EXPULSIS PIRATIS / RESTITUTA COMMERCIA:

GOVERNOR

1679

In approximately this year, Woodes Rogers was born.

1708

The merchants of , England, whose ships were falling prey to Spanish pirates, appointed one of their number, Woodes Rogers, to the command of a retaliatory global expedition for the harassment of Spanish shipping, with as his navigator. He set sail under a as the captain of the 36- gun, 350-ton Duke and the 36-gun, 260-ton Duchess, crewed by 333 “tinkers, taylors, hay-makers, pedlers, fidlers etc, one negro and about ten boys.” He would be at sea from this year into 1711. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1709

While attacking Spanish shipping along the west coast of America, the Woodes Rogers succeeded in capturing the Acapulco Galleon.

February 1, Tuesday (1708, Old Style): The hermit sighted the sails of the Duke and Duchess of Captain Woodes Rogers, two small British privateering vessels. He had been on Más á Tierra Island, husbanding his goats, for a lonely four years and four months.

February 2, Wednesday (1708, Old Style): Woodes Rogers reported that “Immediately our Pinnace return’d from the shore, and brought an abundance of Craw-fifh, with a Man cloth’d in Goat-Skins, who Look’d wilder than the firft Owners of them. He had been on the Ifland Four Years and four Months, being left there by Capt. Stradling In the Cinque-Ports; his name was Alexander Selkirk....”

HERMITS ALEXANDER SELKIRK

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1712

From 1708 until 1711, the privateer Captain Woodes Rogers had led an expedition which would circumnavigate the world while harassing Spanish shipping. William Dampier was his navigator. The expedition was quite profitable, returning with stolen gold bullion, precious stones, and exotic silks. Rogers at this point in published about his voyage, in A CRUISING VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD: FIRST TO THE SOUTH SEAS, THENCE TO THE EAST INDIES, AND HOMEWARD BY THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE...CONTAINING A JOURNAL OF ALL THE REMARKABLE TRANSACTIONS...AN ACCOUNT OF ALEXANDER SELKIRK’S LIVING ALONE FOUR YEARS AND FOUR MONTHS ON AN ISLAND. It had been Woodes Rogers who after navigating through Cape Horn rescued the hermit castaway Alexander Selkirk from the island of Juan Fernandez.

1718

The grand jury in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was asked to allow a charge of to be brought against John Williams, , Michael Grace, William Asheton, George Gardner, Francis Royer, and Henry Burton, that they, with force of arms, viz., with swords, guns, &c., forcibly took the sloop Antelope of twenty-two tons, riding in the Delaware River, and bore her off, &c. The grand jury, presumably for lack of evidence that would be needed to convict, marked this accusation “Ignoramus,” as not actionable. (This Joseph Cooper and his crew of pirates would be captured or killed in the bay of Honduras in 1725.)

The Woodes Rogers became governor of . Like , he received a commission to destroy other pirates.

July: Mr. Woodes Rogers, a governor and vice-admiral of the Bahamas, went out to Nassau to grant pardon to a thousand pirates ashore there who were making their submission to the legitimate government, “they having for their Captains, Hornygold, Davis, Carter, Burgess, Current, Clark, and others.” To some of these people the official awarded civil commissions, and when the Spanish war came, many of these men would become .

An event would occur that would destroy piracy across the . A group of men sent from Island by Governor Rogers to purchase supplies from another island reverted to piracy soon after departing. Governor Rogers offered a bounty to be paid to any pirate who captured and turned over another pirate, and these men were soon captured – by ex-pirates. Rogers chose to make an example of them and their trial was brief and decisive. Of the 13 who had fled 4 had been killed and 9 been brought back alive for trial. Of these 9, one was able to make a case that he had been under duress, and 8 were found guilty. Two days later 7 of these 8 were hung, with at the last moment the governor pardoning one. What no-one in the Caribbean could evade was that these 8 men who had been hanged as pirates had been captured by former pirates, had been tried before a jury of former pirates, and had been executed within days of their return to New Providence Island. What’s piracy coming to? Aside from isolated incidents, no major pirate would again arise in the , and no major new . Free to turn his attention to the Spanish, Governor Rogers would set his men to work on the fort, and they would be able to complete its construction during January 1720. In February 1720, when the Spanish finally would attack, they would be easily repulsed, in one case by a couple of guys armed only with muskets. The Bahamas were securely British.

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1732

July 16, Sunday (Old Style): Woodes Rogers died in Nassau, the Bahamas.

1768

Since it is clear that Henry Thoreau had access to this volume: here are the pages, out of A NEW UNIVERSAL COLLECTION OF AUTHENTIC AND ENTERTAINING VOYAGES AND TRAVELS, FROM THE EARLIEST ACCOUNTS TO THE PRESENT TIME, that pertains to the voyages of discovery of Captain x. CAPTAIN WOODES ROGERS

(Here, also, is the complete text of that sourcebook.) PERUSE THE ENTIRE BOOK!

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1829

During this year HISTORY OF THE PIRATES was republished, by H. Benton, of Hartford — the book that contained the information that Mr. Woodes Rogers, a governor and vice-admiral of the Bahamas, had gone out to Nassau on New Providence Island during July 1718 to grant pardon to a thousand pirates ashore there who were making their submission to the legitimate government, “they having for their Captains, Hornygold, Davis, Carter, Burgess, Current, Clark, and others.” To some of these people the official had awarded civil commissions, and when the Spanish war came, they had become privateers.

The expedition was very successful, with Rogers bringing home bullion, precious stones and exotic silks from victimized Spanish vessels. One of his victims was “the Great Manilla Ship” which he ambushed off the coast of California. “The prize,” Rogers wrote, “was called Nuestra Señora de la Incarnacion, commanded by Sir John Pichberty, a gallant Frenchman; and the prisoners said that the cargo in India amounted to two millions of dollars. She carried one hundred and ninety-three men, and mounted twenty guns.” He also took the Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación de Singano with a cargo similarly valued. Rogers also brought home an extra passenger, a Scottish seaman named Alexander Selkirk. Alexander Selkirk of Largo, Scotland, had run away to sea in 1695. By 1703 was the Master of the Galley. In September of 1704, after a quarrel with his Captain, the hotheaded Selkirk requested that he be put ashore on the uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez, four hundred miles west of Valparaiso, Chile. (This proved a fortunate decision since the ship later sunk with the loss of most hands.) Selkirk remained on Juan Fernandez until February of 1709 when he was discovered by

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Captain Rogers. Despite his long castaway, Selkirk was appointed Mate by Rogers and later given command of a captured prize ship. Selkirk finally returned home to Scotland where he lived the life of a recluse, later returning to sea once more. He died at sea in 1721 at the age of forty-five. Rogers account of this voyage and his rescue of Selkirk was published in 1712 as A CRUZING VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD: FIRST TO THE SOUTH SEAS, THENCE TO THE EAST INDIES, AND HOMEWARD BY THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE...CONTAINING A JOURNAL OF ALL THE REMARKABLE TRANSACTIONS...AN ACCOUNT OF ALEXANDER SELKIRK’S LIVING ALONE FOUR YEARS AND FOUR MONTHS ON AN ISLAND. This book would later inspire to write the classic . (See a detailed and fascinating description of “Alexander Selkirk: The Real Robinson Crusoe” by James S. Bruce and Mayme S. Bruce, published in The Explorers Journal, Spring 1993. Defoe (1660?-1731) was among Rogers’ circle of acquaintances and accomplices that included the famous cartographer Herman Moll (1654-1732), author Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), the buccaneer William Dampier (1651-1715) and the field archeologist Rev. Dr. William Stukeley (1687-1765). Dennis Reinhartz, professor of history, writes that Defoe based (1720), on Dampier and Rogers. He also suggests that Swift modeled the title character in Gulliver’s Travels (1726) on Dampier, Rogers, and Selkirk-Crusoe. (See Reinhartz’s short biography of Moll at Mercator’s World.) In A CRUZING VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD (1712), Rogers describes Selkirk, “Immediately our Pinnace return’d from the shore, and brought an abundance of Craw-fish, with a Man cloth’d in Goat-Skins, who Look’d wilder than the first Owners of them. He had been on the Island four years and four months, being left there by Capt. Stradling. In the Cinque-Ports; his name was Alexander Selkirk… He had with him his clothes and bedding, with a firelock, some powder, bullets and tobacco, a hatchet, a knife, a kettle, a Bible, some practical pieces, and his mathematical instruments and books. He diverted and provided for himself as well as he could, but for the first eight months had to bear up against melancholy, and the terror of being left alone in such a desolate place. He built two huts with pimento trees, covered them with long grass, and lined them with the skins of goats, which he killed with his own gun as he wanted, so long as the powder lasted, which was but a pound; and that being almost spent he got fire by rubbing two sticks of pimento wood together upon his knee...” According to the Bristol Times, The powerful tried to seize the on the spurious grounds that Woodes Rogers had breached their trade monopoly in the area. Rogers’ crew had to fight off the East Indiamen, while trying to avoid press gangs eager to grab them for the navy. The legal rows went on and the Bristol merchants only received £50,000 from the £148,000 the treasure raised. They still doubled their stakes. It was three years before the crew got their share, and only then after they petitioned the House of Lords, alleging “vile and clandestine practices” and fraud. (Bristol Times, “Tales from History,” 11/23/99 In 1717 Rogers was appointed the first royal governor of the Bahamas and charged with ridding the islands of pirates. Originally a base from which English government sanctioned privateers could harass the Spanish, Nassau had become a rouge possession virtually ruled by pirates who owed loyalty to no one. By 1700, the pirates dominated Nassau with “lawless riot and drunken revelry” and chased off the remaining law-abiding citizenry to exile in Great Exuma. Edward Teach, The infamous (Edward Teach), took up residence in Fort Nassau and from which he toyed with the British . It was into this den of wolves the British Crown sent Rogers, a fellow privateer, to make order. The following year he arrived at Nassau, headquarters of more than 2,000 pirates. In his first report to the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, Rogers described his arrival: “...Your Lordships, I arr’ved in this Port on the 26 July last in company with the Men of Warr ordered to assist me. I met with little opposition in coming in, but found a French ship (that was taken by the Pirates of 22 Guns) burning in the Harbour -- which we were told was set on Fire to drive out His Majestys Ship the Rose who got in too early the evening before me, and cut her cable and run out in the Night for fear of being burnt by one who command’d the Pirates and at our [approach] and His Majesty’s Ship -- the Milfords near approach the next morning, they finding it impossible to escape us, he with about ninety men fled away in a Sloop wearing the black Flag and Fir’d guns of Defiance when they perciev’d their Sloop out Sayl’d the Two

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-- that I sent to chase them hence ...” Rogers received a group of representatives from Harbor Island who assured him that, unlike Vane, many of the pirates were eager to accept the King’s amnesty. On the following day, as he landed, “he was received with joy by some three hundred persons. The repentant pirates formed a military guard of honor in two lines and fired off their muskets in celebration.” (Peterson) Whether the greeting was friendly in fact or a false showing, calculating that he was one of them or at the very least no match for them, Rogers quickly consolidated his power. He selected several trustworthy men of Harbor Island who had not been pirates, balancing them with an equal number of his own company, to act as an organizing council. As governor of the Bahamas Rogers exercised much authority, not the least of which was the power of pardon. Offered the Royal pardon all but ten of the most entrenched pirate captains accepted. Those remaining ten, including Blackbeard, were hunted down by Rogers’ forces. Blackbeard died in a legendary sea battle off the coast of Virginia in 1718: “A risk-taker to the end, Blackbeard ignored the warnings of his compatriots and allowed the British ship, Pearl, to trap his vessel in a sandbar. After toasting the British commander with a mug of rum, Blackbeard declared that he would take no quarter and be damned if he gave any. In the hand-to-hand fight that followed, he received “5 pistol balls and 20 wounds” before he fell. The British commander, Lieutenant fought Blackbeard hand-to-hand in the bloody battle and although he is credited with dispatching the infamous pirate it was actually a Scots seaman with a broadsword who beheaded Blackbeard. Maynard displayed Blackbeard’s “glowering head on the tip of the Pearl’s bowsprit.” (from the Official Site of the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism). None of the remaining pirates escaped, all being captured and hanged. Nor perhaps did Woodes Rogers himself escape this life of bloody violence; he died in Fort Nassau in 1732 of “mysterious causes.” Rogers slogan, “Piracy Expelled, Commerce Restored,” (Expulsis Piratis/Restituta Commercia) remained the national motto of the Bahamas until independence in 1973. A simple plaque in Queen Square, Bristol memorializes him: Woodes Rogers 1679-1732 - great seaman, navigator colonial governor. Privateer. This term applied to an armed vessel, its captain or its crew. A privateer was authorized by a commission or a letter of marque from a nation’s government to capture the merchant vessels of a hostile nation. In the eyes of the hostile (or victim nation) they were simply pirates. A letter of marque was recognized by international law and, in theory, a privateer could not be charged with piracy. Nations frequently made use of privateers sailing under a letter of marque to cut the costs of building a navy during times of war. They could be looked upon much as our reserve forces are today. Unfortunately, many privateers found they enjoyed the excitement, wealth and freedom their lifestyle offered and, like Edward Teach, took to defying the very nation he to which he had originally sworn alliance.

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2013. Access to these interim materials eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: October 22, 2013

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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, upon someone’s request we have pulled it out of the hat of a pirate that has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (depicted above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of data modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture. This is data mining. To respond to such a request for information, we merely push a button.

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Commonly, the first output of the program has obvious deficiencies and so we need to go back into the data modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and do a recompile of the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process which you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place your requests with . Arrgh.

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