tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5146662961384020875.post8083488597024770692..comments2024-03-28T09:27:27.034-07:00Comments on The Pirate Empire: Sam Bellamy - A Pirate King RisesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5146662961384020875.post-21077647625477160652015-09-10T19:26:27.943-07:002015-09-10T19:26:27.943-07:00Thank you for your more detailed account of certai...Thank you for your more detailed account of certain points. Please note that I'm interpreting facts that we both agree on, and writing for my readers, who have modern sensibilities. For instance, I think we both agree that John King lived a life of much greater luxury than most of the people around him. But my readers equate the word "rich" with private airplanes and TV empires and billions of dollars, not being able to afford silk socks (and the things that went with them.)TS Rhodeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01252079004375626235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5146662961384020875.post-80538971674408577532015-09-10T17:42:18.579-07:002015-09-10T17:42:18.579-07:00Very good, but, Hornigold did not appoint Bellamy ...Very good, but, Hornigold did not appoint Bellamy as captain. Bellamy, becoming frustrated with Hornigold's and Blackbeard's refusal to capture English ships, called for a vote of no confidence in the two, and THE CREW by majority vote ousted Hornigold and Blackbeard, and then elected Bellamy as captain.<br />-According to the log of Capt. Savage of the Benetta (Bonita), the 9 year old boy, John King, and his parents were among the passengers when Bellamy and his man boarded their ship; after inviting the unmarried men on the Benetta to join the pirate crew (several did), John King approached Bellamy and insisted upon joining. After being informed that the Articles forbade the pirates from permitting boys [males under puberty] to join, John King attempted suicide. When his mother tried to stop him, he threatened to kill her as well. Evidence proves that the boy was not merely (if at all) persuaded by "the pirate's rhetoric", and he most certainly was not of a middle class family, but was in fact a physically abused child from a noble family seeking any way possible off that ship. Among the human remains recovered by Barry Clifford among the artifacts of the Whydah Galley was the leg bone of John King, his shoe and his stocking. The stocking is made of silk, and the leather shoe is designed to fit either the left or right foot - garments worn only by the upper crust - the wealthy nobility. There was no such thing as "middle class"; you were either a Gentleman/Lady, or you were scum of the earth. For low classes to wear the garments of nobility was called "dressing above your station", which was a punishable criminal offense. This boy would have had a proper education and upbringing - he was not a defiant brat. That Sam Bellamy and his crew would take a majority vote to overrule their laws and allow a boy to join is clear evidence that the pirates could see that this boy needed rescuing. Nothing could shout the boy's need for deliverance more than Captain Abijah Savage's entry in his ship's log: "The boy's father hates him". John King, being adopted by Bellamy's crew, would have had the brief pleasure of a real family's affection, free of abusive liberties taken by the nobility, before perishing in the horrendously violent wreck of the Whydah. His leg, to our heartbreak, was found imbedded in the concretion of a cannon.<br />-When Bellamy's crew took the Sultana and made it their flagship, Bellamy (by crew's vote) appointed his good friend Paulsgrave Williams commander of the Marianne. Williams had met Bellamy in 1716 on Cape Cod when Bellamy was seeking men to join him in an expedition to Florida to find what today is referred to as the 1715 FLEET - a Spanish Imperial Plate (treasure) Fleet on its way from the Americas to Spain but had wrecked in a hurricane off Florida's east coast. Williams was a wealthy jeweler from Rhode Island where his father was the Attorney General. His family lived there and on Block Island. It was Williams who supplied their expedition boat to Florida, and chose to remain with Bellamy when the majority of the group turned to piracy. He and his men aboard Marianne would survive the storm which destroyed Whydah, and following in the egalitarian footsteps of Bellamy continue as a pirate captain for many more successful years off the coasts of Africa.<br />Rev. Jim Cunningham, D.D.http://www.whydah.comnoreply@blogger.com