Dead Pirate of the Week: Calico Jack
One of the most famous pirates of the 18th Century was a handsome, rich daredevil named John Rackham, but known worldwide as “Calico Jack.” Why? The material of his shirts of all things. Calico sailcloth.

During a brief—four years—run--he and his crew were in league leaders in plunder and havoc in the Caribbean and the West Indies.
His greatest prize was the hand of the notorious female pirate Anne Bonny (along with Ching Shih, one of the three well-known women on the account—the third being Mary Reade), whose great beauty was surpassed by her courage.

On their honeymoon, Jack and Anne were attacked by an armed sloop which had been sent after them by the Governor of Jamaica. Anne drew her sword and fought gallantly. To her mortification, her new husband hid below deck. She managed to avoid capture. He did not. On the day he was to be executed in 1720, Calico Jack obtained the right to a farewell meeting with his wife. She didn’t show. All he got was an unsympathetic note in which she wrote:

“If ye’d fought like a man, ye need not have been hang’d like a dog.”

Our regular scrimshaw guy Flarq is off at his Harpooners’ Club Dagger Fight and Pizza Night, so I’ve got to post this old illustration of Jack.

P.S. A descendant of Jack’s is a prominent character in the book "Pirates of Pensacola". Do you know who, and why he doesn’t wear calico shirts?

P.P.S. Bard Sinisters’s right answer to the sneakyratbastard trivia quiz quesstion #7: What are the Seven Seas: The "Seven Seas" is a term used for all of the oceans of the world. Pirates really only stuck to the traditional Seven Seas in the early days. Also pirates are no good at mapography and are seldom sober enough (assuming they know how at all) to count past seven.