Pyrate Kittys

[kass]

Well, I'm eating my feline-hating words. Look what I found while looking at slops and sailor's jackets.

Ship's cat under the tableclothSee the ship's cat under the tablecloth?

And the dog wearing his master's wig!

The first pic is 1731 and the second 1745 -- neither GAoP, but I'd be willing now to accept the idea that cats were welcomed onboard.

I just wouldn't welcome them on MY ship... Of course, I'm a lubber, so it hardly matters...

"It's not a Cat House! They're seamstresses..."

[Red Maria]

Why do people always clothes and such on pugs? It's always bloody pugs!!

[kass]

I dunno, Maria. Because they look like ugly little men?

[Fox]

The be-wigged pug can be discounted, it was Hogarth's own dog and just got inserted into several of his paintings. The other dog on the deck though is more interesting. I would say that an actual depiction of a ship's cat from 1731 is probably good enough to place them in the GAoP, but I can go one better...

Alexander Selkirk (the original model for Robinson Crusoe) had a large number of cats who protected him from rats while he slept during his long sojourn on Juan Fernandez. Cats are not native to Juan Fernandez, they were left there by the European sailors visiting the island.

Out of period, but worth mentioning: Count Von Luckner, captain of one of the last sailing commerce raiders - the German Seeadler during ww1 - was a great cat lover. He was proud of the fact that however much allied shipping he attacked he never killed anyone unnecessarily and he rescued every cat he came across. Having sunk or captured quite a few ships he had (IIRC) over 100 cats living on the Seeadler.

[kass]

Ick! I'd hate to clean that litter box!

[Lady Seahawke]

The other dog on the deck though is more interesting. I would say that an actual depiction of a ship's cat from 1731 is probably good enough to place them in the GAoP, but I can go one better...

Alexander Selkirk (the original model for Robinson Crusoe) had a large number of cats who protected him from rats while he slept during his long sojourn on Juan Fernandez. Cats are not native to Juan Fernandez, they were left there by the European sailors visiting the island.

Out of period, but worth mentioning: Count Von Luckner, captain of one of the last sailing commerce raiders - the German Seeadler during ww1 - was a great cat lover. He was proud of the fact that however much allied shipping he attacked he never killed anyone unnecessarily and he rescued every cat he came across. Having sunk or captured quite a few ships he had (IIRC) over 100 cats living on the Seeadler.

Wait, how many times it has been said that a mere mention is not proof...actual documentation must be given...or that one or even two or a dozen so called mentions are not good enough to state something as being common...documentation must be given by exact sources. AND anything out of period does not give proof it being in period...so under those guidelines...the last doesn't count either.... and yet now it is just the opposite.

HUMMMM, interesting very interesting indeed...

[kass]

The fact that Selkirk had so many cats that were left on the island by European sailors indicates at least that cats were onboard the vessels. Whether they were put off because the sailors didn't want cats onboard is anyone's guess.

And being that 1731 is only six year after the rather arbitrary end of the GAoP, I'd accept the existence of a "ship's cat" during the period.

I don't like it, but I accept it.

[Lady Seahawke]

OH NO!!!

This is not going to get off that easily...YOU CANNOT jump to the conclusion that just because someone ...1 person...states that lots were left that it was so.

How quickly does 2 cats equal a dozen..a dozen equals a hundred? all it takes is one female in heat and one horney male... and the rest is biological history so to speak.

So just because so many were found doesn't indicate that lots of sailors/ships dumped lots of cats...etc.

Need more proof. I want dates, locations...reasons... names of ships, names of sailors...names of the balls of fur and etc...

Fair is fair...even with pirates.

[Lady Seahawke]

Hummm, if memory serves me correctly here, and I know it does...I have even heard that mere mentions of some event is an indication of something be more rare then common as it was rare enough to be mentioned.

[Capn_Enigma]

Rat Terriers were dogs bred specifically for catching vermin in small places.

Reminds me of the movie "The First Great Train Robbery" with Sean Connery, which plays in 1855. In it, there are some rather explicit scenes of what a terrier will do when pitted (literally) against a pack of rats...

[kass]

Okay. No cats allowed! Happy now?

The quote was "do not make the rare common and the common rare". It was not said in reference to proving if something existed. It was said to discourage people from replicating one single instance of an item/garment/weapon and instead encourage the use of things we know to be in common use.

In other words, if there is a documentable account of a pirate who had a trained monkey, it is proof that a pirate owned a monkey. Period. One pirate. One monkey. That's all it proves.

"Don't make the rare common and the common rare" means don't go out and buy a trained monkey saying, "Well there's this story about a pirate who had one." Because one story does not mean all pirates (or even any other pirates) had them.

Mr. Foxe's evidence doesn't prove there was always a ship's cat. Just that there was one on that ship. And that there were cats on an island where they could only get by being on a ship at some point.

So some cats were on some ships.

To try to prove this idea by saying, "They were so common that they were never mentioned in accounts" is not good proof. It rather suggests that there could have been wildebeasts on board as well (since they too are never mentioned).

But to give an account by Defoe as well as other anecdotal evidence at least disproves my idea that they were hated and shunned.

[Capn_Enigma]

Out of period, but worth mentioning: Count Von Luckner, captain of one of the last sailing commerce raiders - the German Seeadler during ww1 - was a great cat lover. He was proud of the fact that however much allied shipping he attacked he never killed anyone unnecessarily and he rescued every cat he came across. Having sunk or captured quite a few ships he had (IIRC) over 100 cats living on the Seeadler.

Kass, you have to take any of Luckner's quotes with a very generous amount of salt. True, he was a good seaman, but his reputation in that field is nothing compared to his expertise as a storyteller. You could call him a major yarn peddler and still not wrong him. In Germany he is known for that.

He meven managed to blame the cabin boy (and a giant tidal wave, BTW) for the loss of the "Seeadler".

A hundred cats, eh? Why, certainly, dear Count.

[kass]

Oh Captain, I'm not considering anything Luckner says seriously. It's pretty obvious the guy exaggerates.

Plus he's WWI. Not terribly interested in the Great War, me...

[hitman]

Off topic and OoP here but,

1 Even though I've refrenced the Seeadler a couple of times I've always done it by what I've been told is the English translation of Sea Eagle is this correct?

2 My only refrence on the Seeadler is one breif overveiw I found can anyone reccommened others?

3 My overveiw states the ship ran aground on an uncharted reef is this correct?

[Capn_Enigma]

I have opened a seperate thread on this.

And now, it's back to puss kitties.

[WillTheobald]

Just wanted to stick in a pic of my pyrate kitttties!!

Cornelius (Left: The British Kitty) and Diego (Right: The Spanish Kitty)

Didnt know where else to put the picture of the scallywags...and this post came along...

[Lady Seahawke]

AHHH cute cats...personally I love cats.

And

Okay. No cats allowed! Happy now?

Now, now...don't get testy with me...I am not the one that created the standards set forth...I was following them...I just wanted more absolute documentation...to be historically accurate that's all.

The same as it has always been around here. But if the rules have changed...Cool!

Besides...

GEZZZSH...my own persona's history has a cat on her ship.

[kass]

Hey Will! Reduce your picture size! The people on dial-up modems are hating you right now...

[WillTheobald]

Aye Kass! I didnt think twice about doing that...but just for you I will go reduce the pic... :)

GEZZZSH...my own persona's history has a cat on her ship.

Lady Seahawke, we have four of em (babysitting one) on the ship right now...Diego is the middle child and we taught him to ride on people shoulders....like them parrots do...so I dont know how I could not include him in my pirate's persona.

[Lady Seahawke]

Lady Seahawke, we have four of em (babysitting one) on the ship right now...Diego is the middle child and we taught him to ride on people shoulders....like them parrots do...so I dont know how I could not include him in my pirate's persona.

Aye, nearly all of the cats I have ever had would take to my shoulder naturally. They would sit up there with their face resting against mine. Cats sort of found their way to me...my kids said that there must have been a sign somewhere in cat language stating. Sucker lives here...free meals, warm home.

I even rescued a wild cat during one Ohio winter, got it tamed within a week and it liked to go for walks with me. It would run to the door sit and wait for me to go out for my nightly walk. Then he would run a few paces ahead, sit, wait for me to catch up to him and then do it all over again. He was a beauty, a long haired smokey gray Himalayan cat...had him over a year....someone ended up taking him. I cried like a baby when he didn't come home.

[Matty Bottles]

Ah-hah! Found in the last third of Chapter 4, a few pages before crusoe makes his "Good and Evil" list:

"And I must not forget that we had in the ship a dog and two cats, of whose eminent history I may have occasion to say something in its place; for I carried both the cats with me; and as for the dog, he jumped out of the ship of himself, and swam on shore to me the day after I went on shore with my first cargo, and was a trusty servant to me many years; I wanted nothing that he could fetch me, nor any company that he could make up to me; I only wanted to have him talk to me, but that would not do."

[Matty Bottles]

And here again, last third of Chapter 13:

"It was a dismal sight to look at; the ship, which by its building was Spanish, stuck fast, jammed in between two rocks. All the stern and quarter of her were beaten to pieces by the sea; and as her forecastle, which stuck in the rocks, had run on with great violence, her mainmast and foremast were brought by the board-that is to say, broken short off; but her bowsprit was sound, and the head and bow appeared firm. When I came close to her, a dog appeared upon her, who, seeing me coming, yelped and cried; and as soon as I called him, jumped into the sea to come to me."

So here we have three ships mentioned in Robinson Crusoe (published 1719!), with cats on one ship, dogs on two, and very little mentioned about the third (the one that rescues him.)

Is this a good start, then, to the possibility that dogs, at least, were not necessarily uncommon on GAOP vessels?

I used the e-text version available here. The chapters are arbitrary, and may not correspond with another edition.

http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/publi...ic/DefCru1.html

[Dusi Sparrow]

OH NO!!!

How quickly does 2 cats equal a dozen..a dozen equals a hundred? all it takes is one female in heat and one horney male... and the rest is biological history so to speak. 

So just because so many were found doesn't indicate that lots of sailors/ships dumped lots of cats...etc.

Need more proof. I want dates, locations...reasons... names of ships, names of sailors...names of the balls of fur and etc...

Fair is fair...even with pirates. 

Hm, maybe they checked out and only female or male cats were allowed to go aboard.

BTW this is (or was) Punky. I used to call him my proud buccaneer or master of disaster.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/Tim...unkyFenster.jpg

What? If Will can post his cats, I'll do it too.