The use of white flags for pirate ensigns

This week’s post features a note from The Mariner’s Mirror regarding the use of a white ensign for a pirate flag by a French pirate. 

I tried to include a copy of the downloaded text from the magazine, but I’m afraid it didn’t come out very well. It’ll at least give you an idea of what it looked like in the original magazine, though.

I have a footnote to this note in my book The Whydah Pirates Speak. Now I’m finally able to present the entire note to you. 

Special thanks to Byrne Mcleod for providing me with a copy of this page from The Mariner's Mirror. 

Dr. Byrne McLeod

Honorary Secretary

Society for Nautical Research

NOTES 

THE PIRATE FLAG 

The National Maritime Museum has recently received as a gift a copy of the 21st edition of Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Holy Dying (London, 1710). The volume shows signs of hard use. 

The engraved frontispiece is lacking from the first part; and at an early date the printed title was partly torn away and the deficiency supplied by a tolerable pen facsimile. 

The binding of contemporary calf has been crudely repaired by the sewing of three heavy bands of leather across the back. This repair seems to have been executed about r 50 years ago. 

On the flyleaf at the close of the volume occurs the following inscription: 

'Septr. 28'h: I7I7 at 8 in the morning in y•. Lat. of 32° 8' about I6o Leag: west from Madaira Wee were attack'd by a French Pyratt w'h Death's head in black in y• middle of a white Ensign, and by the Providence of God were de- livered, altho' they were once so neare that there shott flew a great way over us, and were Likewise once a head of us.... ' 

The writer of this interesting entry cannot be identified with certainty but may have been John Bentley; for the following inscription also appears at the end of the book: 

'John Bentley I7I4' and 'Jonathan Skrine J.C's Book Gave by Mr. Thomas
Murry Fabr. ye 8th I7r8/9.' 

GEOFFREY CALLENDER

Citation: ARTHUR WELFORD, J. A. STEWART, J. A. STEWART, B. GREENHILL, GEOFFREY CALLENDER, E. R. COOPER & E. R. COOPER (1941) NOTES, The Mariner's Mirror, 27:3, 260-265, DOI: 10.1080/00253359.1941.10658768

Published online: 22 Mar 2013. 

With special thanks to David Cordingly for answering my email about the origins of this reference in his book Under the Black Flag, The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates.