corsair2k3

I might have to rethink my original stance about RN types serving under the black flag. I was pretty mortified when somebody reminded me offlist that Every had been RN. The Corsair Who is wondering now about Roberts...

I can think of only a few instances where pirates fired more than three or four broadsides. While they would have had an organization (of sorts) for "battle stations" and while the process of operating individual guns would have been much the same, I really doubt their drill was anything near RN standards. The Corsair www.whydah.com

I definitely agree that one can identify a hard-core cadre (with an outer circle of the less-commited) within most pirate crews. Time for some homemade soup and a glance at the books to see which RN renegades I've missed. The Corsair www.whydah.com

Not entirely fixed, but now there's a link at the bottom of that product page that will give a better idea of the design. In fact: here's the same link to the design: http://www.cafepress.com/whydah_museum.174...5?zoom=yes#zoom Thank'ee! The Corsair www.whydah.com

Point taken--will fix! The Corsair www.whydah.com

No quarrel with that--but how is that reflected by actual evidence, that's my question. Intuitively, it seems reasonable that discharged navy men would have flocked to the pirates in droves. But it just seems to me that far more are reported as having privateer andor merchant mariner backgrounds--for the period after 1690 anyway. Might it have been the case that ex-RN personnel got a lot of the merchant mariners' jobs--thus displacing the latter? Not sure we can ever come to a definitive answer, but is, I think, worth discussing. Best, The Corsair www.whydah.com

Good! And I've started a separate thread for it so that we'll be "all ship-shape and Bristol fashion" Best, The Corsair [who has to go back to real life for a coupla hours] www.whydah.com

Greetings, On another thread, it's been suggested that many pirates were former Royal Navy men. As far as the period 1700-1725 is concerned, I can (from the top of my head) list the following pirate captains who reportedly had RN in their backgrounds: -Nathaniel North -John Bowen (gotta doublecheck) -Thomas White ("pretty sure") -William Kidd -Richard Holland -William Moody (gotta doublecheck this'un) -Walter Kennedy -John Taylor Who am I missing? Regards, The Corsair www.whydah.com

Greetings, I would agree that they were definitely smarter and more knowledgeable than they usually get credit for. But I just haven't seen hard evidence showing that there were significant numbers of ex-RN men among them. Maybe it would be interesting to start a new thread and put our heads together as to how the backgrounds of the leadership shake out? Regards, The Corsair www.whydah.com

Something we're trying out... http://whydah.com/store/product_info.php?c...products_id=273 Send your comments to support at www.whydah.com (Or, better yet, just BUY the blame thing!) The Corsair

Greetings, Insofar as what I've seen in the primary sources for the period 1680-1725: * No mention of "dry-fire" gun drills. * No mention of any target practice. * No direct mention of assigned gun crews. * No mention of any gun-numbering system. * No mention of any RoF stats Maybe this is why pirates beat the RN so seldom... OTOH: I HAVE seen: * reference to "Gunners" Gunner's Mates and (indirectly) Gun Captains/Commanders. * evidence that their sighting equipment may have been up to RN standards *some examples of remarkable gunnery feats. I am of the opinion that these guys liked to work close--relying on swivel guns, grenades, small arms, and edged weapons in boarding actions--and multiprojectile loads in the cannon for softening up the opposition. A number of cannon recovered from the Whydah were found to be loaded and ready to fire--so the first round would have been sent right quick, and, given they were dealing with merchantmen, there'd likely be no need for a second. Although some of these guys were known to be ex-RN, I get the sense that a lot more had been former privateers, and that (during the period 1715-1725 anyway) the biggest grouping comprised former merchant seamen. Regards, The Corsair

Greetings, As a service to our site visitors (as well as to make the occasional dollar), we maintain a scholarly sources bibliography at http://www.whydah.com/page.php?id=ph02122 which focuses on piracy in the Atlantic world between c. 1630 and c.1830. We've just finished updating the blame thing. That means that there's probably a dozen more new titles on the market--not to mention other titles that I've missed. In any case, hope that it proves helpful--and would be most grateful if anyone points out errors and/or omissions. Our next step in this direction is to complete the sections for "Contemporary Printed Sources" http://www.whydah.com/page.php?id=ph02121 and "General Works" http://www.whydah.com/page.php?id=ph02123 Input on these unfinished sections will likewise be gratefully accepted. Many Thanks! The Corsair

Greetings,

The date's wrong--this artwork is from THE PIRATE'S OWN BOOK by Chas Ellms. 19th-century. The Corsair

And, while I am thinking of it, does anyone else find these online sources of interest? Or are they too hard to read in this format (my vision's going so I can't really read them myself). Am curious because I've been spending a gawdawful amount of time tracking them down in the fond hope that people might find them entertaining. But if the online books aren't that interesting, it might be a better idea to concentrate my efforts elsewhere. The Corsair

Actually, I'm not sure calico was all that common for sailors garb. It was still being made in India--England's cotton mills were a good 50 or 60 years in the future. So I can see how this choice might have been unusual enough to have aroused comment. The Corsair

Aren't those kilts? The Corsairs asks, innocently.

Greetings, One of the problems with debates like these is paucity of evidence for the minutiae of life for the lower classes in general. Sailors (and, by extension, pirates) were at just about the bottom rung of the social ladder. Well, you're dealing with a period where social class was everything. You are also dealing with a period with a relatively low level of literacy. So the focus of record-keeping is more on the comings and goings and doings of monarchs, nobility and other "great men" than it is on the poor schmucks what abide in the forecastle. Other literary fashions didn't help much either. The focus is a lot more on the narration of events than the description of scenes. Be that as it may--the main point I want to make here is simply that there isn't much written evidence "'out there" Here's a good example: I consider Dampier better than average in terms of his propensity for description. Now--it has been a few years since I read him, but IIRC in all of his vast writings he never describes a sailor or sailor's garb. He will spend two or three sentences describing some goddam Pacific mollusk, but he won't utter a peep as to whether Captain Davis was in the habit of wearing a white shirt, or a blue shirt. Same with "Johnson"--whoever he or she really was--think on it: how much time is spent in those 6 or 8 hundred pages in describing anyone? Pretty near zilch. So historians are pretty limited. Artwork gives some clues. So do supply manifests, invoices and other arid picayune crap like that. And archaeology can help. But you just don't get the solid, vivid, detail in 18th-century written sources that you do in sources coming from a century or so later. Twenty or thirty years ago, there was even a jackass bio-historian who used this lack of descriptive literary evidence to argue that some color dues could not be even be recognized/distinguised by people living a handful of centuries ago. IIRC, he/she was claiming that differentials in brain chemistry owing to differences in nutrition were to blame. Now, I have no idea whether he/she might be correct or not--the interesting thing is that there was enough "absence of evidence" for the argument to be made--and an article published. But to take this one step further: "absence of evidence" is not always a foolproof mode of argument. Case in point: [Get ready, POTC fans!] I am aware of no written source which specifically mentions coins being drilled so that they could be used as adornment. Yet such drilled coins have been found on archaeological sites. How were they worn? Well, since there's no evidence, one is left to one's imagination, isn't one? And, since the overall lock of a set of dreadlocks isn't entirely different from, say, a Ramillies wig... Well, there you go! The Corsair

Greetings, These links are to online files that, in most cases, can be "mirrored" on other sites so long as certain preconditions are met. I recommend that you look at each source of interest carefully in order to determine the copyright restrictions which are in place. Regards, The Corsair

Yep. And the use of the red flag as a signal of no quarter was in use at least as early as the 30 Years War. One amplification/clarification: "NQG" was a two-way challenge. No mercy/surrender to be either given OR asked. The Corsair

Greetings, For your winter-reading: A preliminery directory of links to some pirate-themed non-fiction that can be downloaded or read online for free! http://www.whydah.com/page.php?id=ph0232 [To be honest, though, the section on pirate-themed fiction has a MUCH better selection--at least for now.] http://www.whydah.com/page.php?id=ph0231 With our compliments, The Corsair

Greetings, I wonder if any might have been derived from 19th-century pulp fiction, and thereby introduced into 20th century texts... The Corsair

We've added links to another half-dozen works of pirate fiction that can be downloaded or read online... Check it out here: http://www.whydah.com/page.php?id=ph0231

Greetings, I've received jpegs of a cannon which I believe to be a English minion from the early to mid 17th century. But would be grateful for "second opinions" I don't want to clog things up here, so email me off the forum for the pix corsair2k3@yahoo.com Many thanks in advance! The Corsair

Check it out... http://www.whydah.com/page.php?id=ph023 [and check it often--lot's of updates ahead!] Regards, The Corsair