Raphael Misson

Now that would be some amputation. I'd not do it. (I don't recall any references in the literature about it as a surgical procedure.) Injecting Mercury would be another matter entirely. Sound procedure for curing syphilis, according to many sources.

AHA! I thought I had seen this elsewhere. I was searching through my notes for something else and I happened to come across a reference to this concept (if not the precise wording, nearly right and definitely the same idea) in Edward Barlow's Journal. Note that this entry pre-dates Bart Robert's birth, so we can write him out of the plot as being the origin of the phrase: “[1668] …and poor seamen having but little money, and it being hungry times going always to short allowance of victuals, and the boats coming from the shore with wine and fruits on board of us to sell, and it being indifferent cheap, which made many of our poor men’s mouths to water to see good liquor before them, and I had not money to buy a drink of it, but they falling to their old trade for as long as the purser had any clothes or things that would either sell or change for wine, they would not be without as long as the purser would let them have any, running out so most part of their wages crying, ‘A merry life and a short’; ‘Longest liver take all’; and 'Never let us want when we have it and when we have it not too’.” (Barlow, p. 159-60) Emphasis mine, of course. Again, it sounds from this account that the phrase was common among seamen. An aside that sort of explains the reasoning of the men for saying this in regard to the sale of clothing by the purser. There was a custom during period of the purser of a ship selling clothes to the seamen (who frequently had no money) against their future pay. Pay was received when the voyage was completed. So the men could raise money by buying clothes at high prices, which they would then turn around and sell or trade at lower prices to local vendors. According to Barlow, this money was usually used to buy drink. (This was not the intent of selling the clothes, of course, and viewing this as a plot to cheat the men -as Barlow does- may not be fair at all.) I believe I have detailed this elsewhere, but Barlow laid it out like this - the clothes cost 7 or 8 shillings in England, the purser sold them for 9 or 10 s. and the sailors sold them to the vendors for 3 or 4 s. Quite a raw deal, but if you read through several accounts, you'll find the sailors generally ran through whatever moneys they had very quickly on a voyage. The concept of the purser selling clothes at high prices is also detailed in Teonge's Diary, although he doesn't explain that the seamen turned around and sold the clothes to buy drink. Woodes Rogers also mentions that the men traded their warm clothes in a port after leaving England. He had six tailors busily sewing up makeshift clothing for the crew in preparation for reaching the nasty weather at Cape Horn. (He and his officers had tried to stop the men for trading their clothes so short-sightedly, but they would have none of it; their rationalization certainly followed that of "a short life and a merry one.")

I am wrong here. I have just been entering my notes from Dampier into my computer and I realized that Wafer was wounded on Dampier's voyage in 1681. So forget all that about Wafer's account being part of Roger's voyage which started in 1708. (When you read several of these things simultaneously, they start to all blur together. I should always check my notes...) From Dampier: “[1681] Our Chirurgeon, Mr. Wafer, came to a sad Disaster here; being drying his Powder, a careless Fellow passed by with his Pipe lighted, and set fire to his Powder, which blew up, and scorched his Knee, and reduced him to that Condition, that he was not able to march; wherefore we allowed him a Slave to carry his things, being all of us the more concern’d at the Accident, because liable our selves every Moment to Misfortune, and none to look after us but him.” (Dampier, p. 20)

I don't know why I didn't see this post before, but those are great ideas for explaining surgery! The splinter is the most undervalued threat to a period seaman -it's been suggested in the various books I've read that far more seamen died of complications from splinters than ever died of cannon fire itself - but I never thought about explaining it. Apropros of nothing I found this on eBay today: It's for automatically injecting stuff through a syringe. Ok, it's not even remotely period, but it looks like the consummate surgeon's weapon. I can just envision myself carrying it, a la Sean Connery, except in period gear... Yep...too bad I look nothing whatsoever like Sean Connery...yep. And I'd probably get dizzy walking like that in period gear. Or even in a tuxedo. Yep.

That's not a punishment - it's a privilege.

If someone would freeze my Mission ID at, say, 1000 posts, I'd go back to using that. Note that my persona doesn't change, only my user ID. Funny story (I think I've told this before) - the first forum I got involved on was practically unregulated and it was like being in a anarchical demilitarized zone. So I created several IDs to guard myself. It was basically a way to back myself up..as well as play around. (I created a user that talked like a kid -all run-on sentences- and a really annoying one that spoke nothing but Old English.) Somewhere in the middle of that, I was invited to an "invitation only" forum based on my posts in the wild forum. It was pretty tightly regulated by the person who started it and they were all amazed when I explained all my different user IDs. They had had no idea I was posting as more than one person. (I have a bit of a creative streak...) I eventually left those forums and joined another one where I did the same thing - mainly because I had so much fun with it on the last forum. My favorite user ID there was named stupid. I created him so I could be...stupid. (And I was, too.) I haven't really done that in the last two or three forums, except this weird serial user ID thing I've been doing here.

Well, something happened to their website. Being intrepid, I googled them and found their phone number - (702) 871-4912. Turns out their web hosting company got bought out and their site got trashed. While the link info sounded forboding, I, still being intrepid, decided to risk it and ordered a gibbet over the phone, paying with PayPal at their suggestion. (Which made me a tad more comfortable.) I will report any further progress back. (Eccentric Griffens is a small company - also being involved in a small company I was sympathetic to the problems they're experiencing. I hope my trust is not misplaced. ) Heck, I'll probably put a page on my website about creating a Bucky in a gibbet if all goes well.

Well now I have some notes from a more tenable source. Paré was quite a renowned French surgeon in the late 16th century, so much so that some of his works were translated into English in the 1630s by Hezekiah Crooke. From a reprint of Crooke's work, The Apologie and Treatise of Ambroise Paré: "[1545] A little while after we went to Boulogne, where the English seeing our Army, left the Forts which they had... One day going through the Campe to dresse my hurt people, the enemies who were in the Tower of Order, shot off a peece of Ordinance, thinking to kill two horsemen which stayd to talke one with another. It happened that the Bullet passed very neare one of them, whjich threw them to the ground, and t'was thought the said Bullet had toucht him, which it did not at all, but onely the winde of the said Bullet in the midst of his coate, which went with such a force that all the outward part of the Thigh became blacke and blew, and had much adoe to stand. I drest him, and made him divers Scarifications (small, superficial cuts in the skin of an area to allow bleeding) to evacutate the contused blood, which the winde of the said Bullet had made; and the rebounds that it made on the ground, kild foure souldiers which remained dead in the place . I was not farre from the stroake, so that I felt somewhat the mooved aire, without doing mee any harme, that a little feare, which made me stoope my head very low, but the Bullet was already passed farre beyond mee. The Souldiers mock't me to be affraid of a Bullet already gone." (Paré, p. 31) Interesting that the soldiers were not afraid of the wind of the ball for the most part. The damage does indeed seem to have been of a bruising nature. I suppose that could be caused by the air pressure created by a hurling object, but it might also be because a round ball grazed the wounded man. Paré also believed that gunpowder was poisonous and a bullet wound could become infected because of the poison.

...and yet this business of firing salutes is apparently a very serious matter. "[Mar 13, 1679]...we have got so fair a gale that we are at anchor in the Road of Majorca at 5 in the afternoon, and salute the town with seven guns. They answered not at all - at which our Captain was very angry. [Mar] 14: At 8 this morning, the Viceroy (hearing how ill it was taken that they did not answer the King of England's man-of-war [Teonge is on the Bristol - a fourth rate ship of 52 guns]) commanded four guns to be fired: four farts had pleased us as well." (Teonge, p. 144-5) Leaving the interesting choice of wording aside, I thought it odd that they fired an even number of shots when no where else in Teonge's journal is this done for a regular salute - especially considering the note in the previous post.

All right, I sort of mentioned this so I thought I'd just go ahead and do it. I skipped through to find a full page of text (as opposed to one with charts - such as charts were in this book, lists, lots of italics, pictures or whatnot). Without further ado: Now first go through it and those of you who think I'm nothing but a complainer can yell at me because you can pretty well make it all out with a bit of work. Once you've done that and you feel all smug and superior, go back through it and try and read it as if you wanted to get through the miserable thing in a week or two instead of poring over every word and phrase to decipher it. See what I mean? (I have put this down for the third time since coming into possession of it and gone on to the English translation of Ambroise Paré's work. I can read that.)

I found this interesting - primarily because of the problem with guns. It's from the English translation of The Apologie and Treaties of Ambroise Paré (originally published in French around 1585): "A Waterman at the Port of Nesle, dwelling neare Monsieru de Mas, Postmaster, named John Boussereau, in whose hand a Musket brake asunder, which broke the bones of his hand, and rent and tore the other parts in such sort that it was needfull and necessary to make amputation of the hand two fingers above the wrist: which was done by James Guillemeau [This has been anglicized by the English translator in the 17th century. Jacques Guillemeau was a favorite student of Paré's - and his son-in-law] then Chirurgion in ordinary to the king, who dwelt at that time with me. The operation likewise being redily done, and the blood stancht by the Ligature of the vessells without burning irons: hee is at this present living." (This whole thing was put together by Paré to refute another surgeon's contention that cautery was necessary for amputations.)

Ohhh, very nice. I love the way they've done it; quite clever. (I've always liked Vesalius's skeletons.)

They do take their re-enacting seriously. “[Feb 14, 1679] …and our noble Duke of Grafton (intending as is supposed for the sea) begins his warlike exploits; who, with his own pinnace and one more, is to fight Sir John Ernle’s barge and longboat and our barge, in the nature of Algerines. They turn for the advantage of the wind, at least an hour: at last the fight began very furiously; several broadsides passed, with muskets, blunderbusses, and peteraroes, and squibs and crackers, like hand-grenades: this continues at least an hour. Then at last (as it was ordered before) Sir John Earle’s squadron is worsted; his longboat driven on shore, where they forsake their vessels, but maintain them a good while by our small-shot from behind the rocks. At last the Duke takes the boats with his artillery and fire-balls, and so the fight ends (very pleasant to behold). And they all go on board Sir Roger Strickland to dinner in the Bristol, who, to entertain the Duke, caused his ship to be adorned with new waist-cloths, and a pendant at every yardarm, which, as soon as the Duke came on board, were all let fly at once; and fired thirteen guns of the lower tier. There they make merry; but, though the fight was only in jest, yet man of them were hurt by accidents, and burnt with fire-balls.” (Teonge, p. 240) We need to use real fireballs. (I need to go out for conch chowder on the day that we do.)

Mark the date! "March 1st [1679] St Taffy's Day, and may in our ship do wear leeks." This seems to be a Welsh holiday celebrating the death of St. David. According to wiki, "In south Wales males usually wear leeks while young girls wear daffodils; in the north the daffodil predominates." This is apparently because leeks are associated with daffodils. (I didn't get it either. Must be a Welsh thing.)

All the .pdfs I have are on surgery and surgeons from the 17th. If you want to get hold of books from that period in .pdf format, you need to get into some of the 17th and 18th century databases. Unfortunately, these are so expensive that only universities have them from my experience. Fortunately, most universities will let you access them for free. The two I've come across are: Early English Books On-Line - which allows downloading of .pdfs, .tifs and even text files (although the .tifs must be downloaded page by freaking page) Thompson-Gale Eighteenth Century Collections Online - which from my one experience does not allow downloading of anything; only printing and viewing in a sort of .pdf form at a licensed (ie. university) computer. Your experience may vary as I only had the one event at a fairly unfriendly university. (EEBO seems more widely available.) There is also the: British Collection English Short Title Catalogue - of which I have no experience as it is only at universities that are either too far to go to reasonably or wouldn't let me play on their computers. (Thus it is not at all widely available from my experience.)

Aye, sea turtles. (Someone had to say it.)

As someone who loves arcane ideas, all I can say is... Eh?

I don't much like .pdfs either, but they're better than nothing. (And, in the case of Dampier, they're better than spending $25K, which is the only price I could find for the original on-line!) I wish I could point you to a good copy of Rogers' original book. The only .pdf I found was from the 19th century and it looks badly tampered with by the editor. I wonder what the copyright status is when one of the large, expensive-to-subscribe-to databases scans something into a .pdf? Surely they can't own any copyright to the original manuscript?

I have about 20 17th century books in .pdf format that are not getting read because printing thousands of pages out seems wasteful and time-consuming. So I was eying the Kindle at Amazon... I found a free program that apparently converts .pdfs into Kindle friendly format, but I am wondering how well this works. Those books are hard enough to read already without additional problems with .pdf conversion. (Who the heck makes a paperless reading device that specifically doesn't support .pdfs? I ask you...) Any thoughts on the thing would be appreciated.

Speaking of holidays, Teonge mentions several that are sort of interesting (he has such an earthy way of describing things.) I notice that he mentions far more than Edward Barlow did in his Journal. As I recall, Barlow mentions Christmas, Michaelmas, possibly Easter (not sure) and whitsunday. Michaelmas - aka. Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael or the Feast of Michael and All Angels is September 29th. It is associated with the beginning of autumn and the shortening of days and is also one of the UK quarter days when accounts are settled. Whitsunday - this appears to be associated with several days, but I believe it's the Sunday of the feast of Whitsun or Pentecost observed 7 weeks after Easter in this context. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. The web doesn't seem to have a 17th century UK holiday list that I've found...) However, Teonge describes several more. Perhaps officers had better access to holidays, especially in regard to the feasts that were often given in their honor. (Barlow strikes a distinctly doleful chord in relation to several Christmas meals in particular for the common seaman.) New Years Eve "[Dec 31, 1678] Where we end the old year merrily in wine, punch, and brandy." (Teonge, p. 234) Note: Barlow never mentions this at all as a holiday, even when describing something on this day in his journal. The anniversary of the execution of Charles I - "[Jan 30, 1679] A solemn day, and we keep it accordingly with jacks and pendants lowered half-way, and prayers; and firing of guns at night." (Teonge, p. 238) Note: Barlow may have mentioned this day, although at the time I wasn't focused on holidays. Barlow commented stridently on various political things in his journal. Candlemas Day - a Principal Feast of the Church of England celebrating the Presentation of Christ in the Temple on February 2nd or on the Sunday between January 28th and February 3rd - "[Feb 2, 1679] Good Candlemas Day. Very Cold. We are commanded to fetch water all day, and have not time for prayers." (Teonge, p. 238) Shrove Tuesday - aka 'Fat Tuesday' today, the day before Ash Wednesday - "[Feb 4, 1679] This is one of the most jovial days in the year, on the shore [his ship is in Minorca which belongs to Spain. Thus the holiday is not celebrated on the ship, but the description is funny so I'm putting it in here.] All people are either in the open streets or at their doors. The men fling oranges at the women, and they fling oranges or water at the men; and 'tis a great favour if you are hit with any of them; this they do all the day long, and no exception is to be taken at any thing; and they are most esteemed that make the most mirth. At night they sing, and dance, and banquet, till 12 a-clock; and then they begin their Lent."

I've seen warnings on some computers using Firefox and not others. I thought it might just be a problem with the computer, but this suggests otherwise. I'll report it to the powers that be.

Let's talk about he inexactness of real math (not that theoretical stuff we all learn in grade school.) Further proof that the most of what we call fact in the human sphere is really just what we agree upon. There is enough water in American swimming pools to cover the city of San Francisco seven feet deep. Sort of gives a whole new cast to that pro-GW billboard they have there of a boy standing up to his waist in water, doesn't it?

No definition of noodling appears to match mine. (In fact, they seem to be the opposite in a way - setting catfish aside, that is. I find it best to set catfish aside regularly. It's sort of my motto, in fact.) I wonder where I got that word? Probably from the same place you got 'bonky'. Stay calm, put the mask back on, blow through nose... Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away...other than that, nothing new to report.

Firing salutes is sort of an odd custom. I can't follow if there's a standard procedure, although The Diary of Henry Teonge faithfully records the number of them. In endnote 19 to the first voyage, it says this: "The custom of saluting with an odd number of guns appears to have been observed from a very early period: the origin of the usage, as peculiar to the Navy, is not ascertained. Captain Nathanial Butler, writing in 1634, says: 'The odd number is, in these wayes of salute and ceremonie, soe observable at sea, that whensoever anie gunnes are given in an even number, it is received for an infallible expression that either the Captaine, or master, or master gunner, is dead in the voiage....It is a generall custome alsoe uppon the deathe either of the captaine, master, master gunner of the shippe, or anie other prime officer, when the corpse is to be thrown overboarde, to ringe his knell and farewell with some gunns, the which are allwaies to be of an even number.' [sloane MSS., 758] For further information on the subject see the instructions issued in 1633 'For regulating the Ceremony of Honour in Salutes.' [Memoirs of English Naval Affairs, by James, Duke of York, pp. 81-2)" Among his many records of the number of shots fired in salute at various ports and in encounters between various ships, Teonge says (humorously, I thought): "[Feb. 11, 1676] Sir John Narbrough came in [to the harbour at Malta] from Tripoli, and four more ships with him. The noble Maltese salute him with forty-five guns; he answers them with so many that I could not count them. And what with our salutes and his answers there was nothing but fire and smoke for almost two hours." Can't you just envision the smoke filled harbor? An amazing amount of gunpowder must have been wasted during period in firing salutes. They typically seem to fire between 3 and 11 times from reading Teonge's manuscript. I've noticed that according to his counts, Teonge's ship always seems to give two less shots than the town or other ship saluting it. I suspect this has to do with the relative ranking of the ship in regard to those saluting, although it never says that anywhere.

Neat ideas, although if you got to the bookends, you've probably seen the extent of the decor for that room unless I come across something spectacular. There are several dining room items that I couldn't photograph (no table to put them on and I want them shown in their natural habitat.) They will find there way into the web page mix when I actually get a table, but other than that... I am also a fan of simpler = better. The pirate living room is even looking a bit cluttered to me these days. (Things have been added since the original photos were taken. Some of those things probably need to go.)