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History's Hinge - 'Ain Jalut

[Bart]

Letter of Marque To Captain Kidd

Here is an actual image of a letter of marque issued to Captain William Kidd

http://privateer.omena.org/Letterofmarqueimage.html

[Bart]

   Death, portrayed by a skeleton, was the device on the flag beneath which they fought; and a skeleton was for ever threatening to emerge from its cupboard aboard every pirate vessel.

   The end of most of the pirates and a large proportion of the buccaneers was a sudden and violent one, and few of them died in their beds. Many were killed in battle, numbers of them were drowned. Not a few drank themselves to death with strong Jamaica rum, while many of the buccaneers died of malaria and yellow fever contracted in the jungles of Central America, and most of the pirates who survived these perils lived only to be hanged.

   It is recorded of a certain ex-prizefighter and pirate, Dennis McCarthy, who was about to be hanged at New Providence Island in 1718, that, as he stood on the gallows, all bedecked with coloured ribbons, as became a boxer, he told his admiring audience that his friends had often, in joke, told him he would die in his shoes; and so, to prove them liars, he kicked off his shoes amongst the crowd, and so died without them.

   The trial of a pirate was usually a rough and ready business, and the culprit seldom received the benefit of any doubt that might exist.

   If he made any defence at all, it was usually to plead that he had been forced to join the pirates against his wish, and that he had long been waiting for an opportunity to escape.

   Once condemned to death, and the date of execution decided, the prisoner, if at Newgate, was handed over to the good offices of the prison Ordinary; or, if in New England, to such vigorous apostles of Christianity as the Rev. Cotton or the Rev. Increase Mather. The former of these two famous theologians was pastor of the North Church in Boston, and the author of a very rare work published in 1695, called "An History of Some Criminals Executed in This Land." Cotton Mather preached many a "hanging" sermon to condemned pirates, a few of which can still be read. One of these, preached in 1704, is called "A Brief Discourse occasioned by a Tragical Spectacle of a Number of Miserables under Sentence of Death for Piracy."

   The Reverend Doctor made a speciality of these "hanging" sermons, and was a thorough master of his subject, as is shown by the following passage taken from the above "Brief Discourse":

   "The Privateering Stroke so easily degenerates into the Piratical; and the Privateering Trade is usually carried on with an Unchristian Temper, and proves an Inlet unto so much Debauchery and Iniquity."

   On the Sunday previous to an execution the condemned pirates were taken to church to listen to a sermon while they were "exhibited" to the crowded and gaping congregation. On the day of the execution a procession was formed, which marched from the gaol to the gallows.

   At the head was carried a silver oar, the emblem from very early days of a pirate execution. Arrived at the gibbet, the prisoner, who always dressed himself in his, or someone else's, best clothes, would doff his hat and make a speech.

   Sometimes the bolder spirits would speak in a defiant and unrepentant way; but most of them professed a deep repentance for their sins and warned their listeners to guard against the temptation of drink and avarice. After the prisoner's death the bodies of the more notorious pirates were taken down and hanged in chains at some prominent spot where ships passed, in order to be a warning to any mariners who had piratical leanings.

   The number of pirates or buccaneers who died in their beds must have been very small, particularly amongst the former; and I have been able to trace but a single example of a tombstone marking the burial-place of a pirate. This is, or was until recently, to be found in the graveyard at Dartmouth, and records the resting-place of the late Captain Thomas Goldsmith, who commanded the Snap Dragon, of Dartmouth, in which vessel he amassed much riches during the reign of Queen Anne, and died, apparently not regretted, in 1714. Engraved upon his headstone are the following lines:

Men that are virtuous serve the Lord;

And the Devil's by his friends ador'd;

And as they merit get a place

Amidst the bless'd or hellish race;

Pray then ye learned clergy show

Where can this brute, Tom Goldsmith, go?

Whose life was one continual evil

Striving to cheat God, Man and Devil.

[Solomon]

The Masonic Plate
While at first glance, A#14506 would seem to be a simple pewter plate, it is, in fact, one of the most extraordinary artifacts recovered from the Whydah. Inscribed on the top of the plate, near the rim, is the oldest reliably dated representation of the hallmark of freemasonry.

I understand that a link may exist between pirate motifs such as the skeleton, and freemasonry.

Solomon

[Bart]

   A quick search of symbolism does produce historical reference to pirate flags that used some of the same symbols of freemasonry. One site shows four pirate flags, each of which uses one symbol also used by Freemasonry. Beyond that there doesn't seem to be any obvious, strong or ongoing connection between the two. Other groups have and do use one or more of the same symbols of both.

   I wouldn't exactly call piratism a religion of any sort, and pirates obviously weren't the most intelligent folks of western society. Illiterate, highly superstitious, and dead with a year of 'going on the account', on average, most of them likely knew there was no real future for themselves in it. Indeed, some pirates were known to sell booty to certain English men of title who may have been Freemasons, but that appears to be the exception.

   A few pirates used the skull/skeleton, the hourglass, and the heart, as freemasonry also does. From the little I have seen off Freemasonry, those symbols do not appear to be their highest or most important symbols. I got the impression that cosmology was more along that line.

  After viewing a conglomerate of masonic symbols, I see little connection to pirate symbols. But if you have other historical documetation of deeper ties or connections between the two, I am sure many would like to hear about it.

- Bart

[Solomon]

The results you report of your quick search, Bart, for "historical reference to pirate flags that used some of the same symbols of freemasonry" is sufficient to support my remark that "a link may exist between pirate motifs such as the skeleton, and freemasonry".

One need go no deeper than that. As you have demonstrated to your own satisfaction, for some reason, pirates used some of the symbollism of freemasonry. Or vice versa.

If we look a little further, perhaps we can find more.

My understanding of freemasonry is that it began in England, in the 17th century. I know that some freemasons like to consider their brotherhood to be much older, but I am unconvinced by the evidence, which I consider to be bogus.

My view of piracy matches all the facts of the above paragraph, for freemasony: England, 17th century, a brotherhood.

Of course, there has always been piracy and of course, this has been a worldwide criminal activity. However, piracy as we are discussing it, as an important phenomenom that affected affairs of state and became a transatlantic industry, had its roots in 17th-century England.

In my view, both freemasonry and this piracy share the same root: 17th-century England. This root produced what are regarded as two separate brotherhoods.

Maybe the motifs common to the two brotherhoods indicate that they are not entirely separate. The silver plate from the Whydah is a positive link.

Not all pirates were unintelligent and illiterate, Bart. Some, such as Morgan, may not even have been pirates, but agents of the English navy.

You mention how elements of the English aristocracy were sponsors of piracy. Similarly, there were early and strong ties between freemasonry and English aristocracy.

We have posted here a series of documents used within piracy to detail their behaviour as an organisation. They contain a level of democracy unknown in the wider political sphere. Hence the term brotherhood. If pirates had generally been illiterate, Bart, these documents would never have existed.

The brotherhood of freemasonry was also revolutionary in political terms. This is why it became the focus of sometimes severe attack.

Americans like to see their war of independence as revolutionary. It is a matter of record that coastal American colonies had a tendency to harbour and support piracy. Many of the fathers of U.S. independence were freemasons.

This appears to me to be an area that one could study with some prospect of viewing our history of the 17th and 18th centuries in a new light.

Solomon

[Bart]

This should be a very interesting topic, to see if more connection can be made. My first find below doesn't mention Freemasonry, but it shows the realities of a newly born America and her dealings with the Barbary coast pirates/govts.

- Bart

America and the Barbary Pirates: An International Battle Against an Unconventional Foe

by Gerard W. Gawalt

Gerard W. Gawalt is the manuscript specialist for early American history in the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

   Ruthless, unconventional foes are not new to the United States of America. More than two hundred years ago the newly established United States made its first attempt to fight an overseas battle to protect its private citizens by building an international coalition against an unconventional enemy. Then the enemies were pirates and piracy. The focus of the United States and a proposed international coalition was the Barbary Pirates of North Africa.

   Pirate ships and crews from the North African states of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers (the Barbary Coast) were the scourge of the Mediterranean. Capturing merchant ships and holding their crews for ransom provided the rulers of these nations with wealth and naval power. In fact, the Roman Catholic Religious Order of Mathurins had operated from France for centuries with the special mission of collecting and disbursing funds for the relief and ransom of prisoners of Mediterranean pirates.

   Before the United States obtained its independence in the American Revolution, 1775-83, American merchant ships and sailors had been protected from the ravages of the North African pirates by the naval and diplomatic power of Great Britain. British naval power and the tribute or subsidies Britain paid to the piratical states protected American vessels and crews. During the Revolution, the ships of the United States were protected by the 1778 alliance with France, which required the French nation to protect "American vessels and effects against all violence, insults, attacks, or depredations, on the part of the said Princes and States of Barbary or their subjects."

   After the United States won its independence in the treaty of 1783, it had to protect its own commerce against dangers such as the Barbary pirates. As early as 1784 Congress followed the tradition of the European shipping powers and appropriated $80,000 as tribute to the Barbary states, directing its ministers in Europe, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, to begin negotiations with them. Trouble began the next year, in July 1785, when Algerians captured two American ships and the dey of Algiers held their crews of twenty-one people for a ransom of nearly $60,000.

   Thomas Jefferson, United States minister to France, opposed the payment of tribute, as he later testified in words that have a particular resonance today. In his autobiography Jefferson wrote that in 1785 and 1786 he unsuccessfully "endeavored to form an association of the powers subject to habitual depredation from them. I accordingly prepared, and proposed to their ministers at Paris, for consultation with their governments, articles of a special confederation." Jefferson argued that "The object of the convention shall be to compel the piratical States to perpetual peace." Jefferson prepared a detailed plan for the interested states. "Portugal, Naples, the two Sicilies, Venice, Malta, Denmark and Sweden were favorably disposed to such an association," Jefferson remembered, but there were "apprehensions" that England and France would follow their own paths, "and so it fell through."

   Paying the ransom would only lead to further demands, Jefferson argued in letters to future presidents John Adams, then America's minister to Great Britain, and James Monroe, then a member of Congress. As Jefferson wrote to Adams in a July 11, 1786, letter, "I acknolege [sic] I very early thought it would be best to effect a peace thro' the medium of war." Paying tribute will merely invite more demands, and even if a coalition proves workable, the only solution is a strong navy that can reach the pirates, Jefferson argued in an August 18, 1786, letter to James Monroe: "The states must see the rod; perhaps it must be felt by some one of them. . . . Every national citizen must wish to see an effective instrument of coercion, and should fear to see it on any other element than the water. A naval force can never endanger our liberties, nor occasion bloodshed; a land force would do both." "From what I learn from the temper of my countrymen and their tenaciousness of their money," Jefferson added in a December 26, 1786, letter to the president of Yale College, Ezra Stiles, "it will be more easy to raise ships and men to fight these pirates into reason, than money to bribe them."

   Jefferson's plan for an international coalition foundered on the shoals of indifference and a belief that it was cheaper to pay the tribute than fight a war. The United States's relations with the Barbary states continued to revolve around negotiations for ransom of American ships and sailors and the payment of annual tributes or gifts. Even though Secretary of State Jefferson declared to Thomas Barclay, American consul to Morocco, in a May 13, 1791, letter of instructions for a new treaty with Morocco that it is "lastly our determination to prefer war in all cases to tribute under any form, and to any people whatever," the United States continued to negotiate for cash settlements. In 1795 alone the United States was forced to pay nearly a million dollars in cash, naval stores, and a frigate to ransom 115 sailors from the dey of Algiers. Annual gifts were settled by treaty on Algiers, Morocco, Tunis, and Tripoli.

   When Jefferson became president in 1801 he refused to accede to Tripoli's demands for an immediate payment of $225,000 and an annual payment of $25,000. The pasha of Tripoli then declared war on the United States. Although as secretary of state and vice president he had opposed developing an American navy capable of anything more than coastal defense, President Jefferson dispatched a squadron of naval vessels to the Mediterranean. As he declared in his first annual message to Congress: "To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed, one only exception exists. Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States, had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact, and had permitted itself to denounce war, on our failure to comply before a given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean. . . ."

   The American show of force quickly awed Tunis and Algiers into breaking their alliance with Tripoli. The humiliating loss of the frigate Philadelphia and the capture of her captain and crew in Tripoli in 1803, criticism from his political opponents, and even opposition within his own cabinet did not deter Jefferson from his chosen course during four years of war. The aggressive action of Commodore Edward Preble (1803-4) forced Morocco out of the fight and his five bombardments of Tripoli restored some order to the Mediterranean. However, it was not until 1805, when an American fleet under Commodore John Rogers and a land force raised by an American naval agent to the Barbary powers, Captain William Eaton, threatened to capture Tripoli and install the brother of Tripoli's pasha on the throne, that a treaty brought an end to the hostilities. Negotiated by Tobias Lear, former secretary to President Washington and now consul general in Algiers, the treaty of 1805 still required the United States to pay a ransom of $60,000 for each of the sailors held by the dey of Algiers, and so it went without Senatorial consent until April 1806. Nevertheless, Jefferson was able to report in his sixth annual message to Congress in December 1806 that in addition to the successful completion of the Lewis and Clark expedition, "The states on the coast of Barbary seem generally disposed at present to respect our peace and friendship."

   In fact, it was not until the second war with Algiers, in 1815, that naval victories by Commodores William Bainbridge and Stephen Decatur led to treaties ending all tribute payments by the United States. European nations continued annual payments until the 1830s. However, international piracy in Atlantic and Mediterranean waters declined during this time under pressure from the Euro-American nations, who no longer viewed pirate states as mere annoyances during peacetime and potential allies during war.

   For anyone interested in the further pursuit of information about America's first unconventional, international war in the primary sources, the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress holds manuscript collections of many of the American participants, including Thomas Jefferson, George Washington (see the George Washington Papers), William Short, Edward Preble, Thomas Barclay, James Madison, James Simpson, James Leander Cathcart, William Bainbridge, James Barron, John Rodgers, Ralph Izard, and Albert Gallatin.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/jefferson_papers/mtjprece.html

[Diving Doc]

Bart,

That is a great find!
Thanks so much for posting for the Membership.

Cheers,
Doc

[Solomon]

I wrote earlier:
It is a matter of record that coastal American colonies had a tendency to harbour and support piracy.

Caleb Carr

CALEB CARR (BENJAMIN, ROBERT, THOMAS) was born December 12, 1616, and died December 17, 1695 in Newport, Newport, Rhode Island.
He married (1) MERCY VAUGHN in Newport, Newport, Rhod. She was born 1630, and died September 12, 1675 in Newport RI.
He married (2) SARAH CLARKE, daughter of JEREMIAH CLARKE. She was born 1651, and died 1706.
He married (3) ANN EASTON.

Notes for CALEB CARR:
Buried twice; their bodies were moved from Newport to Jamestown. p8: "...he and his wife Mercy were both buried in Newport, RI, near where the Coddington School now stands. On 8 September 1900, the bodies of Caleb and Mercy Carr were disenterred and removed to the island of Jamestown where they still are. They lie in a small private cemetery and are properly marked with the stones that marked their graves in Newport. The inscription on his tombstone reads:

"Here lieth interred the body of Caleb Carr, governor of this colony, who departed this life ye 17th day of December, 1695, in ye 73rd (79) year of his age."

...on 9 May 1635, the ship "Elizabeth and Ann" slipped her moorings and put out from London, England under the command of Roger Cooper Master; her destination was New England...On board were one hundred and two passengers bearing permission to emmigrate to the new world that lay on the western shore of their ocean.... Robert Carr, age 21 and Caleb Carr, age 11.... close associates of William Coddington who came from Boston, Lincolnshire, England as one of the original members of the Mass. Bay Company in 1629 and was a leading merchant in Boston, MA, during this period
...early in 1637 Mr. Coddington lead a group of people, because of religious differences, away from Boston. They went to Providence and conferred with Roger Williams as to settling in those parts. With Mr. Williams aid, the group quickly purchased from the Indians the large island of Aquidnick and immediately proceeded to the business of founding the town of Pocassit (later called Portsmouth). It is thought that the Carrs left Boston with this group. Certainly they were early at the Pocassit settlement for on 21 February 1638 Robert Carr was listed as an inhabitant.
Early in 1639, a small group, with Mr. Coddington, removed to the south end of the island to lay out a new settlement leaving at Pocassit a goodly company to carry on. The name which they gave this new home has remained unchanged all these years: Newport...They quickly purchased from the Indians the sizable island of Conanicut (known now as Jamestown) and Robert and Caleb were among the ninety-eight original purchasers of the island. It is thought that neither of the brothers resided on the island. This move was left to their children
...Caleb Carr took a very prominent part in the affairs of the settlement at Newport and in the Colony of Rhode Island. Among the offices in which he served were: Town Commissioner, Deputy, Justice, General Treasurer and Colonial Governor (in 1695 and terminated by his death late that same year)...Perhaps the thing that Caleb did that had the most lasting effect upon the family was his purchase of large tracts of land on the island of Conanicut/Jamestown, where several of his children took up their residence, and their descendants live there still...he also established a ferry between Newport and Jamestown, in 1675, spanning two hundred and fifity years associated with the Carr family...in the course of all these activities he became possessed of considerable wealth and his residence was on what is now Mill Street in Newport...he owned wharves and a warehouse at the foot of Mill Street where the ferry now docks...his Will disposed of human as well as real and personal property
...his daughter Mary was without children but had a rather famous husband in Thomas Paine. He was a seafaring man and there is strong, evidence to prove that he was partner and intimate of the famous pirate, Captain Kidd..."

"...he was commissioner [of Newport] in 1654-62; was made a freeman in 1655; was deputy from 1664 through 1690...he was governor in 1695, the year in which he died...he bought at different times beginning with 1658, large interests in Conanicut and Dutch Islands...the Carrs as a family became conspicuous in the development of Jamestown and their fortunes have been more or less identified with that town and Newport from their settlement to the present time ..."

Thomas Paine:
Fall 1683 found Paine in Rhode Island attempting to settle down amid a storm of accusations and threats of arrest. Fortunately, the governor of Rhode Island, William Coddington was not of a mind to be bullied by other officials, so Paine remained at liberty. The next word of Paine comes in 1687 when he marries the daughter of Caleb Carr, Jamestown judge, and settles in the same town.

Another pirate known to Carr was Thomas Tew:
Thomas Tew aka the Rhode Island Pirate was a 17th century privateer turned pirate and a friend to Governor Benjamin Fletcher of New York. He was probably born in Maidford, Northamptonshire, England before emigrating to the colonies as a child with his family. He lived in Newport, Rhode Island, moved to Bermuda in 1692, and based himself in Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, a popular hunting ground for 17th century pirates. His personal standard was a white arm holding a sword on a black ground; it means "we are ready to kill you".

He is one of the named founders of the possibly fictional pirate colony of Libertalia.

Captain William Kidd, before he himself turned pirate, was commissioned by King William III to hunt down pirate Thomas Tew.

Tew died around 1695 in an engagement aboard the Fateh Muhammed, owned by the Great Mogul of India, before Captain Kidd reached him.

Rhode Island:
The closing years of the 17th century were characterized by a gradual transition from the agricultural to the commercial stage of civilization. Newport became the centre of an extensive business in piracy, privateering, smuggling, and legitimate trade.

Sir William Phips:
Edward Randolph, Royal Surveyor of Customs, struggled to enforce the Navigation Acts and complained in one of his reports to England that Governor Phips of Massachusetts had threatened to drub him as a public nuisance because by doing his duty, Randolph was interfering with private trade.  He also reported Governor Caleb Carr of Rhode Island, an illiterate who had turned R.I. into a free port for pirates.