Of Pirates and Pedophiles...

[corsair2k3]

I have yet to encounter doucmented evidence for an undoubted instance of pedophilia aboard a pirate ship.

Period.

A number of salacious authors have pointed out the youth of some of those who "went down to the sea in ships" (actual phrase used--and with a giggle--in a lecture that was purported to be "scholarly"!)

Men, in general, were considered adults at a much earlier age than is the case nowadays. It took a long time to make a sailor. The work demanded great strength and dexterity. To be an "AB" by 17 or 18, one had to begin at age 13 or 14.

Even so, however, most pirates seem to have been 17 or over. I saw in a NQG some years ago an article on "child pirates" and there were only a very few under 17--and those appear to have been apprentices.

While our society defines those under 18 as minors, I would argue that this should be lowered for the 18th-century to at least 13 or 14. That's coincidentally the age that most social historians use for adulthood when describing 18th-century life in general.

So the simple presence of young teens aboard ships does not mean that pirate crews were were a happy hunting-ground for the 18th-century equivalent of NAMBL degenerates

To demonstrate that, you need evidence--and it just aint there.

Regards,

The Corsair