The best books about pirates (fact and fiction)

The best books about pirates (fact and fiction)
Visit my pirate book page on Shepherd.com

Saturday, December 28, 2019

Addressing a French Naval Officer

I was researching information about the French Navy in 1700 and came across this little gem on Wikiwand about how to properly address a French Naval Officer:

Addressing officers

Unlike in the French Army and air force, one does not prepend mon to the name of the rank when addressing an officer (that is, not mon capitaine, but simply capitaine).[15] Addressing a French Navy lieutenant de vaisseau (for instance) with a "mon capitaine" will attract the traditional answer "Dans la Marine il y a Mon Dieu et mon cul, pas mon capitaine!" ("In the Navy there are My God and my arse, no 'my captain'!"). 


 I included this for your edification:

French naval officers

Corsairs

Heroes of the First Republic

Explorers

Other important French naval officers

Notable people who served in the French Navy


Friday, June 21, 2019

New information about HMS Terror and Erebus

I saw this today and since it is from the era on which this blog focuses, I thought you might find it interesting:


Colonial era tavern found!


And I know this one is not about pirates, but so many people enjoyed this series that I thought it might be relevant. I thought it was an interesting update about what might have really happened to the expedition. (The article is from 2018, but might still be new to some people.)

How did the HMS Terror and Erebus expedition perish?

Entire Arctic Expedition Perished, but Not Because of Lead

Study looks at fate of crew aboard HMS Erebus and HMS Terror
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 28, 2018 11:11 AM CDT
In a Sept. 9, 2014 image provided by Parks Canada, HMS Erebus is pictured on a sonar scan in the Queen Maud Gulf in Nunavut.   (Parks Canada/The Canadian Press via AP)
(Newser) – In 1845, Sir John Franklin set sail from England in the hopes of discovering and successfully navigating the Northwest Passage. Instead, all 128 crew members aboard the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror ended up dead. Nearly all of them actually survived until April 1848, when they fled ships that had been ice bound and sought help on foot, only to perish on King William Island. Both shipwrecks were uncovered in the past four years, and Gizmodo reports "well-preserved bodies" of some of the dead sailors have been located in graves. But what felled them all remained unknown though there was a theory: lead poisoning. Now, a study published in PLOS One concludes that wasn't it. The theory was born from prior tests on bone, hair, and tissue taken from some sailors' remains, with the thinking being that tin cans and the ships' water filtration systems may have pushed levels upward.
The Canadian researchers laid out three hypotheses: that the sailors who survived longer would have more lead in their bones, that "bone microstructural features" that grew near the time of death would show higher levels than older tissue, and that the lead levels would be higher than those of other contemporaneous sailors. They then used a high-resolution scanning technique to compare bone and dental remains with those from the Royal Navy cemetery in Antigua and found that none of the hypotheses held up—and so, "taken together," the researchers found the lead poisoning theory unsupported. Where does that leave us? One of the researchers tells the CBC things could have just gradually deteriorated. "They would have been starving. They would have had nutritional deficiencies." (Read about Franklin's wife's relentless mission to find her missing husband.)



Thursday, May 30, 2019

The Whydah Pirates Speak, Volume 2 is now available!

OK, so it's not available in print yet, but that is coming! It's a lot harder to format a manuscript for print than for electronic publishing. I hope to have the print manuscript finished up soon. 
Meanwhile, if you prefer electronic reading, you can buy your copy now!



Also available through these fine retailers:


27 May 2019
27 May 2019
27 May 2019
28 May 2019
28 May 2019
27 May 2019
27 May 2019
PUBLISHING
28 May 2019
30 May 2019
27 May 2019

Saturday, May 18, 2019

Life in 1700 - Coffee spies!


I had no idea until I looked up information about how coffee was served in the 1700’s that there was such a thing as a coffee spy! So for this post, I just HAD to look up this phenomenon and see what it was all about. 


Old Time Farm Crime: The Coffee Spies of the 1700’s









Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Bounty image coin from the Cook Islands

I came across this interesting coin recently and thought some folks might be interested in it. It is a commemorative image of HMS Bounty issued by the Cook Islands. 


Cook Islands 2018 Bounty 1 Oz. Silver Dollar Brilliant Uncirculated

Price: $39.00

 
SKU: 49126
Description Collectors and investors both love the Cook Islands Bounty bullion issues. The obverse of this 2018 one ounce .9999 fine silver coin carries an engraving that displays the sailing vessel, HMS Bounty featured in the well-known novel, Mutiny of the Bounty. An intricate wave-like design in the background adds fantastic depth to the image. Queen Elizabeth II graces the reverse. The Cook Islands are comprised of 15 individual volcanic islands as well as coral atolls spread throughout more than 770,000 square miles of the South Pacific Ocean. Brilliant Uncirculated quality.

The web site to order the coin is here: 




 




Women in Piracy 2022

Women in Piracy 2022
Listen to my talk on what life was like for women in the early 1700s and what made them decide to sneak on board ships as sailors.

Tune in to my interview with Phil Johnson!

Tune in to my interview with Phil Johnson!
Positive reviews on itunes are appreciated!