The Pirate Crew

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THE PIRATE 'GUNNER'

Pirates had a great affinity with ‘big guns’ and gunpowder - their love for both of these them saw pirates imbibe a popular and powerful alcoholic drink known as ‘Kill-Devil’ (a sticky blend of beer or ale, sherry and brandy) given it’s particularly ‘diabolical’ flavour by adding a pinch of gunpowder as a salute to the pirates affection and association with this important chemistry !

The ‘Gunner’ aboard a ship had the responsibility for the use and maintenance of ‘the great guns’ : the cannons the ship was carrying. Most of the guns would kept loaded, their bores ‘stopped’ at the muzzle with a wooden plug known as a ‘tompion’ and the touch-hole covered with a lashed-on lead plate perhaps lined with a piece of oiled fleece beneath it to keep out the damp.

In the early part of the 18th Century, guns were no longer known as they had been known in the mid-17th century : the classifications given to cannon were now given under the weight of the solid-shot projectile for their bore and a bewildering variety of differently-bored guns had been partly ‘standardised’ into categories.

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Similarly, gun-carriage design had developed and robust carriages were now specifically constructed to suit a use aboard ship. These new carriages were far lighter. lower and smaller, fitted with wooden ‘trucks’ instead of spoked wheels, and overall having a centre of gravity making it very difficult for the carriage to be accidentally over-turned. Initially for use at sea, artillery designed for land service were commonly dragged on board ships to have their wheels removed and the carriage and barrel lashed to the deck for use. This meant that many ‘breech-loading’ cannons fitted with removeable ‘chambers’ were used aboard ship they could be reloaded with recourse to the facility of ‘recoil’ bringing them back inboard. Later, as the fashion caught on, purpose-built warships carried specialized artillery. By ‘The Golden Age of Pirates’, muzzle-loading cannons as seen below were the norm aboard ship. Most cannons were now from cast-iron but some guns still remained in use that were cast from bronze (giving that material it’s popular alternative name : ‘gun-metal’).

Early breech-loading guns were easier to handle and reload on ships than muzzle-loaders : once the captain and crew had been convinced the ship wasn’t going to sink or turn-turtle under the added weight, set fire to the sails or the ship be shaken to pieces by the detonations, having guns on board ships seemed to catch on. Fired singly or in broadside, the simple naval artillery tactic - as ships can’t typically shoot in the same direction as the one they are sailing - became to put your ship broadside-on behind or in front of the enemy vessel so you could shoot at him without being shot at in return. Vessels possessing sweeps (oars) had a distinct advantage in manoeuvres in anything except ideal wind conditions : a galley for example if there was no wind could placed itself under the counter of a square-rigged vessel under sail having no sweeps, remaining on station and firing a heavy bow-mounted cannon through the stern windows for the shot to pass the length of the target’s lower deck.

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Most pirate vessels of this period carried guns of a calibre less than 12-pounders. The gun above would fire a roundshot about the size of the one shown : the cannons aboard ship came in different sizes, usually described by the weight of the roundshot they fired (i.e. 4-pounder, 9-pounder etc) and though similar in design as the above gun could weigh between a quarter of a ton up to five tons for a heavy 24 or 32-pounder. The gunbarrel itself rests on a stout wooden carriage made of oak, beech and elm clamped together by long ‘ring-bolts’ and fitted with small wheels named ‘trucks’. The barrel is clamped to the carriage by the ‘trunnions’, projections cast into each side of the barrel and held down by trunnion-clamps and bolts. The muzzle of the gun-barrel is elevated up or down by moving the sliding cheese-shaped ‘quoin’ in or out with the Gunner looking along the barrel itself - there are no sights fitted to these guns!

Most naval engagements subsequently occurred at close-range ; though a cannon could throw a heavy iron ball over a thousand yards, the chance of it striking a target (even coastal fortifications) at that range was minimal. Until the target completely filled the gun port, a gunner could not be reasonably certain of his projectile striking the enemy - and this was a common tactic used at sea. Ranges at sea were far less than could be gained on land - the artilleryman’s practice of aiming for ‘first graze’ to send a ball bouncing through an infantry or cavalry formation in a battle ashore was not available at sea (though very experienced gunners in Nelson’s navy were said to be able to judge the range to ‘bounce’ a solid-shot off the surface of the sea in order to strike an enemy hull right on the water-line).

Gun crews could be two seamen for a small cannon : but increasing the weight of shot meant the gun became heavier and more awkward in proportion. A team of three can manage a four or six-pounder, and though the reader may think there doesn’t sound much difference between a four-man crew operating a 9-pounder and using a 12-pounder instead, the 12-pounder gun would weigh half a ton more and require a team of six seamen to operate it. As there were no sights on cannons, range, aim and target all depended on the experience of the Gunner. As the ship rolled from side to side in normal progress through the water, a gunner had to judge just the right time to apply fire to the touch-hole in anticipating the target passing his view : ‘firing on the uproll’ meant a shot going into the rigging, but ‘firing on the downroll’ meant a shot aimed for the hull. In reality, most cannon-shots would probably miss at long to medium range unless sea was very calm … or the target was a damned big one!

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LOADING AND FIRING

Loading a Gun began with throwing off any protective wrappings such as muzzle-tompions or vent-covers, unlashing the gun from the deck and freeing the gun-tackles to the gun-carriage. The gunner or gun-captain would ‘worm’ the bore of the gun with either a ‘pigtail’ or a double-worm - looking like a corkscrew in appearance, fitted onto a wooden shaft - to make sure that nothing had entered the bore and using a long ‘pricker’ would clear the priming vent. The powder charge would be contained in a cartridge, a linen or hempen cloth bag containing the required charge for the gun bore and sewn-up by the gunner or his mates and brought to the gun by a seaman or a ‘powder-monkey’ in a secure leather pass-box. The cartridge would be placed in a copper ladle to sparks and prevent any tearing on passage down the bore : the ladle upon reaching the breech and being turned through 180 degrees left the cartridge at or near the end of the breech to be gently pushed home with a touch from the rammer. The selected ammunition would then be loaded and rammed, often incorporating a ‘wad’ to secure the ammunition and prevent a loss of pressure. The gun would then be ‘laid’ - run out of the port using hand-tackles, pointed at the target using the handspikes and the elevation adjusted using the quoins if necessary. The gun would then be primed by the gun-captain who would pass his pricker down the vent to pierce the cartridge then fill the vent with gunpowder from a powder-horn. To discharge the gun, the gun-captain would order the crew to clear away from the gun before using a glowing match-cord fitted into a linstock to ignite the powder at the vent. The gun would then discharge with a tremendous boom, as the cannon recoiled ‘inboard’ the weight would be taken up by the tackles, with a cloud of gunsmoke drifting either downwind towards the enemy or temporarily blinding the gun-crew if upwind. To reload, the gun would be first wormed and then sponged-out using a bucket of sea-water for safety to remove any potential smouldering fragments of the previous cartridge before the loading process could begin again. The same procedure served for swivel-guns and if necessary a swivel-gun could be used and reloaded by a single seaman.

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Slight changes occurred in gun-practice, tools, cartridge and ammunition design through the 18th Century ; some projectiles were incorporated into the cartridge along with the propellant gunpowder and red-hot shot was sometimes fired to increase the destruction at the target or in an attempt to set it on fire ; later a specific round would be designed named a ‘carcass’ for incendiary purposes. The rammer, ladle, sponge and worm were fitted to stout wooden staves between two and four inches in diameter and between four and eighteen feet long, depending on the power and hence size, weight and length of the gun. These tools hung on overhead racks above the gun if below deck or could be fitted to the gun-carriage, stacked along the rail or around the masts on smaller guns carried by smaller vessels. Priming later developed from linstock to quill-fuzes through to flintlock ignition.

A Gunner or Gunners Mates would train a gun-crew. Only in a matched battle would the speed of reloading be essential - but if a mistake occurred during loading it could cripple the gun and/or severely injure the gun-crew. By comparison, a properly-loaded gun, a well-timed and well-placed shot could equally immediately cripple an opponent or a prize. ‘Bursting’ gun-barrels were not unknown but this wasn’t common and usually resulted from bad usage, battle damage or simple wear and tear through old age or neglect. Guns aboard ship were also used for ‘signalling purposes’ - a gun could fire a blank as a threat or a warning-shot or as an agreed ‘time-signal’ to return to the ship if the crew were ashore, and a gun fired at intervals close to shore in bad weather would be taken as a ‘distress signal’. Modern maritime archaeologist or ‘treasure-hunters’ generally look for cannons lying on the sea-bed in trying to find a shipwreck.

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AMMUNITION AND PROJECTILES

The ammunition cartridge for each gun would be a measured weight of gunpowder sewn up into a ‘cartridge’ made of cloth - the cartridge used was the same for each projectile. Most ‘Gunners’ recommended roundshot as the best form of all-round projectile for it’s overall destructiveness - if a roundshot struck timbers at close-range, it would pass through them and send out at high velocity a shower of ‘shivers’ in the form of sharp wooden splinters. These were deadly to a seaman on deck as some were of great size and even if they could be found and extracted by a surgeon, with an onion being the only regular ‘disinfectant’ even from a tiny shiver such a wound was disabling and could fester to cause a slow death by disease. The kind of projectile available to the Gunner ran through a choice of selective destruction:

Solid Shot or Roundshot : an iron ball fitting the bore of the gun, usually between two and eight inches in diameter. Extremely destructive at close-range and large calibres are effective ashore at ranges up to 2500 yards against wood or stone - a 12-pounder ashore would still be effective against flesh and blood at 1200 metres and there are records of larger roundshot being fired at sea at ranges of half a mile to the target. A variation on this would be to heat up roundshot in a furnace to fire ‘red-hot shot’ - the ball would lodge in timber and start a fire very difficult to extinguish aboard ship, a common practice by shore-based artillery against incoming vessels. Some cannonballs could be stored near a gun for ready use, but roundshot had to be kept clean so as not to jam in the bore of the gun : balls would be passed through a ring to ensure this. Cannonballs were stacked in ‘garlands’ to prevent any loose movement and is where the old saying ‘It is cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey’ originates. Roundshot being rolled around the deck at night was a traditional indication that the crew were dissatisfied with the progress of the Captain !

Bar or Chain-shot : two or more iron balls linked by a chain or a forged iron bar. This form of projectile is ideal for smashing through sails, rigging and spars but the famous Admiral Benbow lost a leg to one of these fighting the French off Jamaica. Many variations of this particular shot can be found.

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Grapeshot : a bundle of smaller iron balls bolted between two wooden discs which disintegrated on discharge, so named as the ammunition was said to resemble a bunch of grapes. Ideal for shredding timber, sails or groups of people fired at medium range. ‘Quilted’ grape were similar sized balls wrapped and bound in stout cloth.

Canister : musket-balls packed into a tin - these gave even a small cannon or swivel-gun a terrific sawn-off shotgun effect at close-range. Small swivel-guns loaded with this sort of shot were nicknamed ‘murderers’ by pirates.

Sangrel or Langridge : similar to the above but consisting of sharp iron fragments gathered in a sack or placed in a tin can. An English pirate in 1689 fired chopped-up horseshoes at a French prize and it was not unknown for any sort of material to be loaded into cannons for this purpose.
Partridge : similar to Canister but using pistol-sized shot or smaller in a bag, sack or can giving a terrific anti-personnel capacity but greatly reducing the risk of potential damage to solid materials aboard a target such as the hull, mast, spars or rigging.

Common Shell : not generally available until much later in the 18th Century, consisting of a hollow iron ball filled with gunpowder and fitted with a wooden fuse-plug. Shells were designed to be fired from guns to explode on board the enemy vessel, with the blast throwing out large pieces of the fractured shell casing. From the early part of the last quarter of the 18th Century, British ‘carronades’ were specially designed for this practice aboard ship, often cast in the enormous calibre of 68-pounder and placed as bow-chasers on manoeuvrable slides giving a very wide angle of fire.

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SHORE-BASED ARTILLERY

Ports, harbours, bases, estuaries and navigable rivers - especially at their mouths - were often defended from enemy attack or penetration by powerful cannons mounted in stone fortifications, many of these placed at an elevation well above sea-level. Serving as a Gunner in one of these could be tedious even in wartime, but their garrisons were generally kept practised in the ‘fall of shot’. The monster-guns within these defences were often of a heavy calibre - a hit from just one of these would be enough to do serious damage on a ship as an iron ball from a 24, 32 or 48-pounder would have a muzzle-velocity in excess of 800 feet per second and it’s kinetic or potential energy could see it pass straight through a ships’ hull, especially in a ‘plunging shot’ fired from a high elevation at medium to close range and striking a deck. The threat from these monster-weapons usually served the purpose of keeping an enemy at bay and it might be noted that privateer or pirate attacks on such well-defended places were generally made by landing shore-parties by boat at night some distance away from the target in the hope of achieving ‘surprise’.

A pirate ship laid-up for any length of time in ‘careening’ or a similar purpose would often land some of it’s guns and munitions and place them in similar defensive positions ashore around the ship to defend it from attack whilst the work was undertaken … all this meant hard work for all the crew, but especially the ‘Gunner’.

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SHIPS SURGEON, DOCTOR & APOTHECARY

In the early 18th Century, the definitive book on surgery aboard ship was The Surgions Mate ; this had been written by John Woodall, who in the preceding century had served for thirty years as Surgeon-General to the East India Company responsible for appointing ‘able and fit’ surgeons and surgeons-mates and the fitting-out of medical chests with medicines, instruments and ‘appurtenances thereto’. Each East-Indiaman had a copy of this book on board and thereby each of their vessels had the best record of providing medical facilities. The book was the first medical textbook written catering for surgeons at sea ; a comprehensive listing of all forms of disease and likely wounds, with descriptions of treatments including amputation. Woodall also included a full list of what a ships medical chest must contain and chemical descriptions of how to prepare and mix pills, potions and lotions.

It seems the most common ailment amongst seamen was constipation, brought on by the usual diet of salted food and treated by administering an enema using a syringe ; another common ailment were skin boils through spending long periods wearing clothes damp through sweat or seawater, especially in a hot climate.

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Rather than any formal qualifications as a ships’ doctor or surgeon, the skills required were mostly gained through wide experience and knowledge gained on previous voyages and in possessing a well-stocked medical kit to treat everything from gunshot wounds, splinters through up by a cannonball strike to several forms of venereal disease or parasites such as skin and intestinal worms and of course, all sorts of tropical fevers any of which could devastate a crew. A speedy treatment aboard ship by a skilled surgeon saved the life of many a sick or wounded pirate but not all ships had a doctor on board, hence the surgeon being considered along with a experienced captain and navigator a valued commodity by any crew and these men were ‘pressed’ or ‘forced’ whenever found aboard a prize. Surgeons aboard a pirate ship often worked aboard to a set wage and sometimes also got a share in any plunder ; pirate ‘articles’ included set rates for lost limbs or eyes which were awarded to any crewman unfortunate to suffer from this from any plunder before the balance was then distributed on an ‘equal shares’ basis.

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It was not unknown for ships to carry live animals such as chickens, goats and sheep to provide a source of fresh meat - as long as the fodder lasted - but fruit, vegetables, soft cheese and other such perishable stores aboard ship would obviously rot and turn bad in the course of time and become useless unless eaten before then. Symptoms of scurvy appeared aboard a ship after around twelve weeks at sea - sometimes earlier on return passages - and began with dizziness, initial listlessness leading to a total loss of energy, a swelling and slow decolourization of the limbs (including turning black), bleeding gums and hair, fingernails and even teeth becoming loose and falling out. Just 10 milligrams of Vitamin C each day is enough to combat the disease, but a chronic affliction was fatal if not cured and not all crewmen recovered once reaching land and being fed on fresh food. Although this ailment was well known amongst seamen, the direct cause of it wasn’t known by the early 18th Century. Captains noticed that as an alternative to salted stores, fresh food and water ‘cured’ the sufferers and some masters tried to carry fresh fruits and vegetables aboard ship when possible. However, these weren’t appreciated by all crews : after the mid-18th Century Captain James Cook tried sauerkraut to alleviate scurvy on his long ‘voyages of discovery’ but his crew almost mutinied when he insisted they eat it. Later long-term voyages by the Royal Navy included a stock of limes aboard ship for crews to eat or drink the juice of, which as every schoolboy knows gave the nickname ‘Limeys’ given to British seamen by American sailors. Native trees and bushes bearing fruit were often cut down by crews ashore to make gathering easier but this obviously inhibited or even destroyed future growth. Privateer and pirate crews had previously landed on island bases such as Juan Fernandes to plant seeds for specific ‘antiscorbutics’ in the form of vegetables and other greenstuffs in small laid-out gardens or plots for collection by them or other vessels later ; gardens which patrolling or pursuing Spanish ships destroyed whenever they found to limit the availability of fresh food to ‘invaders’. Pirates in raiding villages ashore often told off part of the crew from the general search for plunder to find and carry off all available food and drink, a habit that led to any Europeans being decidedly unwelcomed by natives who would quickly hide everything of any value upon spotting a ship and drive their animals inshore ; a fact which could be hazardous for any captain hoping to re-victual his ship at that spot.

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The different wounds a pirate surgeon might be called upon to deal with are many and varied, from the simple extraction of splinters, burns, skin grazes and dislocated or broken limbs from shipboard falls, to more serious wounds inflicted in a fight. ‘Probing for a bullet’ involved just that, the surgeon using a thin probe to find the bullet and inserting forceps to grasp and remove it. Damage to the internal organs could see a pirate placed to one side to see if he lived or died. Stitching up a cut or a laceration would see the skills of a tailor employed if there was no surgeon aboard. In the days before any anaesthetic beyond opium - or its derivative, laudanum - a common seaman could be given a mug of rum to drink before the operation to dull the senses. Any deep laceration or battle-damage to any joint would mean immediate amputation, with the carpenters axe - heated red-hot in the galley then applied to cauterise the stump. Transfusions were not yet known, but it was not unknown for a wounded or a sick man to be ‘bled’ from a vein of several ounces of blood to alleviate a fever or to deal with shock.

Though largely an unsung hero, a ‘world-wise’ surgeon having a finely honed set of instruments and a well-stocked medicine chest aboard a pirate ship was a very valuable resource.

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PIRATE MARITIME NAVIGATION
“We can all sail a course - but who’s to set one ?”
A quote from ‘Long John Silver’ in the novel Treasure Island

In the year 1700, various maritime instruments were available to assist a Ships’ Master in setting and keeping a course but Navigation was not yet a science and still very much an art in the form of ‘an informed guess’. The basics of navigation were taught ashore in what was described as ‘river discipline’ (i.e. before you went to sea) but it was always conceded that this was no substitute for actual experience at sea. Disasters - in the form of ships or even fleets of ships being lost - were not uncommon.

The basics of maritime navigation involve simple calculations based on information about the speed of a vessel and the direction in which it is heading. ‘Plain sailing’ can be plotted in it’s simplest form as follows : using your compass, note which direction the ship is traveling from a known position such as a harbour or a port and any necessary changes in direction at the wheel or tiller. Using the ‘log-line’, measure the speed of the ship each hour. After twenty-four hours, you will have enough information to plot a position on a chart (should you have one). This information plotted on a chart will show the location of your ship upon it, and you can calculate using basic tools how long it will take you to reach a nearby destination and in what direction to sail to reach it. This is named ‘Deduced Reckoning’ in terms of position. But - of course it isn’t as straightforward as that and if it was as simple as this, anyone would be able to do it !

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A navigator needs to be literate - to be able to read and write to some degree in order to keep records of where the ship is at any one time. He may or may not have a chart - in 1700 charts were slowly becoming more widely available - but the information on any of these charts was not necessarily accurate and wide areas of the globe still remained uncharted. Currents, the tide and the wind also affect a ship in motion - in simple terms, the ship would also be moving ‘sideways’ to some degree and if you didn’t allow for ‘leeway’ in your calculations you will never plot a true position. The wind direction always decrees which direction your ship would be able to sail in - which might not be the direction you actually want to sail in! To reach some destinations you would have to plot a course to suit the prevailing wind which on a chart would be seen as a series of ‘zig-zags’ rather than as straight line. Long voyages made over months would have to allow for the fact that Time is not a constant - any drop in wind or any other unseen hazard would mean that your anticipated arrival time cannot be declared with accuracy : in some cases, an estimate of an arrival would fall between two dates sometimes spanning several weeks rather than several days. If your ship ran out of food and water because of this - you will die !

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Navigation is closely tied in with ‘anticipation’ - your ship can’t go backwards (not without risking serious damage anyway) and unlike a motor vehicle a ship is not fitted with brakes. Staying close to the coast would engender more accurate navigation especially if you had a map or a chart - but a trans-Atlantic voyage and of course, into ‘uncharted waters’ - negates this possibility. The coast itself involves dangers such as ‘shoal water’ (shallows) and of course, rocks and reefs. The onshore breeze and tide would make being caught on a ‘lee shore’ extremely hazardous if your ship could not get clear to windward - if you had to anchor to prevent being blown ashore if your anchors then dragged in a strong wind, your ship will be wrecked and you can do absolutely nothing about it ! As a pirate, by staying close to a coast or an island, in a regular ‘sea-lane’ or near a location commonly used by shipping, you would seriously limit your operational area and sooner or later ships would avoid that spot - and you would also attract the attention of the Royal Navy or a Spanish coastguard with the intention of capturing your ship or simply blowing it out of the water. In open sea, how could you check your ‘plain sailing’ or ‘Deduced Reckoning’ was correct ? You really need two references - a plot north-south in terms of LATITUDE and a second plot east-west in terms of LONGITUDE ; where the two lines ‘crossed’ that would be your actual position. You could do this by using instruments, of which in the year 1700 two main forms were available : latitude can be calculated by ‘observing’ and measuring the height above the horizon of the sun at noon (the ‘altitude’ angle) - and by keeping track of Time you can calculate your longitude.