A brief post in honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day. 🙂
1. Active Duty Pirate Speech:
“[H]owever nothing daunted at the disadvantage of Fight, we made a resolution rather than drown in the Sea, or beg Quarter of the Spaniard, who we used to Conquer, to run the extreamest hazard of Fire and Sword, and after a sharp Contest, still birding with our Fusees as many as durst peep over Deck, we boarded one of them, and carried her; so with her we took the second; and the third had certainly run the same fate, had not she scoured away in time…”
–Buccaneer John Cox.
“Shee fierd a Harkquebus att us, att which wee presented them with a whole Volley; she fier severall small gunns at us, and wounded 3 men. one of them after-wards died. wee laid her aboard and tooke her. She had about 30 hands in her, fitted out for an Armadillo to come downe to the Isle of Plate, to see what a posture we lay in…”
–Buccaneer Edward Povey.
2. Retired Pirate Speech:
“In his drink Sir Henry [Morgan] reflects on the Government, swears, damns, and curses most extravagantly…”
–Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies.
The Buccaneer’s Realm has an entire chapter on “Tarpaulin Cant and Spanish Lingua.”
First posted September 19, 2020.
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