Behaving in a Golden Age Tavern

[hurricane]

Foxe,

I have resources that there were Irish in Jamaica. And there were Catholics. But I don't have any primary documentation there were Irish Catholics or even Catholic Irish.

[Fox]

Yar, I don't doubt the presence of both Irish and Catholics in the West Indies, and probably some Irish Catholics too. The Caribbean was a favourite place for outcasts to go (or be sent) and both Irish and Catholics would fall into that category under the right circumstances. But I would be surprised if many (any?) arrived there with the New Model Army.

[wrcofield]

After talking to Rod Cofield yesterday, I think it might be best to give him the link to the Pub (as I did with Carol) so he can post his info here. He's offered to share the slide show presentation, which has most of the sources in it. He will be offering the paper for publication in the Saint Mary's Quarterly (a publication of St. Mary's University) but until they decide to publish it, it won't be available in print as far as I know.

Here is the link to the correct web page on the London Town website that has both my script and accompanying slides (11MB file) on it. Though two separate files, they should both be downloaded since the script refers to the slide show. If you have any questions, just ask. - Rod

http://www.historicl...istory/research

[hurricane]

Thank you for sharing these with us. It is greatly appreciated.

[Mission]

Here is the link to the correct web page on the London Town website that has both my script and accompanying slides (11MB file) on it. Though two separate files, they should both be downloaded since the script refers to the slide show. If you have any questions, just ask. - Rod

http://www.historicl...istory/research

Huh. A very thorough examination into the role of women in bar, public houses and ordinaries. Well worth reading.

"...Marcia Schmidt-Blain and Natalie Zacek have looked at women proprietors in New Hampshire and the British West Indies... [From footnote 4: "The St. Christopher’s percentage is found in Natalie Zacek, “Women and Work in the Cities and Towns of the Eighteenth-Century British West Indies,” paper presented at the 2002 meeting of the Bi-Annual Southern Labor Studies Conference in Miami, and at the Staff Work-in-Progress Seminar of the Department of History at the University of Manchester, March 2007..."]" (p. 2) Ah, to point! Proof of women owning drinking establishments in the Caribbean. That might be a dissertation worth reading for our little club here.

Those of you who were earlier interested in prostitution (at least in the states) may want to skip down to p. 7. There you will also find some stories that might amuse the misogynists. But I digress from what interests me...

"And as an interesting case involving murder from St. Christopher’s [Kitts] in the West Indies shows us, the public houses down there also hired women. This case, from 1753, involved Patience Dorset who had been hired to help with the lieutenant-general’s celebration of King George II’s birthday at Alexander McCabee’s establishment. At the party, Patience overheard John Barbot tell a group of men gathered on the porch that he was going to kill “a certain gentleman” within a fortnight. Patience’s testimony helped convince the jurors to recommend the death penalty for Barbot since this was a premeditated action." (p. 14)

"Going forward to the mid-1640s, Adam Eyre’s diary includes many references to he, his wife, and other women enjoying public houses without any concerns that they were undertaking immoral actions. One such entry states that Adam borrowed a horse “to carry my wife and myself to John Shawe’s” an alehouse in Swindenwall. At the alehouse, Eyre and his wife met a few other couples with who they had already planned this gathering. As Eyre wrote, “we met this day only to be merry." [Footnote 46: As quoted in A. Lynn Martin, Alcohol, Sex and Gender, page 75]" (p. 18)

He goes on from there forward in time with loads of different references and situations, but I don't want to steal all his material. Read the pdf.

One last one,

"I was able to find many interesting references to women in public houses. At various times during the early 18th century, a Charles County ordinary keeper, Thomas Orrell, like many of his fellow publicans, sued some of his patrons for nonpayment of debts. When William Watt was sued, the account reference for May 18 indicates that Watts’ wife drank 2 pottles of cider in Orrell’s establishment." (p. 23)

I put that there because I like the word 'pottle.' Pottle, pottle, pottle.

I also look forward to the discussion on "the apparently underappreciated role of monkeys in taverns." Lob has expressed much delight that so thorough a researcher is turning his attention to this subject.

[Grymm]

When William Watt was sued, the account reference for May 18 indicates that Watts’ wife drank 2 pottles of cider in Orrell’s establishment." (p. 23)

I put that there because I like the word 'pottle.' Pottle, pottle, pottle.

That's a gallon of cider the woman has put away. Thats serious drinkin'. Pottle = 4 pints or half a gallon.

[PoD]

When William Watt was sued, the account reference for May 18 indicates that Watts' wife drank 2 pottles of cider in Orrell's establishment." (p. 23)

I put that there because I like the word 'pottle.' Pottle, pottle, pottle.

That's a gallon of cider the woman has put away. Thats serious drinkin'. Pottle = 4 pints or half a gallon.

she must have been a student ha ha ha

[MarkG]

I think there were Catholic Irishmen too...

In the New Model Army? I'd be surprised.

In Jamaica? Possibly.

There were Catholic Irishmen in the English Civil War but they fought for the King. They also scared the regular population who regarded them as a sort of boggy-man. Most of them were executed rather than captured.

Mark

[MarkG]

I wonder how the Puritans viewed such behavior in Port Royal? Did not Cromwell send his "New Model Army" to take the colony from the Spanish? Certainly Puritans imbibed in drink. I imagine more than a few were less than pious (despite the image).

Not all of the New Model Army were necessarily puritan, in fact, the vast majority were Presbyterian or Independent. Additionally, conscripted recruits might be of almost any denomination (barring Papists). The particular troops sent under Venables to the Caribbean were, to a great extent, the dregs of pre-existing regiments whose officers took the opportunity to get rid of them. There's a good discussion of religion in the Caribbean colonies in Christopher Hill's essay, Radical Pirates?

Here's an interesting quote I found:

One question remains, what of the radicals from the New Model after 1660, after defeat. Some clearly made accommodations with the new political climate. Cornet Joyce, the king's kidnapper, became a colonel in his son's army and a land speculator to boot. Sexby, the former Agitator involved in the debate at Putney, became a conspirator in touch with royalist circles. But these do not tell the full story. Many of the radicals fled to the New World. There are verified historical reports of Ranter meetings on Long Island as late as 1690. It appears, and the scholarship in this field is just beginning to be done, that many old soldiers found their way to Jamaica and the Caribbean. In this arena many of these men turned again to political radicalism and some found their way to privateering and piracy. In 1660 there was a mutiny in Jamaica led by an ex-officer in the New Model. At this time most of Jamaica's wealth came from privateering, which “old standers and officers of Cromwell's army” participated in and profited from. Many piratical codes of conduct also seem to derive from New Model forms; the election of the captain, the absolute equality of shares and risk, and finally the consensus required prior to pursuing a prize. In only one instance do we find a direct link, however, between the pirates and the New Model. Henry Morgan's brutal raid on Panama in 1671 was said to have been carried out by “troops [dressed] in the faded red coats of the New Model Army.”

Mark

[Hawkyns]

Interesting stuff. The more I read it, and the more I look at the art provided with it, the more I begin to think that there may have been more truth than satire in some of Hogarth's work. Particularly with the art, some of it is showing exactly the same things.

Hawkyns

[Fox]

There were Catholic Irishmen in the English Civil War but they fought for the King.

Hence my surprise at the idea of any of them in the New Model Army. The NMA had rather a reputation for giving the Irish a damned good thrashing than for recruiting them. In fact, soldiers of the NMA were forbidden to marry Irish Catholics, which suggests the depth of feeling.

Many piratical codes of conduct also seem to derive from New Model forms; the election of the captain, the absolute equality of shares and risk, and finally the consensus required prior to pursuing a prize.

Getting somewhat off-topic again, but I have to draw attention to this. None of those practices were prevalent in the New Model Army, and I'd be interested to know where the author found "many" piratical codes to compare. For what it's worth, of all of the surviving sets of articles I can think of, none mention electing the captain, and only one mentions collective consensus.

Interesting stuff. The more I read it, and the more I look at the art provided with it, the more I begin to think that there may have been more truth than satire in some of Hogarth's work.

I'm inclined to agree, in the sense that satire, to be effective, must be based very firmly on reality. Good satire (such as Hogarth and Ward) is not about making up stuff that didn't happen, but about ridiculing the stuff that did.

[Mission]

Interesting stuff. The more I read it, and the more I look at the art provided with it, the more I begin to think that there may have been more truth than satire in some of Hogarth's work.

I'm inclined to agree, in the sense that satire, to be effective, must be based very firmly on reality. Good satire (such as Hogarth and Ward) is not about making up stuff that didn't happen, but about ridiculing the stuff that did.

Being a satirist myself, I quite agree. However it is impossible to know the degree of fact vs. exaggeration employed unless the satirist indicated the actual event on which the satire was based. So you cannot call such things historical proof, only hints at what may have happened. Surely two such veteran historical researchers would agree with that.

I have agreed that all sorts of behaviors likely took place. Get people drinking in any time or age, add a rowdy patronage and human nature and you're apt to see all manner of things going on. To quote myself from an earlier post:

...behavior in bars would vary as widely as the people who populated them. As a modern day example, you're going to get one feeling walking into the local downtown hangout for executives leaving work and very different one at the local motorcycle gang hole-in-the-wall. Ditto period. Sailor's bars have long held a reputation for being more rough and tumble than the ones not quite so near the city port.

The broader question (I think) is what was the general behavior in such places.

With this in mind, I'd advise one and all to be cautious not to focus only on the police or court reports as your evidence. Usually only the exceptional things get reported there and they necessarily focus on the most aberrant behaviors. To use this as your primary evidence is to ignore the vast body of other, non-court related evidence he presented. Saying "this must be the prevalent behavior" while ignoring the more general, if not always as easily accessed, daily records and reports is an easy mistake that must be guarded against if you really want get a true understanding of historical behaviors. (This is a statistical error - easily accessed data on a statistically small minority is used to prove a hypothesis while data on a much larger, sometimes less easily counted majority is ignored. It's occasionally called the silent majority error.) Mr Cofield actually presents quite a bit of non-court/police data - more than you normally find on such topics, in fact.

Think about this in terms of something we can observe in our own environment. Our court documents and police blotters present the worst moments in time, not the more general ones. If you were to extrapolate our behavior in bars using only court reports, police reports (and noir films), you'd think our bars were dangerous, riotous places to be. But we know most of them aren't. Even the ones that show up in reports frequently are only that way at certain times, when certain groups of people show up and engage in certain collective behaviors.

[Hawkyns]

But then you have to consider the general mindset. The people of the time, and especially sailors, had a very different concept of private vs public behaviour. People were used to living on top of each other. Even in the article it quotes sources saying it was quite reasonable for men and women unknown to each other to share beds or to dress in front of each other.

Consider also that the woman had a gallon of cider before she was brought to the attention of the authorites. If that cider was anything like the scrump I've had in Somerset, I'm surprised she was still conscious enough to do anything! If we want to consider it in today's terms, what gets reported is only a fraction of what happens, but, depending on your circle of society, much worse may happen but not be considered worth reporting.

Think of it this way, what would get the police involved in a Georgetown bar, would not even be noticable at Sturgis.

This is getting a bit convoluted, and I'm not sure I'm making my point. Basically, I think we are still looking at this with a bit too much of a modern eye. Of course we can't know all the details of what happened, but when we consider that the late 17th century was a time of licentiousness and excess (in reaction to the previous puritan interregnum), and the reputation that was built from the actions of the pirates and seamen, I think we can reasonably guess that things were pretty wiold in the waterfront taverns.

Hawkyns

[hurricane]

I agree Hawkyns with the eye tainted by modern times. For example, that much cider would be nothing to someone in Port Royal in the late 17th Century. Even the children in town drank beer instead of the water because 1), it had to all be ferried in from the rivers across the bay and 2), it was believed that some of the maladies were caused by the water. So imagine the tolerance levels of alcohol in such an environment. Just to get a buzz would take a fairly good intake of alcohol. And, as we know, when vast amounts of alcohol are introduced, crazy things start to happen, even today. And even today (at least in the places I've been over the years), I've seen more than my share of fights, all out brawls, breasts and penises exposed, vomiting, sex in the bathrooms and several times in the bar itself, and chairs and bottles broken. Why would we think it would be any different back then? Come to think of it, man I've been to some great taverns in my time.

Edited November 11, 2010 by hurricane

[Fox]

Being a satirist myself, I quite agree. However it is impossible to know the degree of fact vs. exaggeration employed unless the satirist indicated the actual event on which the satire was based. So you cannot call such things historical proof, only hints at what may have happened. Surely two such veteran historical researchers would agree with that.

Up to a point, yes, but it depends on how one is using the evidence. To point to something in satire and say "that xyz occurred in exactly that way because Hogarth/Ward says so" would be pushing it, certainly. But satire must be believable, so to use it to get a general feel of things, non-specific evidence if you want to call it that, is a different matter.

In modern terms, take the Simpsons. It would be hard, perhaps even impossible, to believe that all the things that happen to the Simpsons could happen to one family in reality, but I know more than one of our American cousins who claim that they can't/don't watch the Simpsons because it's too real and depressing. Look at the news, look at the Darwin awards, stuff like the storylines in the Simpsons happens all the time, just not to one set of people all living in the same town.

As with any evidence, be it satire, court records (which don't always deal solely in what we'd think of as 'crime'), journals, newspapers, diaries, letters or whatever, the key thing is how we use the evidence. We have to take into account who is creating it, why they're creating it, who the audience is intended to be, and a whole host of other factors. Yup, the good researcher draws evidence from as many different sources as possible, and treats each source as carefully as possible and with equal scrutiny.

[Fox]

I agree Hawkyns with the eye tainted by modern times. For example, that much cider would be nothing to someone in Port Royal in the late 17th Century...

With this point in mind it is perhaps worth bearing in mind that the standard navy issue was 1 gallon of beer per man per day.

But with my above post in mind, how strong was the beer/cider? A gallon of 2% beer only contains the same amount of alcohol as 2 pints of 8% beer.

[Mission]

Basically, I think we are still looking at this with a bit too much of a modern eye.

If you read my comments closely, I am using modern methods of proof, not modern conceptions of the past. My last paragraph was stuck in there to show that behaviors vary widely today and human behavior is sort of like that. Do you disagree?

Of course we can't know all the details of what happened, but when we consider that the late 17th century was a time of licentiousness and excess (in reaction to the previous puritan interregnum), and the reputation that was built from the actions of the pirates and seamen, I think we can reasonably guess that things were pretty wiold in the waterfront taverns.

Reasonably guess? Ah, common knowledge. Part of that paper was spent disproving "common knowledge" about women in bars. You can't reliably use "common knowledge" to justify anything. (Half the well-researched books today on history spend a lot of there time looking closer at and disproving common knowledge.) We all have faced the problem that the publicly perceived 'common knowledge' about pirates comes from incorrect Howard Pyle drawings, the book Treasure Island and mid 20th century movies.

But again, I think all sorts of stuff could and did happen. That doesn't mean it was SOP. Several people have implied that this is general behavior without supplying any actual proof. The court records are proof, but I explained why you shouldn't rely exclusively on them to make your point.

As for drinking a lot, I know regular sailors drank quite a bit shipboard from reading different journals and accounts. So drinking appears to have been a lot more prevalent then as Hurricane suggests, which also indicates that tolerances for alcohol were greater. (Unless you think their physiology was different then.)

[Silkie McDonough]

Looks like I am repeating information that was previously posted but I am leaving this post anyway.

Please correct me if I am wrong but I believe that water was often undrinkable in cities. Cider was used by many. Assuming that they were using hard cider it is likely that tolerance would been high.

It is also likely that many people were functioning alcoholics.

I may be stating the obvious here but I feel a need to complete the thought. Alcohol, as we know, removes many inhibitions. Therefore it stands to reason that even if "polite society" did frown upon lewd/lascivious behavior it wouldn't matter to the common man or woman, particularly if they were under the influence of alcohol.

Yes this is conjecture and no I do not have reference material. If you have it either to support or contradict this statement PLEASE share it.

Edited November 11, 2010 by Silkie McDonough

[Hawkyns]

With this point in mind it is perhaps worth bearing in mind that the standard navy issue was 1 gallon of beer per man per day.

But with my above post in mind, how strong was the beer/cider? A gallon of 2% beer only contains the same amount of alcohol as 2 pints of 8% beer.

Well, considering that I have seen more than a few of my Yank friends fall over when trying to keep up with the Brits beer consumption........

There is definitely a consideration of how much you are used to drinking and what your tolerance level is.

And what do they mean by 'cider'. Frequently, in the US, that refers to unfermented apple juice. There are alcoholic ciders, both then and now, but the modern ones are not as strong as modern Brit ciders. Do we have any clue what the alcohol level of 17th century colonial cider was? And I never see references to scrumpe on this side of the pond. Seems that kind of cider was uncommon to say the least..

Hawkyns

[Hawkyns]

[but again, I think all sorts of stuff could and did happen. That doesn't mean it was SOP. Several people have implied that this is general behavior without supplying any actual proof. The court records are proof, but I explained why you shouldn't rely exclusively on them to make your point.

As for drinking a lot, I know regular sailors drank quite a bit shipboard from reading different journals and accounts. So drinking appears to have been a lot more prevalent then as Hurricane suggests, which also indicates that tolerances for alcohol were greater. (Unless you think their physiology was different then.)

I think the main difference is that we are comparing two different areas. The research presented is from the colonies, from relatively respectable areas, where there was an operating justice system. I'm more interested in the Port Royal type areas, when the legal system did not function and acceptable behaviour was whatever did not get you killed.

I base this on a couple of things. From the few existing pirate codes we have, fighting and stealing from each other was one of the most considered items. If this was not such an issue, why was it so forcefully mentioned in these codes? Second, the pirate rep had to come from somewhere. Calling Port Royal the 'Wickedest Town in the World' was not a mild insult, considering the general attitude of the period.

Hurricane, are there any court records from Port Royal? I know most such things were destroyed in the quake, but had any been shipped to other places, Admiralty Courts, Governor General's records, etc.?

SOP varies. I know from my study of the ECW that things were very different in England than they were in the colonies. The American Colonies had quite the puritan influence and towns and cities were considerably more staid than similar towns and cities in England. Based on what I've researched of England in the 1640's to 1690's, and what I've read of Port Royal and similar places, I think trying to take behavioural examples from the American Colonies is a bit skewed.

Hawkyns

[Grymm]

Looks like I am repeating information that was previously posted but I am leaving this post anyway.

Please correct me if I am wrong but I believe that water was often undrinkable in cities. Cider was used by many. Assuming that they were using hard cider it is likely that tolerance would been high.

The idea that water carried disease wasn't really known about until the mid 19thC when some chappie in London, who's name I forget, logged the cases of cholera on a map and noticed that they centred on a communal pump. The miasma smell basically is where folks though sickness came from hence pomanders to sniff to ward off disease and the strange beaky costumes of plague doctors

And when people mention cider pre 19thC it is always in reference to the alcoholic drink, non alcoholic is called apple juice , it's not 'til mid 19thC- early 20thC that the Temperance movement start using the prefix 'hard' as a way of demonising lovely natural cider. To be honest apple juice like grape juice will ferment naturally, you have to boil it to buggery to stop it fermenting, 's only really in the States that cider is non alcoholic, every other language cider, cidre, sidro, cidra, sidra, seidr, sider are all lovely lovely booze.....The hebrew word for strong drink shekhar is the root word for cider and it is belived to be mans first alcoholic drink remains of apple pressings and traces having been found in some prehistoric sites.

[Silkie McDonough]

The idea that water carried disease wasn't really known about until the mid 19thC when some chappie in London, who's name I forget, logged the cases of cholera on a map and noticed that they centered on a communal pump.

Prior to that they freely drank water despite the smell or the fact that it wasn't clear? I was sure that there were examples of people staying clear of water further back than that. I am a poor researcher so I try not to make my assumptions into fact. Thanks.

And when people mention cider pre 19thC it is always in reference to the alcoholic drink, non alcoholic is called apple juice

I was pretty sure that this was the case but since I did not have he source available I was not going to say it like it was fact. Additionally, since we are discussing this in the 21st century I thought it best to use current terms.

[Grymm]

Not having a pop m'duck, 's just my muse isn't in me today so it all comes out a bit preachy, sorry.

If your water was murky and smelly you didn't drink it....from Andrew Bord who was admittedly 16thC

And let euery man be ware of all waters whiche be standynge, and be putryfyed with froth, duckemet, and mudde; for yf they bake, or brewe, or dresse meate with it, it shall ingender many infyrmytes.

The water which euery man ought to dresse his meat with all or shall vse bakynge or bruyng, let it be ronnyng; and put in vesselles that it may stande there .ii. or .iii. houres or it be occupyed; than strayne the vpper parte throughe a thycke lynnyn cloth, and caste the inferyall parte away.

[hurricane]

Looks like I am repeating information that was previously posted but I am leaving this post anyway.

Please correct me if I am wrong but I believe that water was often undrinkable in cities. Cider was used by many. Assuming that they were using hard cider it is likely that tolerance would been high.

The idea that water carried disease wasn't really known about until the mid 19thC when some chappie in London, who's name I forget, logged the cases of cholera on a map and noticed that they centred on a communal pump. The miasma smell basically is where folks though sickness came from hence pomanders to sniff to ward off disease and the strange beaky costumes of plague doctors

At least in Port Royal (late 17th century), it was believed that the drinking water in the town carried the flux. "Relatively good water was fetched by wherry and canoe in great casks from the mouth of the Rio Cobre, but this too was suspect, at least to Dr. Trapham.

"Many of the inhabitants of Port Royal in fact never touched the stuff, preferring to quench their thirst among the wide variety of stronger drinks available in town. Wines were abundant and relatively cheap, especially those from Madeira; there is also a wide range of beers. George Ellwood wrote that "our drink is chiefly Madeira wine, lemmonadoes, punch and brandy; for cool drinks moddy wee have made of potatoes, cocao-drink, sugar drinke and rap made of molassis."

So the people of Port Royal certainly suspected the water as newcomers who drank the water often had the flux. It was a newcomer's disease and the people thought it to be from the water.

Oh, and this book is finally available for a wider audience. If you ever wanted to know about Port Royal, this is the best work I've ever found and is cross referenced well. Covers the topography, the life of residents, shipping, commerce, layout of the town, and later the town's second life as a Navy installation.

This is where the quote from above comes:

http://books.google.com/books?id=X8w-nDevIfAC&lpg=PP1&ots=TDSzZsxyw8&dq=port%20royal%20jamaica%2C%20pawson%20and%20buisseret&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Beats paying the $40 I shelled out for it. :)

Edited November 11, 2010 by hurricane

[Fox]

Possibly Drake's greatest achievement was the system of leets that to this day still carry good wholesome Dartmoor water down into Plymouth.

The real point is, who wants to drink water when there's beer and cider available?