and thence to the raid on the Bahama galleon wrecks in 1715.

How about merchant ship articles? What's the earliest reference you've found to them?

One of the enduring mysteries about pirate articles is where the pirates got the idea for them. We know that pirates, privateers, and merchant ships all had articles at some point in history. But who had them first?

The earliest articles I know of by pure pirates, who knew their actions hadn't even a fig leaf of legality and whose articles could have had no purpose except to regulate the relationship of the ship's company among themselves, were Bartholomew Roberts' in 1721.

We have privateer articles from before then. Richard Zacks reproduces a portion of what he says are Kidd's articles, although as always with Zacks it's impossible to tell where he found them. Kidd supposedly had people signing the articles in New York, while his intentions were still legal, and thus the articles are properly considered privateer articles rather than pirate articles. In their provisions, they resemble later pirate articles in many ways: division of shares, reward for the person who first sights a prize, punishment for cowards and cheats, and compensation for the mutilated. But, they differ from later pirate articles in having a punishment for mutineers, and in reserving some 40 shares for Kidd and the owners. Still earlier were Henry Morgan's articles, which were at least nominally privateer articles, and again resembled the 18th century pirate articles. But Morgan's articles were supposedly based on those of earlier Tortuga buccaneers, many of whom had no commissions and were basically pirates. So we still have to wonder, did pirates get their articles from privateers, or privateers from pirates?

I have not been able to find any mention of articles aboard Navy ships. The Articles of War were not individual to each ship, but were imposed by Parliament on all Navy ships and specified only rules of conduct and punishments. They say nothing about shares or wages, except to strictly forbid looting prizes and their crews, and to clarify that you would still be hanged if you refused orders even if your wages hadn't been paid for months or years.

In the 19th century, merchant ships also had articles; Dana mentions them in Two Years Before the Mast. These were basically presented ona take-it-or-leave-it basis to the crew, and always specified wages instead of shares. I have searched in vain for a copy of any merchant articles. I also have not been able to find any mention of merchant articles from before the 19th century.

One of the most fascinating clues about the origin of buccaneer articles, which I think is mentioned in Benerson Little, is that they were once called the "charter party," or in French "chasse-partie." Merchant ships had "charter parties" going back at least to the 15th century, but on merchant ships they had nothing to do with the crew. The merchant charter party was a contract between the owner of a ship and the merchant who leased the ship for a voyage to some specified destination. Possibly (this is just my speculation), early buccaneers used the merchant charter party as as an inspiration to come to a similar agreement between buccaneer crewmen and their leaders.

I did go up with my son to see the Maryland Renaissance Festival in October. It's a magnificent event, although pirates are pretty scarce on the ground. My son got to shoot air cannons at galleons. Four years old is the perfect age to go to this sort of thing. When I told Brandon it was time to leave, he said, "OK, Daddy. But how do we get back to Earth?"

During the summer, if not before, I should have a chance to go to a more completely pirate-themed event.

Finals are over, and I'm free of law school until January 3. I'll try to hang around a little bit until HMS George Washington University calls me back aboard.

I don't know how I did; one of the nerve-wracking things about law school is that you don't have any tests in most of your classes until the final. I feel pretty confident about Criminal Law and Torts, not so sure about Civil Procedure and Contracts. I did have one mid-term test, in Civil Procedure, which I screwed up royally, but I think (and fervently hope!) that I learned from my errors.

I'm celebrating my liberty by reading my first pirate book in ages: Peter Earle's The Pirate Wars, and it's interesting stuff, from a very different perspective than most pirate books I've read lately.

My Brethren and Sisters of the Coast:

I have moved to northern Virginia, and in three days will be starting law school at George Washington University. As far as my participation on this forum goes, this will be the equivalent of sinking into Davy Jones' Locker. It is entirely possible that I will not be able to return here until next summer.

I wish you all fair winds and following seas.

The King's Evil was also known as scrofula.

The poop: that odd little cabin or compartment at the extreme top and back of the ship that sits immediately above the captain's cabin, and whose roof forms the poop deck. In Falconer's diagram of a 1st-rate ship of the line, there is a large poop that is actually divided into three compartments; a room for the trumpeters, the "Captain Lieutenant's" cabin and the "cuddy," which is for "the Master and secretaries officers."

All very well, but you also see poops on large East Indiamen and other merchant ships. It seems unlikely that merchants would have had trumpeters or "captain lieutenants," which would have been a military rank. I suppose they might have put the sailing master there if the captain was not also master, but who used the poop if the master was also captain and roomed in the captain's cabin?

page 81 in the "BATAVIA'S GRAVEYARD" by mike dash (a large 1600's east indiamen) "Jeronimus and a half a dozen other distinguished passengers were shown to a warren of little cabins on the deck above (over the great cabin), where the quarters were smaller and more spartan".

Good research! I thought that maybe the poop could be used for passengers, but I wasn't sure.

Of course, in the case of the Batavia, you could equally call the passengers' quarters storage for spare rations.

The poop: that odd little cabin or compartment at the extreme top and back of the ship that sits immediately above the captain's cabin, and whose roof forms the poop deck. In Falconer's diagram of a 1st-rate ship of the line, there is a large poop that is actually divided into three compartments; a room for the trumpeters, the "Captain Lieutenant's" cabin and the "cuddy," which is for "the Master and secretaries officers."

All very well, but you also see poops on large East Indiamen and other merchant ships. It seems unlikely that merchants would have had trumpeters or "captain lieutenants," which would have been a military rank. I suppose they might have put the sailing master there if the captain was not also master, but who used the poop if the master was also captain and roomed in the captain's cabin?