Pirates in General

[TheSquashbuckler]

Here are a typical set of articles of piracy, demonstrating that pirates are not as savage as made out to be. Especially note Article 10. Pirates made rules against hurting members of their own crew (similar to the laws most countries have) and punish rape strongly.
They had just as many morals as anyone else did then.

The Articles of Piracy


ARTICLE 1: Every Man has a Vote in Affairs of the Moment; has equal title to the fresh Provisions, or Strong Liquors, at any Time seized, and use of them at Pleasure, unless a Scarcity make it necessary, for the good of all, to Vote a Retrenchment.

ARTICLE 2: Every man shall obey civil command; the captain shall have one full share and a half in all prizes. the Quartermaster, Carpenter, Boatswain, and Gunner shall have one share and quarter.

ARTICLE 3: If any man shall offer to run away, or keep any secret from the Company, he shall be marroon'd with one bottle of powder, one bottle of Water, one small Arm, and shot.

ARTICLE 4: If any Man shall steal any Thing in the Company, or game, to the value of a piece of Eight, he shall be Marroon'd or shot.

ARTICLE 5: If at any Time we should meet with another Marrooner (that is, Pirate) that man shall sign his Articles without Consent of our Company, shall suffer such Punishment as the Captain and Company shall think fit.

ARTICLE 6: That man that shall strike another, whilst these Articles are in force, shall receive Moses's Law (that is 40 Stripes lacking one) on the bare Back.

ARTICLE 7: That Man that shall snap his Arms, or smoke Tobacco in the Hold, without cap to his Pipe, or carry a candle lighted without lantern, shall suffer the same Punishment as in the former Article.

ARTICLE 8: That Man that shall not keep his Arms clean, fit for an Engagement, or neglect his Business, shall be cut off from his Share, and suffer such other Punishment as the Captain and Company shall think fit.

ARTICLE 9: If any man shall lose a joint in time of Engagement, he shall have 400 Pieces of Eight: if a limb, 800.

ARTICLE 10: If at any time you meet with a prudent Woman, that Man that offers to meddle with her, without her Consent, shall suffer Death.

[PirateDanArrr]

well.... if you've seen Pirates of the Carribean (which is totally the best source of all things pirate) you'd know that the Pirate code is more guidelines. oh silly pirates. But number ten shocked the bajeezus outta me. Wow. GO PIRATES!

[FirstMateDan]

I nominate we all follow those rules. Oh, except that we change "man" to "pirate" and the like.

[Ben]

Of course pirates are cool, and a lot of the were decent moral people, and I'm sure many followed some kind of code like this. Just if were going to look at pirates more seriously, (not just wearing bandanas and patches and saying arrr a lot) lets not over-glorify them- a lot also stole pretty much indescriminantly. And "burn rape and plunderers against bush" doesn't sound so hot.
-Ben

[Pirate Phoebe]

When I was at my Dance camp I was playing ping pong with two of the dance-musicians in faculty and we decided to play Pirate Ping Pong where every time we hit the ball we go ARRRRG and say silly things like when the ball goes off the table "ARRR MAN OVERBOARD MATEY" and plunder the ping pong table.
It was wonderful. Then we tried playing ping pong with one eye closed as if we had an eyepatch and that was really hard.

[TheSquashbuckler]

that makes me so happy.