Pirate Articles & Life at Sea
Every company made its own laws.
The wiki mixes real history with the invented world of Free Nassau. Historical figures and dates are noted as such; invented characters, places and events belong to the game’s setting.
The articles
A merchant seaman of the early 1700s signed on under a master who held almost absolute authority, could flog him for small faults and might cheat him of his wages. Pirate companies turned that arrangement upside down. Before a cruise, the crew agreed a set of written articles that every man signed or marked, often swearing on a Bible or a hatchet. The articles set out how plunder would be shared, how the company would be governed and what punishments applied. Several sets survive in trial records and in Captain Charles Johnson’s General History of the Pyrates (1724), most famously those of Bartholomew Roberts and of George Lowther.
Captain and quartermaster
Pirate captains were elected, and they could be voted out. The captain had full command in chase and battle, when quick decisions mattered, but at other times major questions went to the whole company. Charles Vane lost his command this way in 1718, and Hornigold a year earlier. The quartermaster, also elected, was the crew’s representative: he kept order, settled quarrels, issued provisions, led boarding parties and took charge of dividing the plunder. On many ships he was as powerful as the captain.
Shares
Plunder was divided by shares. A typical arrangement gave the captain and quartermaster two shares each, the master, boatswain and gunner one and a half, other officers one and a quarter, and every other man one. That was a far flatter division than on a privateer, where owners and officers took most of the profit. Many articles also set aside money for injuries: a fixed sum, often several hundred pieces of eight, for the loss of an arm or leg, and smaller amounts for an eye or a finger. Before the general division, the surgeon and carpenter might be paid for their work, and a man who first sighted a prize could win a bonus.
Rules aboard
Articles commonly forbade gambling for money aboard, fighting between crewmen on board, and carrying a naked flame into the hold, since fire was the great danger of a wooden ship full of powder. Lights were to be out at a set hour. Weapons had to be kept clean and ready. Quarrels were to be settled ashore, sometimes by a formal duel overseen by the quartermaster. Punishments included loss of shares, flogging and marooning: being left on a deserted shore with a little water, powder, shot and a pistol. Desertion in battle could mean death.
Daily life
Most days at sea were not spent fighting. The crew worked in watches, sailing and maintaining the vessel, mending sails and rigging, pumping the bilges and keeping a lookout for sails. Pirate ships carried far more men than they needed to sail, so there was more idle time than aboard a merchantman, and more crowding. Food was the familiar sea fare of salt beef and pork, ship’s biscuit, dried peas and fish, supplemented by turtle, fruit and fresh meat when the ship touched land. Salmagundi, a spiced mix of meats, fish, eggs and vegetables, is associated with pirate crews. Drink was rum and punch when they had it, and water when they did not.
Who sailed
Pirate crews were mixed. Most men were former merchant or naval seamen, many of them English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh or colonial American. There were also Dutch, French and other European sailors, and a significant number of men of African descent, some of whom served as full members of the company. Many crews were young; men in their twenties made up the bulk. Most had volunteered, but skilled specialists such as carpenters, surgeons and navigators were sometimes forced from captured ships, a fact some later used in their defence at trial.
In Free Nassau
The game’s officers (quartermaster, gunner, bosun, navigator, surgeon and boarding master) echo the specialists every company needed, and the choice to sail home with Banked Silver or push on for more plunder reflects the constant pull between a rich share and a long life. See How to Play and the Period Glossary.