Letters from home

[Fox]

For those who don't follow my facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/#!/ETFox), I thought this might be of interest:

My Dear Deare Jacob Horne this with my Kind Love and harty Respects Remembered to you Hopeing to God that these few Lines will find you in Good Bodely helth as they Leave mee att this present time praysed bee God for it

Deare Jacob, haveing opertunyty I was willing to Imbrace It and let you heare How It is with mee and Your Children: they are well, Margrett presents her Duty to you, your Son I have put out according to your Desire to oure Couson Isack Tayler till you com home againe. Pray Bee so Kind if you have opertunity as to Lett us hear from you if possible how it is with you all for wee here abundance of flying news Concerning you – but Glader if it should please God that I should [see] your face once more. Oure Relations and friends are all well and Give theyr loves to you. I have sent you two letters before this and have Receved One, no more att present But Giving my prayers to ye Almyty for your Helth and happiness so I Rest your true and faithfull Wife till Death.

Sarah Horne xx

Denis Holdren and wife are alive and well and Remembur theyr Kind love to you and theyr Dear son willing.

Sarah Horne to her husband, a pirate, 5 June, 1698

For me perhaps the most interesting thing is that this surviving letter reveals a regular correspondence ("I have sent you two letters before this and have Receved One") between pirates based at St. Mary's island and their families in Europe.

[Mission]

So she actually knew he was a pirate? Doesn't that just put a whole new face on the thing - at least in this case!

[Fox]

Tricky with those 1690s Red-Sea men, they usually set out as privateers and turned to piracy once they got there: many of them still considered themselves privateers even after committing piracy (well, it's not really a 'crime' if the victims don't speak English or go to church is it?)

[sea haugh]

Hi,

So in all liklihood, that letter could potentially have come from one of the pirates who may have been at Avery`s strong hold on St Mary`s , of which pirate John Plantain took much admiration from years later whilst his humble abode was at Ratner Bay, Madagascar.

Interesting, and thanks for sharing.

sea haugh.

[Fox]

Yep. In fact it was going to one of the pirates who frequented St. Mary's, but we know he wrote back.

FWIW, Avery never went to St. Mary's himself, though the fortifications there were ascribed to him. In fact, the fortifications were built by Adam Baldridge, local agent of New York merchant Frederick Philipse, and the letter above survives because it was seized among the papers carried by one of Philipse's supply ships, the Margaret, commanded by sometime pirate Samuel Burgess.

[sea haugh]

Admittedly, i have not read that indepth on Burgess or Avery...yet.

Am sure i will.. eventually.

Plantain, Taylor, Williams, England, Roberts , La Buse, Angria and a few others are my interest at the moment. Nontheless, it is nice to see the quote.

thanks

[Swashbuckler 1700]

Intetersting truly

I have had a mental picture that piracy was a pretty much a buplic operation.... I mean that many did know who was a pirate... and this includes at least some families.. I think without any way to prove this....

[Daniel]

Interesting contast to Captain Low's crew, twenty-five years later, who would not allow any married men among them (if George Roberts' account is correct). It probably shows how much more desperate and outside the pale of respectable society piracy had become during that time.

It's also Interesting that Sarah Horne knew how to write passably, suggesting that her family had enough money for schooling. Or is there any sign that someone else may have written the letter for her?

[Fox]

The letter appears to have been written by Sarah Horne herself. Bear in mind that free or cheap schooling was available in most parts of the Anglophone world by the end of the 17th century. There was no requirement to teach children to write (though in some colonies children were legally required to be taught to read), but the ability to read or write was not limited to those who could pay.