Under the Black Flag

by David Cordingly

  Captain Roberts’ observations suggest a regime that was relaxed and easygoing, with an underlying sense of order provided by the need to keep watch and work the ship. If there is any truth in the account, it is little wonder that many captured seamen, accustomed to the hard labor of sailing a merchant ship with a tiny crew under a demanding captain, were willing to join the pirates.

  But pirate life was not always as pleasant as Roberts’ account might suggest. Roberts was able to have a civilized discussion in the captain’s cabin, but his description of the uncouth behavior of the pirates at meal times is a more accurate pointer to the mood of the average pirate ship. In the tough, all-male regime of the pirate community, many of the men cultivated a macho image which was expressed in hard drinking, coarse language, threatening behavior, and casual cruelty. Philip Ashton, who was captured by pirates in 1722, was appalled by the experience:

  I soon found that any death was preferable to being linked with such a vile crew of miscreants, to whom it was a sport to do mischief, where prodigious drinking, monstrous cursing and swearing, hideous blasphemies, and open defiance of Heaven, and contempt of hell itself, was the constant employment, unless when sleep something abated the noise and revellings.21

  The trial of Bartholomew Roberts’ crew at Cape Coast Castle reveals that many men spent most of their days incapacitated by drink.22 According to one witness, Robert Devins was never sober or fit for any duty, and Robert Johnson was so helplessly drunk that he had to be hoisted out of the ship with the aid of a block and tackle. It was common for pirates on trial to blame their problems on drink. Before his execution in May 1724, John Archer confessed that “one wickedness that has led me as much as any, to all the rest, has been my brutish drunkenness. By strong drink I have been heated and hardened into the crimes that are now more bitter than death unto me.”23

  The problem was not confined to pirate ships; all seamen were notorious for their drinking habits. Marcus Rediker has pointed out that seamen drank for a variety of reasons: because good drink was easier to find on a ship than good victuals and fortified them against the cold and wet; because drink enabled them to forget the rigors of shipboard life for a while; and because drinking performed a valuable social function.24 Seamen drank together to relax, to celebrate, to gossip and get to know each other. During meals they drank toasts to their wives and mistresses, to the King, to a successful voyage. The pirates were more irreverent in their toasts and drank to the devil, or to the Pretender to the British throne. Edward North, captured by Charles Vane in 1718, said that “during his continuance on board the said sloop the expressions following, viz. Curse the King and all the Higher Powers, Damn the Governor, were generally made use of by them, and other expressions at drinking was Damnation to King George.”25

  Among the hundreds of artifacts recovered from the pirate ship Whydah are twenty-eight lead gaming pieces. They are a reminder that gambling was almost as popular as drinking among seamen. Backgammon was a favorite occupation of officers in the Royal Navy, but all ranks of seamen, whether they were in the navy, in the merchant service, or operating as privateers or pirates, spent much of their spare time playing cards or dice, and it was common to place bets on the results. Captain Woodes Rogers found that some of his crew had gambled away most of their clothes and personal possessions during the voyage, and had to take drastic action to prevent trouble. While cruising off California in November 1703, he drew up a formal agreement which was designed “to prevent the growing evil now arising amongst us, occasioned by frequent gaming, wagering, and abetting at others gaming, so that some by chance might thus too slightly get possession of what his fellow-adventurers have dangerously and painfully earned.”26 The agreement was signed by the entire ship’s company of the Duke and put an end to all forms of gambling and the associated notes of hand, contracts, and bills.

  Exquemelin describes how the pirates led by L’Ollonais shared out 260,000 pieces of eight after raids on the coast of South America and then squandered the lot in three weeks, “having spent it all in things of little value, or at play either of cards or dice.”27 The journal of Basil Ringrose records that when the buccaneers went ashore at Antigua in 1682 at the end of their voyage, it was mutually agreed to leave the ship to those of the company who had no money left from their share of the plunder, “having lost it all at play.”28

  Music was another feature of life at sea. Singing, dancing, playing the fiddle, and even small bands and orchestras were common aboard naval vessels and merchantmen. To what extent the pirates employed music is hard to tell from the fragmentary records. The pirates’ code of conduct drawn up by Bartholomew Roberts includes the following rule: “The musicians to have rest on the Sabbath Day, but the other six days and nights, none have special favour.” When the Royal Fortune, the flagship of Bartholomew Roberts’ squadron, was captured by HMS Swallow, there were two musicians on board. Nicholas Brattler was a fiddler who had been taken out of the Cornwall Galley at Calabar and compelled to join the pirates and sign their articles. In his defense at trial it was said that “the prisoner was only made use of, as music, which he dared not refuse.”29 He was acquitted by the court, as was James White, “whose business as music was upon the poop in time of action.” Presumably he played the fiddle as well, although this is not made clear in the trial documents. During the cross-examination of James Barrow at the same trial it emerged that some of the pirates had killed all Barrow’s chickens and then fell to drinking hard, so that by supper time they were singing “Spanish and French songs out of a Dutch Prayer Book.”

  As they sailed among the West Indian islands or along the coast of South America, the pirates would drop anchor in a sheltered bay or river estuary and send men ashore for wood and water. The wood was needed for the galley stove, and the water was for cooking, or for drinking if there was a shortage of beer or wine on board. Finding wood and chopping it up was usually no problem, but collecting water was not so easy. A boat or boats full of empty barrels, had to be rowed ashore, and a search made for a freshwater spring or stream. The barrels were filled and then carried or rolled back to the boats, lifted aboard, and rowed out through the surf to the anchored ship. The whole exercise could take several hours or days, and in tropical climates was hot work. Often it was hard to locate sources of freshwater, particularly in the dry season in the tropics. Sometimes they found water, but it tasted bitter or was too muddy and cloudy to risk drinking.

  During these trips ashore the men would catch turtles, which could be found in great numbers among the West Indian islands: “the choice of all for fine eating is the turtle or sea tortoise,” wrote Francis Rogers when he visited Jamaica in 1704. “The flesh looks and eats much like choice veal, but the fat is of a green colour, very luscious and sweet; the liver is likewise green, very wholesome, searching and purging.”30 The pirates would shoot birds for the cooking pot and hunt cattle, goats, or pigs if they could be found. Sometimes they had to resort to more unusual provisions. On the coast of South America the buccaneers led by Captain Sharp were eating “Indian conies, monkeys, snakes, oysters, conchs, periwinkles, and a few small turtle, with some other sorts of good fish.”31 When no ships could be found to plunder and food was in short supply, the pirates raided coastal towns and villages.

  Every few months the pirate ship had to be beached in some secluded estuary or bay so that she could be careened. This was a major operation which involved running the ship ashore, heaving her over with the aid of blocks and tackle made fast to the masts, scraping and burning off the seaweed and barnacles, caulking and replacing rotten planks, and then applying a mixture of tallow, oil, and brimstone as a form of antifouling. In the warm waters of the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean, seaweed built up rapidly on the bottom of a ship and could drastically affect her speed, and since speed was essential for the pirates to catch their victims and evade the navy, regular careening was essential. The ship’s carpenter usually took charge of the whole operation. Captain Howell Davis took his
pirate sloop to Coxon’s Hole at the east end of Cuba: “Here they cleaned with much difficulty, for they had no carpenter in their company, a person of great use upon such exigencies.”32 In addition to careening and routine repairs to masts and spars, there could be damage from storms or encounters with uncharted reefs. The pirates faced the same problems as explorers like Captain James Cook who aimed to be entirely self-sufficient for months on end, and carried spare gear and spars as well as a team of craftsmen.

  The most significant difference between pirate and other ships was the manner in which the pirate company was organized, and the code by which the pirates operated. Unlike the Royal Navy, the merchant navy, or indeed any other institutions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the pirate communities were, as already noted, democracies. A hundred years before the French Revolution, the pirate companies were run on lines in which liberty, equality, and brotherhood were the rule rather than the exception. In a pirate ship, the captain was elected by the votes of the majority of the crew and he could be deposed if the crew were not happy with his performance. The crew, and not the captain, decided the destination of each voyage and whether to attack a particular ship or to raid a coastal village. At the start of a voyage, or on the election of a new captain, a set of written articles was drawn up which every member of the ship’s company was expected to sign. These articles regulated the distribution of plunder, the scale of compensation for injuries received in battle, and set out the basic rules for shipboard life and the punishments for those who broke the rules. The articles differed from ship to ship, but they all followed similar lines.

  One of the earliest descriptions of the pirates’ code of conduct appears in Exquemelin’s Buccaneers of America, which was first published in 1678. Exquemelin tells how the pirates called a council on board ship before embarking on a voyage of plunder. At this preliminary gathering it was decided where to get hold of provisions for the voyage. When this was agreed, the pirates went out and raided some Spanish settlement and returned to the ship with a supply of pigs augmented by turtles and other supplies. A daily food allowance was then worked out for the voyage; Exquemelin notes that the allowance for the captain was no more than that for the humblest mariner.

  A second council was then held to draw up the code of conduct for the forthcoming voyage. These articles, which everyone was bound to observe, were put in writing. Every pirate expedition, in common with most privateering expeditions, worked on the principle of “No prey, no pay.” The first requirement of the articles was to determine exactly how the plunder should be divided when the pirates had captured their prey. The captain received an agreed amount for the ship, plus a proportion of the share of the cargo, usually five or six shares. The salary of the carpenter or shipwright who had mended and rigged the ship was agreed at 100 or 150 pieces of eight, and the salary of the surgeon was 200 or 250 pieces of eight. Sums were then set aside to recompense for injuries. It is interesting to observe how this early form of medical insurance determined the value of the different parts of a pirate’s body. The highest payment of 600 pieces of eight was awarded for the loss of a right arm; next came the loss of a left arm at 500 pieces of eight; the right leg was worth 500 pieces of eight, but the left leg was only valued at 400 pieces of eight; the loss of an eye or a finger was rewarded with a payment of 100 pieces of eight. Once these sums had been agreed, the remainder of the plunder was divided out. The master’s mate received two shares, and the rest of the crew received one share each. Any boys in the crew received half a share. The buccaneers were insistent that no man should receive more than his fair due, and everyone had to make a solemn oath that he would not conceal and steal for himself anything in a captured ship. Anyone breaking this rule would be turned out of the company.

  The application of this code of conduct can be observed in the journal of Basil Ringrose. In July 1681 they captured the Spanish ship San Pedro off the coast of Chile. She was laden with wine, gunpowder, and 37,000 pieces of eight in chests and bags. “We shared our plunder among ourselves,” Ringrose noted in his journal. “Our dividend amounted to the sum of 234 pieces-of-eight to each man.”33

  For most of the voyage the buccaneers were led by Captain Bartholomew Sharp, “a man of undaunted courage and of an excellent conduct.” He was a natural leader, and was skillful at the practical and theoretical aspects of navigation, but in January 1681, following weeks of storms and hardships, the men become mutinous. By a majority decision they deposed Captain Sharp and elected John Watling, a tough seaman and a former privateer. Sharp was compelled to relinquish his command, and the crew signed a new set of articles with Watling. Three weeks later Watling was killed during an attack on a coastal fort, and Sharp was persuaded to resume his command of the expedition.

  Johnson’s General History of the Pirates describes the similar role of the pirate captains in the early years of the eighteenth century. As with the earlier buccaneers, the captain had absolute power in battle and when “fighting, chasing, or being chased,” but in all other matters he was governed by the majority wishes of the crew.34 Although he was given the use of the great cabin, he did not have it exclusively to himself, but must expect other members of the company to come in and out, to use his crockery, and to share his food and drink.

  The captain’s authority was further limited by the powers which were given to the quartermaster. He too was elected by the crew, and is described as being “a sort of civil magistrate on board a pirate ship.”35 He was the crew’s representative and “trustee for the whole.” His job was to settle minor disputes, and he had the authority to punish with whipping or drubbing. He was expected to lead the attack when boarding a ship, and he usually took command of captured prizes.

  The pirates had no use for the ranks of lieutenant and midshipman, but they did elect men to do the jobs carried out by warrant officers and petty officers on merchant ships and naval vessels. In addition to the quartermaster, most pirate ships had a boatswain, a gunner, a carpenter, and a cook; there was usually also a first mate and a second mate.

  Several examples of the articles drawn up by the crews of different pirate captains have been preserved. Those adopted by the men led by Bartholomew Roberts are the most comprehensive, and are worth quoting in full because they provide a revealing slant on the pirate’s way of life. These are taken from Captain Johnson’s General History of the Pirates36 and the passages in italics are Johnson’s comments:

  I. Every man has a vote in affairs of moment; has equal title to the fresh provisions, or strong liquors, at any time seized, and may use them at pleasure, unless a scarcity (no uncommon thing among them) makes it necessary, for the good of all, to vote a retrenchment.

  II. Every man to be called fairly in turn, by list, on board of prizes because, (over and above their proper share) they were on these occasions allowed a shift of clothes: but if they defrauded the company to the value of a dollar in plate, jewels, or money, marooning was their punishment. This was a barbarous custom of putting the offender on shore, on some desolate or uninhabited cape or island, with a gun, a few shot, a bottle of water, and a bottle of powder, to subsist with or starve. If the robbery was only betwixt one another, they contented themselves with slitting the ears and nose of him that was guilty, and set him on shore, not in an uninhabited place, but somewhere, where he was sure to encounter hardships.

  III. No person to game at cards or dice for money.

  IV. The lights and candles to be put out at eight o’clock at night: if any of the crew, after that hour still remained inclined for drinking, they were to do it on the open deck; which Roberts believed would give a check to their debauches, for he was a sober man himself, but found at length, that all his endeavours to put an end to this debauch proved ineffectual.

  V. To keep their piece, pistols, and cutlass clean and fit for service. In this they were extravagantly nice, endeavouring to outdo one another in the beauty and richness of their arms, giving sometimes at an auction (at the mast) £30
or £40 a pair for pistols. These were slung in time of service, with different coloured ribbands over their shoulders in a way peculiar to these fellows, in which they took great delight.

  VI. No boy or woman to be allowed amongst them. If any man were to be found seducing any of the latter sex, and carried her to sea, disguised, he was to suffer death; so that when any fell into their hands, as it chanced in the Onslow, they put a sentinel immediately over her to prevent ill consequences from so dangerous an instrument of division and quarrel; but then here lies the roguery; they contend who shall be sentinel, which happens generally to one of the greatest bullies, who, to secure the lady’s virtue, will let none lie with her but himself.

  VII. To desert the ship or their quarters in battle, was punished with death or marooning.

  VIII. No striking one another on board, but every man’s quarrels to be ended on shore, at sword and pistol. The quarter-master of the ship, when the parties will not come to any reconciliation, accompanies them on shore with what assistance he thinks proper, and turns the disputant back to back, at so many paces distance; at the word of command, they turn and fire immediately, (or else the piece is knocked out of their hands). If both miss, they come to their cutlasses, and then he is declared victor who draws the first blood.

  IX. No man to talk of breaking up their way of living, till each had shared £1,000. If in order to this, any man should lose a limb, or become a cripple in their service, he was to have 800 dollars, out of the public stock, and for lesser hurts, proportionately.