IX
No man was allowed to talk of breaking up their way of living until each had shared £1000. In case a man lost a limb or was otherwise injured there was to be an allowance made to him out of the common stock in proportion to his injury. These amounts varied with the company but a leg was usually estimated as worth eight hundred to a thousand pieces of eight.
X
The captain and the quartermaster each received usually two shares in a prize; the master, gunner, and boatswain, a share and a half, and the other officers, a share and a quarter. The men had a share apiece.
XI
All the larger pirate vessels carried musicians—trumpeters, drummers and fiddlers, and these men were given a day off on Sunday.
When a vessel was captured the likely men among the prisoners would be solicited by the quartermaster or captain to join the pirate crew and sign the “Articles,” and young and active men who refused to sign would sometimes be compelled to join the company in the hope that later they might have a change of heart and in any event be of service in navigating the vessel. This was called “forcing,” and when the captain or fellow-seamen of the forced men reached shore, an advertisement was oftentimes inserted in a newspaper, stating the circumstances so that in case the forced men were taken while on board a pirate vessel they might point to the advertisement as evidence of their innocence.[178]
The flags on pirate vessels were intended to strike terror to the hearts of mariners and usually displayed a white skull and cross-bones on a black ground. Sometimes the skeleton of a man was depicted, usually styled at the time “an anatomy.” Sometimes a livid heart pierced by an arrow dripping blood was displayed. Small pirate companies contented themselves with a plain black flag without device. Capt. Howell Davis for lack of something better hung aloft “a dirty Tarpawlin,” while attacking a French vessel near Hispaniola. He afterwards used a black flag as did his associate La Bouse. Blackbeard sailed under a black flag along the Carolina coast but Major Stede Bonnet about the same time used “a bloody flag” and Captain Worley, who was on the same coast in 1718, flew “a black ensign with a white Death’s head in the middle of it.”
Captain Roberts at first used a black flag which he called “the Jolly Roger,” although this term did not originate with him, but afterwards becoming enraged at the many attempts made by the governors of Barbadoes and Martinico to take him, he ordered a new jack to be made with his own figure portrayed standing on two skulls. Under one were the letters A. B. H. and under the other, A. M. H., signifying “A Barbadian’s Head” and “A Martinican’s Head.” When Roberts sailed into Whydah in January, 1722, he had a “black silk flag flying at the mizen peak and a jack and pendant of the same: The Flag had a Death in it, with an Hour-Glass in one Hand, and cross-Bones in the other, a Dart by it, and underneath a Heart dropping three Drops of Blood. The Jack had a Man pourtray’d on it, with a flaming Sword in his Hand, and standing on two Skulls.”
Frequent mention has been made of the cruelty and destructiveness of pirate captains. They often sank or burned the vessels that they took. Sometimes it was done to prevent news of their presence getting abroad before they were ready to sail for some other hunting ground. Sometimes they lacked men enough to navigate their captures and at other times the pirate captain would be displeased at the prolonged defense or flight of the captured master. Sometimes the fate of a fine ship and rich cargo was decided by a caprice or through sheer destructiveness. Frequently enquiry would be made among the crew of a captured vessel if their captain was a good master and kind to his men and when a favorable answer was made such a captain would be let off more easily.