Flarq's smoking new vixenfriend Jill has got the hots for me. (Fortunately Flarq can't read or I'd be harpooned through the face for writing that.) How do I know? For one thing, this sort of thing happens to me a lot. Also, she was saying she's interested in pirate history. Unfortunately, all I know about the old days is they used to not have guns. But I do know Keith, the writer working on Pirates of Pensacola, and one of the great things about Keith is he's afraid of getting stabbed. He put a little write-up together for me lickety-split. Mates, give it a read-through, will you? I need to know if Capt. Computer made any mistakes before I call Jill:
Piracy is as old as the art of transportation by water. The first Phoenician boatmen feared pirates even more than they did resentful sea gods, vicious sea monsters, and spiteful giant sea rocks who ganged up to crush ships--a common nemesis, if Phoenician maritime annals are to be believed.
It was not until the Sixteenth Century, and the onset of transatlantic imperialism, that piracy entered the realm of common dinnertime topic. "Imperialism," in that day, meant countless Spanish galleons returning home along the "Spanish Main" listing from tons of gold stolen (or, according to some Spanish sources, received as part of fair business transactions) from the Aztecs and Incas.
The growing number of sailors in turn stealing the stolen gold became a problem for all of the Colonial Empires. According to British Royal Navy, in 1563, there were four hundred such pirates known to be sailing the Four Seas, and the number was increasing daily. In naval service, as well as on merchant ships, pay was poor and rations worse. The menu consisted solely of cold hardtack biscuits accompanied by salt beef, salt pork or salt fish--called "Hairy Willy." But it was the puny ration of grog (rum diluted with water to stretch supplies) that irked the men most of all, and ranked among their chief motivations for going "on the account" (pirate for "pirating"). Ironically, many of these men had enlisted in the Navy in hope that the very same grog limit, as well as the job's regular hours and strenuous exercise, might provide an asylum for their alcoholism.
Then there were the conditions. Hard work was the least of it. On overcrowded man o' wars--frequently crewed by five hundred--space was so limited that a man could scarcely move without brushing against another. Something as simple as how a man gargled could, over time, so grate on a shipmate's nerves that no one would be shocked if the gargler "fell overboard" on a dark night, never to be found. On the infrequent occasions the men were given the respite of sleep, they had to do so in hammocks eighteen inches wide, to a lullaby of the snoring of dozens of others who hadn't bathed in months and were crammed side to side and above and below one another. On hot nights, the hammocks proved veritable frying pans. On cold, the men longed for the hot.
Many more sailors suffered--though they likely wouldn't have put it as such--psychologically. The frequent summons of "All hands witness punishment ahoy!" sent a shudder through all but the stoutest of hearts. Incessant floggings made many sailors feel like beasts, rather than men. And the long lists of rules made the sailors who still felt like men feel like children. Most man o' war captains forbade the sordid game of draughts (checkers).
A scrimshaw by Flarq of a harsh man o' war captain
As consequence of all this, many a cold nasty night was warmed by tales of pirate voyages to places where the weather was fair, the water easy and the lasses both fair and easy. Furthermore, there was tobacco, grub aplenty, and rivers of grog, and the only time quarters were cramped was because they were stacked starboard to larboard with gold doubloons.
Others, for whom grub and lasses held less appeal, found themselves persuaded to go on the account simply by the increasing occupational hazard of being an honest sailorman. For instance, between 1569 and 1616, nearly five hundred British ships were captured by the Barbary pirates, who cut the throats of those captives deemed not worth the trouble of feeding and transporting to the slave market. It is due to such practices, some historians theorize, that the term "barbarian" came to mean more than simply a native of Barbary...
I'm going to cut off the story here.* I just got some rum-necessitating news: Ricardo Verman, former Tortolan Navy admiral, has escaped from jail and is on his way to try and kill me. He's pissed that, once, I double-crossed him. Yeah, it led to his getting captured and locked up for life. But to kill a bloke for that? Clearly he needs some meds.
*Keith posted the rest of it at http://piratesofpensacola.com/id6.html
Updated: Friday, 11 February 2005 12:59 PM MNT
