The best books about pirates (fact and fiction)

The best books about pirates (fact and fiction)
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Friday, March 20, 2015

Sam Bellamy: "I am a Free Prince"



An excerpt of Captain Bellamy's  Speech to Captain Beer: 

“D--n my B---d, says he, I am sorry they won't let you have your Sloop again, for I scorn to do any one a Mischief, when it is not for my Advantage; damn the Sloop, we must sink her, and she might be of Use to you. Tho', damn ye, you are a sneaking Puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be gov­erned by Laws which rich Men have made for their own Security, for the cowardly Whelps have not the Courage otherwise to defend what they get by their Knavery; but damn ye altogether: Damn them for a Pack of crafty Rascals, and you, who serve them, for a Parcel of hen-hearted Numskuls. 


“They villify us, the Scoundrels do, when there is only this Difference, they rob the Poor under the Cover of Law, forsooth, and we plunder the Rich under the Protection of our own Courage; had you not better make One of us than sneak after the A---s of those Villains for Employment?”

Captain Beer told him, that his Conscience would not allow him to break thro' the Laws of God and Man. 


“You are a devilish Con­science Rascal, d--n ye,” reply'd Bellamy, “I am a free Prince, and I have as much Authority to make War on the Whole World, as he who has a hundred Sails of Ships at Sea, and an Army of 100,000 Men in the Field; and this my conscience tells me; but there is no arguing with such sniveling Puppies who allow Superiors to kick them about Deck at Pleasure; and pin their Faith upon a Pimp of a Parson; a Squab, who neither practices nor believes what he puts upon the chuckle-headed Fools he preaches to.---“

Some of the speeches attributed to Captain Bellamy show evidence of having been borrowed from other literary sources; especially the Jacobite playwright Thomas Otway.

This account of Bellamy appeared in a subsequent volume added to the highly-successful original edition of The General History and some of its content may reflect the author’s desire to “pad” the new volume.



For example:



DEFOE:

I am a free Prince, and I have as much Authority to make War on the Whole World, as he who has a hundred Sails of Ships at Sea, and an Army of 100,000 Men in the Field; and this my conscience tells me; but there is no arguing with such sniveling Puppies who allow Superiors to kick them about Deck at Pleasure; and pin their Faith upon a Pimp of a Parson; a Squab, who neither practices nor believes what he puts upon the chuckle-headed Fools he preaches to.---

OTWAY:

Conscience! a trick of State, found out by those that wanted power to support their Laws; a bug-bear name to startle fools; but we that know the weakness of the fallacie, know better how to use what nature gave.  That Soul’s no Soul which to it self’s a slave.  Who any thing for Conscience sake deny, do nothing else but give themselves the lye [”Alcibiades” Otway 1968 1:129-130]
 


DEFOE:

...you are a sneaking Puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be gov­erned by Laws which rich Men have made for their own Security, for the cowardly Whelps have not the Courage otherwise to defend what they get by their Knavery; but damn ye altogether: Damn them for a Pack of crafty Rascals, and you, who serve them, for a Parcel of hen-hearted Numskuls.  They villify us, the Scoundrels do, when there is only this Difference, they rob the Poor under the Cover of Law, forsooth, and we plunder the Rich under the Protection of our own Courage...


OTWAY

Yes [I am] a most notorious Villain; To see the suffering’s of my fellow Creatures, and own my self a Man: To see our Senators cheat the deluded people with a shew of Liberty, which yet they ne’r must taste of; They say, by them our hands are free from Fetters, yet whom they please they lay in basest bonds; Bring whom they please to Infamy and Sorrow;...that make us slaves and tell us ‘tis our Charter...Where all agree to spoil the Publick Good, and Villains fatten with the brave man’s Labours...We have neither safety, Unity, nor Peace, for the foundation’s lost of Common Good; Justice is lame as well as blind amongst us; The Laws (corrupted to their ends that make ‘em) serve but for Instruments of some new Tyranny, that every day starts up to enslave us deeper: [”Venice Preserv’d, or A Plot Discover’d” Otway 1968:208-210]


Otway, Thomas
1968 The Works of Thomas Otway: Plays, Poems and Love-Letters (J.C. Ghosh, editor).  Clarendon Press reprint of 1932 edition. Oxford.





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