Daniel

Interesting, mysterious story. Has some good lines, especially "I'll bless our fair land with your blood in the sand" and "And don't go away, for there are sins yet to come." Very odd rhyme scheme. Scansion needs some work, and you might try making the second and seventh lines rhyme, or rhyming each second line with the previous one.

Yay, pictures! Exactly what I was hoping for. Thank you very much, Mission. Am I correct in thinking that that amputation knife is sharpened only on the concave side? Also, I forgot to ask before: Moyle mentions using "broad Tape" to make a ligature before amputating. Would this tape have been made from linen? It wouldn't have been sticky, would it?

Island, you might try reading Colin Woodard's The Republic of Pirates, which is the only book I know of devoted mainly to the Nassau pirate base. I haven't read much of it myself, but I consulted it while I was writing my article on Stede Bonnet's downfall, and the few pages on Bonnet were very detailed, well researched, and matched the primary sources quite well.

Here's an odd note: Falconer says that a schooner is "a small vessel with two masts, whose main and fore-sail are suspended from gaffs." Is it possible that schooners of more than two masts were a 19th-century innovation? If so, I feel less bad about screwing up.

At the risk of fouling up again, I'd say that the try-mast on that snow is attached to the mainmast, because it's taller than the foremast. The mast holding up the try-mast would only be the mizzenmast if it were shorter than the mast in front. All brigs and brigantines that I know of have a mainmast and a foremast, the mainmast being rearmost. Vessels rigged with a mainmast in front and a shorter mizzenmast to the rear are called ketches, per Falconer.

The part on amputation is excellent, Mission. My new novel has an amputation scene, which I can now rewrite much more realistically with the help of that extract from Moyle. I blush to admit that I had assumed that the saw was used to cut the flesh as well as the bone. What was the difference between the dismembering knife and the catling? When I look up "catling" on line it says it's a double edged knife used for amputation, but the reference to using the back of the catling to remove the periostrum suggests a single-edged blade. I see there is no reference to searing the wound (thank goodness! A physician friend of mine says that searing is deleterious), nor to changing the dressing. Do you know anything about that?

I believe Johnson's second version, which has Worley killed in the battle, is better supported, and is certainly described in more detail.

I've just started listening on CD to Daniel DeFoe's Moll Flanders, getting a slice of life in the Golden Age by somebody who actually lived through it. I'm so busy these days that I have more time to listen to books on CD or tape in the car than to sit down and actually read. There's a long preface, supposedly addressed to the reader, but I think it's actually meant for the censor, pleading that the book will be morally uplifting. Surprise! Chapter 1 has a reference to Moll Flanders's mom pleading her belly when she was going to be executed for some kind of petty theft. After Moll is born, her mom manages to cop a plea of some kind and get herself transported (to Jamaica, I guess? It's too early for Botany Bay) instead of hanged. There's also an interesting reference to gypsies, with whom Moll spent a short time as a child. Apparently gypsies at the time were also called Egyptians, and it was believed that they somehow blackened or darkened children's faces after a certain time, Moll remarking that she could not have been with them long because her face had not been blackened yet.

Harland's Seamanship in the Age of Sail describes a snow as simply a variant of the brig, with a gaff mainsail set on a snow mast, which is a try-mast just abaft the mainmast. I don't see any snow mast on that model of the "18-gun snow" on Wikipedia. I confess error regarding the schooner.

No, snows and schooners have only two masts. Sloops usually have one mast, and although I've heard of sloops with two masts, I've never heard of one with three. Overlap, if it existed at all, would be negligible. Of course, the word "ship" is often used in a more general sense for any large sailing vessel with multiple decks, but in that sense 97% of the vessels would be ships, not 45%.

Cordingly counted up the pirate attacks in Johnson and the Public Record Office, and concluded that the sloop was most used, but there seems to have been a misprint in his results. He says, Since these numbers add up to the puzzling figure of 120 percent, there is presumably a misprint in the percentage of sloops, the percentage of ships, or both. Was this ever corrected in a later edition of Cordingly?

Or they ran foul of easterlies blowing down the English Channel. Eh? I thought westerlies were overwhelmingly dominant in the Channel. Wasn't that why the Spanish Armada had to sail around Scotland and Ireland instead of going back the way it came?

Well, "Jack" could also be short for "Jack Tar," a British seaman. But my Merriam Webster's says that Jack Tar itself only goes back to 1781, so I guess it's still not period. Dang, so that line "Every man jack could have sailed with Old Pew" from The Derelict is an anachronism? What a bummer!

You have to remember that the word "frigate" changed meaning completely during the 18th century. At the beginning of the 18th century, "frigate" was a simply a style of build, with raised foc'sle and afterdecks, as opposed to the more flush-decked "galley-built" type of ship. Civilian ships could be called frigates, like Culliford's Mocha Frigate. By the Napoleonic era, "frigate" referred specifically to 4th-rate and 5th-rate naval ships, no matter their style of build, that were too small to stand in the line of battle, and thus were used as convoy escorts, commerce raiders, messengers, reconnaisance, and VIP transports. 6th-rates were called sloops-of-war, as Dorian mentioned, even though 6th-rates were usually ship-rigged, not sloop-rigged. Not only the terminology had changed, but also the usage of the ships: in 1721, 4th-rates of 50 guns, like the Swallow, still stood in the line of battle, but around the time of the Seven Years' War (1756-63), they were taken out of the line and assigned to the roles we would now call "frigate" duty.

I just wrote this sea shanty, to be sung by the crew of the Cynosure in my short novel The Treasure of Ashur MacBain, although I expect no more than a stanza or two will actually appear in the finished story. I conceived of it as a halyard shanty, but I'm not sure the rhythm is right for that. The one halyard shanty I know, Blow the Man Down, spaces the effort out more evenly between every line. This one sounds more like What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor? or Santy Ano, capstan shanties where the sailors push several times on the chorus. It uses the tune of , with a longer pause between stanzas for the chorus.CRO'JACK WILL Oh, Cro'jack Will had squinty eyes And a broken nose stuck hard between An hundred stone o' fearsome size But the sorriest sailor I e'er ha' seen. Lads, heave! Lads, heave! The purser staked him for three pound So his lass and fry might room and eat He spent it all drinking whiskey down And his kin slept nights in Beaver Street. Lads, heave! Lads, heave! Cro'jack jump'd his ship in Bristol Town And married him a maiden true Eftsoons he blooded her wedding gown She found him gone, and dowry too. Lads, heave! Lads, heave! He pinched a purse, and a merry race The watchmen chased him aft and fore. As he sought himself a hiding place His eye lit on a man-o'-war. Lads, heave! Lads, heave! Cro'jack made his mark and shipped aboard And swore he was a fighter bold But when the French lay board and board He hid himself deep in the hold. Lads, heave! Lads, heave! When they dragged him up and it was heard That he left his mates to suffer death The Admirals sent down the word That the foreyard brace should choke his breath. Lads, heave! Lads, heave! Cro'jack laid aloft, hauled by his neck And a loom gale swung him to and fro. He cried to be let down on deck But instead to Hell he laid below.

Well, let's look at some historical pirate hunters' vessels. Ben Hornigold captained the Ranger sloop, reportedly of 30 guns (a huge armament for a sloop). This was not a captured warship. Hornigold ran down several prizes, possibly including some pirates, while in this sloop (I'm not really sure if Hornigold was still commanding the Ranger when he went to work for Rogers). Chaloner Ogle captained the HMS Swallow, a nasty 4th-rate ship of the line with 50 guns (22 18-pounders, 22 9-pounders, and 6 6-pounders), 711 tons burden. I certainly would not want to fight against such a vessel. She wasn't really that fast, though; without some msitaken ID and drunkenness by Roberts' and Skyrm's men, she might not have caught them. I have never heard of any such ship being captured by pirates; but with the aid of surprise, treachery, or mutiny, I imagine it could be done. William Rhett took on Stede Bonnet with two tiny little sloops, the Henry and the Sea Nymph, each with only eight guns. Rhett's main advantage was that he outnumbered Bonnet three to one, with 70 men on one sloop and 60 on the other. These were civilian sloops, not warships, pressed into service for the occasion. HMS Scarborough was one of the largest warships that ever tangled with a pirate without beating him (according to Johnson, anyway; Cordingly doubts the story). She was a 32-gun 5th-rate. Blackbeard fought her and got away; whether he could have successfully carried her by boarding is a debatable point. Jonathan Barnet and Lt. Maynard also used sloops. That's kind of the thing with pirate hunters; if you don't use sloops, it's hard to chase pirates into the shallow waters where they hide. Maynard and Rhett in particular had constant troubles with running aground while hunting their prey; in large warships, they wouldn't have stood a chance of penetrating their targets' lairs. ______ Sailing times: in 1695, the East India Merchant, a full-rigged slave ship, took 84 days to dail from Jamaica to London; she could have made Bristol maybe three to five days sooner. In 1790, the Rodney another slave ship, sailed from Montego Bay, Jamaica to Liverpool in 66 days. In 1723, the Dove, rig unknown, sailed from Jamaica to London in 70 days. In 1704, the Martha, rig unknown, sailed from Jamaica to England in 110 days. This is so long that I might guess they stopped in the North American colonies on the way. In 1709, the Joseph Gally, rig unknown (note that a "galley" in the usage of the time usually meant a flush-decked build, not necessarily an oar-powered vessel), sailed from Kingston to London in 121 days, again probably stopping in the colonies on the way. ________________ Going from Kingston to Santo Domingo is tricky because the trade winds are dead foul. In 1504, Diego Mendez took 46 days to sail a ship from Jamaica to Santo Domingo. A sloop, able to point higher into the wind, could probably have done it much faster.

It sounds interesting. Supernatural is not my style, but it can be done well. I think it's harder to pull off in a novel than on the big screen, though. When you introduce the supernatural to a real-world setting (you already have Cuba, Nassau, Virginia, etc.) you have to be careful to do it in such a way that you can still believe in the existence of that world. The background and rules of the supernatural elements have tobe carefully thought out. Has the Fountain of Youth always been there? Has it been there a longer time, or shorter, than El Dorado? Since the waters of the Fountain can be transported without losing their potency, why don't the El Doradans (if they still exist) sell it to their neighbors? They have the most valuable commodity in the world; potentially it should be them, and not the Europeans, who dominate the Earth. Does everybody in El Dorado live a very long time, or are the waters reserved for the elite? Does one drink of the water restore youth, or do you need more of it all the time? Can it bring the dead back to life? If it can resurrect you, what keeps the population of El Dorado from reaching the billions? If it can't, does everybody in El Dorado live in constant fear of violent or accidental death, since it's the only thing that can kill them? These are the sorts of questions you have to consider, and answer believably, to write a good supernatural story. If you do a good job of it, your story will almost certainly be different enough from POTC 4 to be worthwhile. Some minor points: I would say that the black's blunderbuss was not ideal for "the situation" rather than not ideal for close-quarter fighting. Blunderbusses are great for close-quarter fighting; you can put down two or three enemies at once with them and hardly ever miss. But it is inconvenient if your friends are in the line of fire. That's the real problem here. The rope "around the shoulders" of the larger of Finch's minions doesn't sound right to me. If it's actually around both shoulders, wouldn't it cross his throat, and thus be usable to choke him? One small point during the storm: I think it was standard practice to put at least two men on the wheel during a storm, rather than have the master stand at the helm alone. There's a memorable picture in Harland of the wheel taking control during a storm, crushing one of the helmsmen to the deck while throwing the other into the air. I like the good use of period language you have, like "crowding" on sail, or where the captain "clapped" onto the lifeline, or "eating the wind." For that exact reason, I would avoid capitalizing "negro," "native" or "black," all of which are 20th-21st century style.

Thanks for the hints. You're right that the first chapter is rushed. There's tons more that I could put in there, but it appeared important to get the story moving as quickly as possible. Indeed, in the first draft, Martin's arrival at Oneida Hall was the opening scene: that was really rushed! I realized that I needed to take more time to introduce everybody, but maybe I still haven't taken enough. It would be easy to have Brilliana ask Tope to go with him, because she really is eager to go, but I can't see Tope agreeing without the marriage motive being uppermost in his mind. Although Tope is definitely a much more indulgent and easy-going guardian than the average for his time, it's still 1714 and he expects to have the final say over what his ward does. Maybe I could put in something to add urgency to the marriage motive: maybe Hurley has a potential wife waiting for him in India, or there's a rich(er) heiress in New York who will be of age by the time Hurley gets back, so Tope and Brilliana want to be sure they snag him as soon as possible. I am now rewriting and expanding the whole story, and will keep you posted.

Johnson has a list of the pirates condemned and reprieved at Castle Corso, but unfortuantely it tells us nothing about who was an officer and who wasn't. Condemned: William Magnes 35 Minehead. Richard Hardy 25 Wales. David Sympson 36 North-Berwick. Christopher Moody 28 Thomas Sutton 23 Berwick. Valentine Ashplant 32 Minories. Peter de Vine 42 Stepney. William Philips 29 Lower-Shadwell. Philip Bill 27 St. Thomas's. William Main 28 William Mackintosh 21 Canterbury. William Williams 40 nigh Plymouth. Robert Haws 31 Yarmouth. William Petty 30 Deptford. John Jaynson 22 nigh Lancaster. Marcus Johnson 21 Smyrna. Robert Crow 44 Isle of Man. Michael Maer 41 Ghent Daniel Harding 26 Croomsbury in Somersetshire. William Fernon 22 Somersetshire. Jo. More 19 Meer in Wiltshire. Abraham Harper 23 Bristol. Jo. Parker 22 Winfred in Dorsetshire. Jo. Philips 28 Alloway in Scotland. James Clement 20 Jersey. Peter Scvdamore 35 Bristol. James Skyrm 44 Wales. John Walden 24 Somersetshire. Jo. Stephenson 40 Whitby. Jo. Mansfield 30 Orkneys. Israel Hynde 30 Bristol. Peter Lesley 21 Aberdeen. Charles Bunce 26 Excter Robert Birtson 30 Other St. Maries Devonshire. Richard Harris 45 Cornwall. Joseph Nosuter 26 Sadbury in Devonshire. William Williams 30 Speechless at Execution. Agge Jacobson 30 Holland. Benjamin Jefferys 21 Bristol. Cuthbert Goss 21 Topsham. John Jessup 20 Plymouth. Edward Watts 22 Dunmore. Thomas Giles 26 Mine-head. William Wood 27 York. Thomas Armstrong 34 London, executed on board the Weymouth. Robert Johnson 32 at Whydah. George Smith 25 Wales. William Watts 23 Ireland. James Philips 35 Antegoa. John Coleman 24 Wales. Robert Hays 20 Liverpool. William Davis 23 Wales. Sentenced to seven years' hard labor in Africa: THomas How of Barnstable, in the County of Devon. Samuel Fletcher of East-Smithfield, London. John Lane of Lombard-Street, London. David Littlejohn of Bristol. John King of Shadwell Parish, London. Henry Dennis of Bidiford. Hugh Harris of Corf-Castle, Devonshire. William Taylor of Bristol. Thomas Owen of Bristol. John Mitchel of Shadwell Parish, London. Joshua Lee of Leverpool. William Shuren of Wapping Parish, London. Robert Hartley of Leverpool. John Griffin of Blackwall, Middlesex. James Cromby of London, Wapping. James Greenham of Marshfield, Gloucestershire. John Horn of St. James's Parish, London. John Jessop of Wisbich, Cambridgshire. David Rice of Bristol. Convicted but reprieved: Thomas Oughterlaney George Wilson Of these, James Skyrm was certainly an officer, commanding the Ranger when the Swallow captured her. Valentine Ashplant had served on a tribunal on some escaped prisoners. Ashplant, Sympson, and Anstis were members of Roberts' "House of Lords," and at the trial Sutton, Moody, Bill, Hardy, Dennis, Rice, Williams, Harris, Smith, Watts, Mitchell and Barrow were identified as belonging "most of them to the House of Lords." Who exactly is a "lieutenant" is open to debate: pirate ships rarely used the rank of lieutenant, Quelch being the only "lieutenant" I know of on a privateer/pirate ship. These men would not necessarily include all Roberts' officers: 28 of Roberts' crew had died before being brought to trial, many from wounds suffered in the battle, and some of these may have been Lords. Nor is it known if any of the blacks were Lords: all 70 of the black prisoners were summarily enslaved without trial, and their names are lost. It remains a controversial question whether Israel Hynde was the same man as Blackbeard's Israel Hands. Hands had served Blackbeard as an officer, commanding one of his subordinate ships, but that does not prove he was an officer for Roberts, even if he was the same man. Also, Johnson claimed that Hands was still alive in London when the General History of the Pirates went to print, and he would have to be wrong about this for Hands to be the same man as Hynde. Foxe is, of course, correct that violent personal differences could also be a reason for breaking up a crew, and may well have figured in Roberts' problems. Roberts at one point killed a pirate who insulted him. Jones, a friend of the dead man, cursed Roberts. Roberts stabbed Jones, who then threw Roberts over a gun and beat him up. The crew sided with Roberts and ordered Jones flogged, but there was considerable dissension about it, and Jones later deserted with Anstis.

Kenedy (spelled with one "N" in the original sources, I think) and Anstis did indeed waltz away without asking Roberts' leave; indeed, Roberts' famous articles were drawn up after Kenedy's defection, with an eye to discouraging any more desertions. Phillips is a different case; he was a forced man taken by Anstis after Anstis left Roberts, was separted from Anstis's crew, and managed to return safely to England, only to start his own career as pirate captain later. Roberts had other lieuteneants of course, notably James Skyrme, who stayed loyal to him to the end. Why did Kenedy and Anstis leave Roberts? The same reason many other pirate crews broke up: too many men sharing not enough loot. Roberts had a huge crew, which made this problem especially acute. If I see a fat merchantman on the horizon, I'd rather share it with fifty men than with 400. Any time prizes got scarce, pirates inevitably started talking about splitting up. Blackbeard had the same problem whenever booty, especially alcohol, started running low, as you can see from Johnson's excerpt from his journal: "Such a Day, Rum all out: — Our Company somewhat sober: — A Damn'd Confusion amongst us! — Rogues a-plotting; — great Talk of Separation. — So I look'd sharp for a Prize; — such a Day, took one, with a great deal of Liquor on Board, so kept the Company hot, damn'd hot, then all Things went well again."

The main source on Cocklyn is William Snelgrave's account while he was Cocklyn's prisoner in Africa. You can find it in John Stephens' book Captured by Pirates. Botting's The Pirates opens with a good summation of Snelgrave's experiences with Cocklyn.

Just found something about this in Jameson's Privateering and Piracy in Colonial America, p. 177. Samuel Perkins, aboard the pirate ship Resolution, reported that they took "several Piggs of Lead" out of a Danish sloop near the southern tip of India.

I'm rather late to be mentioning this, but it was of course Jonathan Barnet who captured Rackham and his feisty female furies, not Woodes Rogers.

It would have depended on what the pirates in Nassau did. As I recall, there were about a thousand of them, many with armed ships, so whoever they side with is going to win. My best bet is that they would have sided with Rogers. They viewed him as a good deal for them; his pardon gave them a good chance to get away with all the booty they'd taken and live to enjoy it, so they welcomed him in. When some of them turned back to piracy and he hanged them, their fellows went along with it, and of course Hornigold became one of Rogers's main supporters. What do Blackbeard and Vane have to offer that would make the Nassau pirates willing to forfeit their pardons? Nothing that I can think of. Indeed, what profit is there for Blackbeard in fighting Rogers? To get a secure base back? He thought he already that, in Ocracoke.

True, but the Portuguese held Madeira too, so what difference did it make? Weren't the Portuguese generally friendly with the English and their colonists (because they both hated Spain)?