triticale - the wheat / rye guy

Cake Mouse

I will give you this Caution,never to Dispute the Will of a Pirate: For, supposing I had cleft your Scull asunder for your impudence, what would you have got by it but your destruction? Indeed you may flatter your self, I should have been put to Death for killing a Prisoner in cold Blood; but assure your self my Friends would have brought me off on such an occasion.

Being the contrarian that I am, I decided to find an actual quote from an actual pirate for posting on Talk Like a Pretend Pirate Like Long John Silver Day. The quote is reported to come from Walter Kennedy, one of the Dread Pirate Roberts’s lieutenants. He is speaking to Captain William Snelgrave after the captain dared to resist Kennedy's attempt to snatch his wig. I found it in the book Villains Of All Nations, Atlantic Pirates In The Golden Age, by Marcus Rediker. The author is a professor of history, and he explains piracy and the folk popularity of piracy as a proletarian reaction to the depredations of the successful classes. This really isn't surprising. I have a book in my collection which examines the Hatfield - McCoy feud as class struggle. Posted by triticale at September 18, 2006 08:10 PM | TrackBack