I was wunderin’ the other day if pyrates kept captain’s logs? Journals? Did pyrates actually write anything about their adventures? I have heard rumours that some pyrates DID keep journals and logs, and while I was plunderin’ that subject, I stumbled across a Smithsonian Magazine article about a 300-year-old book that was found aboard Blackbeard’s flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge.
Well, let me be clear: It wasn’t an intact book. It was 16 fragments from a book found in a pile of sludge inside of a cannon. The marine archaeologists who are excavating Blackbeard’s ship in North Carolina were rather stunned; paper doesn’t usually survive for 300 years in mud and seawater. Especially, paper with legible writing on it.
Yet, it happened.
In fact, using some serious sleuthing skills, the archaeologists were able to identify the book! How crazy is THAT? After drying the paper for about 48 hours, (and the largest scrap was the size of a quarter!), several words were actually discernible: “”South of San,” “(f)athom” and “Hilo,”. Not much to go on, but it was all they had.
A year was spent researching and lo and behold, the book was identified as A Voyage to the South Sea, and Round the World, Perform’d in the Years 1708, 1709, 1710 and 1711 by Captain Edward Cooke.
Let that sink in for a moment, (pun intended): 16 readable fragments of a 300-year-old book were not only found but also identified by an intrepid crew of marine archaeologists.
In today’s modern, digital world, the enormity of such an undertaking is easily overlooked. Wow, just wow. Here’s another fun fact about the book: the leader of the expeditions that the book documents was none other than Woodes Rogers. Aye, THAT Woodes Rogers: The man who ran the pyrate brethren, the Flying Gang, out of Nassau
So, on board the Queen Anne’s Revenge there was a book about the voyages of Woodes Rogers. I think we can safely assume that at least some of the pyrates aboard the ship were familiar with Rogers’ name, and no doubt, Blackbeard knew it well.
Weird, aye? Truth is sometimes so much stranger than fiction.
Who, if anyone, was reading the book? How and where did they get it? Was the book discussed amongst the pyrates at their weekly book club gathering? (Oh, you didn’t know that pyrates had book clubs? Just kidding…)
Another possibility, (remember, the pages of the book had been torn into tiny fragments), was the destroying of the book an act of defiance and anger? From the Smithsonian article:
“It’s likely that pages were torn from the book and used as wadding in the cannon. Someone could have randomly grabbed the book during the heat of battle. It’s also possible that Blackbeard and Rogers knew of one another or tangled with each other. The same year Rogers arrived in the Bahamas, Blackbeard departed the area, heading to North Carolina.”
Expressing your disgust with someone by taking a book that had been written about them, ripping it to shreds, and then shoving it down a cannon to be used as wadding has a certain flavor of truth to it. Yet, it is a bit of a reach, aye? Oh well…anyway…
Maybe I’m just a wee bit giddy about this particular Bootstrap GInny plunder, but I do think that we should, at the very least, drink a toast to the marine archaeologists who found, researched, and identified the fragments. HUZZAH!
As for the pyrate or pyrates from Blackbeard’s crew, (perhaps even Blackbeard himself), who somehow got the book and presumably read it (or parts of it, at least), I also have to raise a toast.
What a really neat glimpse into the world of pyrates, aye?
For more about the QAR marine excavation: https://www.qaronline.org/
Next time, Redbeard, King of the Sea…until then, keep plunderin’ !
Virginia Chandler 