Visualizzazione post con etichetta tortura. Mostra tutti i post
Visualizzazione post con etichetta tortura. Mostra tutti i post

venerdì 16 giugno 2017

Idee regressiste

Ideas We Can Use - Legal Systems Very Different From Ours Ideas We Can Use David Friedman
Quali istituti giuridici potremmo copiare dal passato relomto?
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Marketable Torts
In modern tort law, it is up to the victim to identify and prosecute the tortfeasor. In the Icelandic system it was also up to him, once he got a verdict from the court, to enforce it. That could be a problem for a victim with insufficient resources… The solution, described in Chapter XX[ Iceland], was to make claims transferable, permitting the victim to transfer his claim to someone better able to pursue it…. crime victims usually collect nothing under our system….
DIRITTI AL RISARCIMENTO NEGOZIABILI...COME NELL'ISLANDA MEDIEVALE
Consider the application of the same approach to modern tort law, where the victim needs resources to win his case even if not to enforce the verdict. A careless driver damages your car and perhaps you. You cannot afford a lawyer. You may be able to get a law firm to take the case on a contingency basis, in exchange for a share of whatever damages it collects. But you may find it hard to judge which law firm will do the best job… If tort claims were fully marketable you could simply auction the claim off to the highest bidder.
UNA POSSIBILE APPLICAZIONE MODERNA DEI DIRITTI AL RISARCIMENTO NEGOZIABILE
Consider a tort that does a small amount of damage to each of a large number of people. The current mechanism for dealing with such is a class action.
ALTRO VANTAGGIO: ALTERNATIVA ALLA CLASS ACTION
While the attorney has an incentive to try to win the case and collect damages, he also has an incentive to direct as much as possible of the payment to himself rather than to his supposed clients. Ideally the judge keeps him honest. If not, the attorney agrees with the defendant on a multi-million-dollar settlement consisting of a million dollars in real money to him, ten million for the tort victims in the form of an offer of discounts on future purchases. Suppose tort claims were marketable. A firm such as an insurance company that routinely deals with a large number of customers offers a discount to anyone willing to sign over to it all tort claims he might have in the next year for less than a hundred dollars. An enterprising lawyer concludes that ten million people have gotten mildly sick due to something wrong with a brand of canned beans, giving each a legitimate claim for ten dollars in damages. The lawyer goes to the insurance company and offers to buy all of their claims for injury from canned beans. He makes the same offer to other firms that have similarly purchased their customers’ small claims. When he is done, he owns three million claims for ten dollars each. He goes to the bean company and offers to settle for eighty cents on the dollar, twenty-four million dollars. If they turn him down he sues– not on behalf of the victims, who have sold their claims to him via middlemen, but for himself. There is no need for an attorney to pretend to represent millions of people
FAIDA
an understanding of the logic of feud law can help us make sense of legal conflicts in the modern world.
LA LOGICA DELLA VENDETTA: PRESENTE ANCHE OGGI PER FAR FUNZIONARE IL SISTEMA
High-Tech Feud
Imagine that Apple is considering suing Samsung for a patent violation of which Samsung is not actually guilty– the
LITI SENZA FONDAMENTO. ARGINATE SOLO DALLA MINACCIA DI RITORSIONI
There are at least two reasons why Apple might do so. One is the chance that the court will mistakenly decide in Apple’s favor, patent law being a complicated subject. The other is that the litigation imposes significant costs on a rival… One argument against suing is the risk that Samsung might retaliate… even if the countersuit is not profitable as a gamble on court error or a way of reducing Apple’s sales in favor of Samsung’s, being committed to such a countersuit is one way of deterring the initial suit,… The implicit feud system in modern patent litigation provides a mechanism for deterring meritless suits
FUNZIONE DELLA VENDETTA
The Invulnerable Plaintiff
A non-practicing entity, referred to by critics as a patent troll, owns a collection of patents, practices none of them, sues practicing entities for alleged infringement but faces no risk of an infringement countersuit. It is invulnerable to retaliation,
PATENT TROLL. NATI PER DENUNCIARE. CON LORO LA VENDETTA NON FUNZIONA
In the case of Samsung, there is an obvious reason not to settle– paying off one plaintiff with a weak case will encourage others.[
LE PICCOLE DITTE VITTIME PREFERITE DEI TROLL. LE GRANDI SI VENDICANO ANCHE IN PERDITA
It follows that even if the feud system is adequate as a way of controlling patent suits among producing companies it is impotent to control bogus patent suits by non-practicing entities.
BOGUS NEL SISTEMA DELLE FAIDE
The Athenian Rule: A Modest Proposal for Revising Tort Law
Under the American rule, each party to a tort suit pays its own legal expenses. Under the English rule, the losing party to a tort suit owes the prevailing party compensation for its legal costs.[ 4] That provides a deterrent to a suit sufficiently meritless so that the plaintiff is virtually certain to lose.
CHI PAGA LE SPESE DELLA CAUSA. COME DISINCENTIVARE LE DENUNCE SENZA FONDAMENTO?
But a plaintiff who has some significant chance of winning, through court error or legal uncertainty, still has an effective threat.
MA NON È SUFFICIENTE
The fundamental problem, not limited to suits over intellectual property, is that a plaintiff who sues an innocent defendant in a system with legal error imposes a cost on him in addition to his legal costs– the risk of losing the case and being found liable for damages.
IL PROBLEMA FONDAMENTALE
We can use damages owed by the losing plaintiff to the prevailing defendant as a proxy for damages for the cost imposed by a plaintiff who sues an innocent defendant and wins. The logic is analogous to the case for punishing unsuccessful criminal attempts. Shooting at someone and missing does no harm…. These arguments suggest that the losing tort plaintiff should be liable to the defendant for damages, possibly based on the amount the plaintiff claimed and thus the size of the risk imposed,
RISARCIRE I DANNI OLTRE CHE I COSTI
a prosecutor who failed to get at least 20% of a large jury to vote for conviction was himself fined. Making the damages depend on the amount claimed would correspond to the rule in Athens for at least some of their equivalent of our tort cases;
NELL'ATENE DI PERICLE
The rule is particularly important in the patent troll case only because that is a situation where deliberately suing innocent defendants and then proposing settlement is argued to be a serious problem.
SETTORE BREVETTI PARTICOLARMENTE VULNERABILE
Another Idea From Athens
Every property owner must state a value for his property. If someone offers to buy it at that price he is obliged to accept.
LA DENUNCIA DEI REDDITI AD ATENE. IN REALTÀ DEL PATRIMONIO
The advantage of the self-assessed property tax is that it gives us a mechanism for setting the value to be taxed that does not depend on the existence of honest and competent assessors.
BASTA STIME
insecurity of my ownership of my home is too great a price to pay for the advantage of an automatically assessed value.
UNA CRITICA
One possible modification would be to have property valued for purposes of taxation in the conventional way but allow a property owner to revise the taxable value of his property if he wishes by declaring his willingness to sell at a lower price.
UNA VARIAZIONE PIÙ DIGERIBILE
The usual argument for eminent domain, the legal rule that allows a government to force a property owner to sell at a price set by the government buyer, is that it is necessary to prevent the owner of a piece of property that blocks a project such as a new highway from taking advantage of the situation to charge an unreasonably high price. With a self-assessed property tax the property already has a price set by the owner, eliminating the problem and thus eliminating the argument for giving governments the power to force an owner to sell at a price set by the buyer.
ESPROPRI AGEVOLATI
An even simpler and more familiar example of the same approach is the rule for dividing something evenly: You cut, I choose.
ANALOGIA
Chinese Lessons on Contracts
Caveat emptor, “let the buyer beware,” the rule according to which a buyer takes goods as he finds them unless the seller explicitly warrants their qualities, may be useful in some contexts as a way of avoiding litigation.
CAVEAT EMPTOR
the observation that parties may find it in their interest to structure contracts in ways designed to keep them out of court provides an argument for the doctrine of freedom of contract, under which contract terms are enforceable even if the court enforcing them considers them unwise.
CONTRATTO FONTE PRIMA DEL DIRITTO
Plea Bargaining and the Law of Torture
John Langbein argued that the modern practice of plea bargaining, like the medieval law of torture, came into existence as a way around problems raised by an unworkably high standard of proof.
TORTURA PROGENITRICE DEL PATTEGGIAMENTO
his article points out the risk that if additional protections for defendants make trials longer and more expensive the result may be not fewer convictions of innocents but more.
TESI: PROCEDURE TORTURA E PATTEGGIAMENTO SONO UNA REAZIONE AL GARANTISMO ECCESSIVO. LA STORIA DELLA TORTURA ILLUMINA
Plea Bargaining, Overcharging, and Athenian Law
Part of the problem with the modern system of plea bargaining is that a prosecutor can stack charges. Consider a defendant arguably guilty of an assault punished by a year in prison. The prosecutor charges him not only with that but attempted murder as well. Facing only an assault charge of which he believes himself innocent, the defendant might choose to go to trial with a reasonable hope of being acquitted. Charged with murder as well, facing a significant chance of a year in prison and a much smaller but non-zero chance of twenty years, he agrees to plead guilty to the lesser charge.
PERCHÈ SI PATTEGIA? PERCHÈ IL PM TI ACCUSA DI TUTTO (QUALCOSA PORTA A CASA)
One could, for instance, provide that if, in three different cases over a year, there was at least one charge on which fewer than four jurors voted for conviction, the prosecutor will be removed– a three strikes rule. That gives a prosecutor a reason not to file charges that he cannot support at trial.
INCENTIVO A NON CUMULARE LE ACCUSE
Consider instead, or in addition, a rule providing that a defendant who is acquitted on any one charge must receive the lowest legal penalty on any charges he is convicted of. That reduces the power of the prosecutor’s threat,
CONDANNA A PUNTI
To Catch Up With Eighteenth-Century England
Criminal prosecution in our legal system is by the government, so crimes the government approves of are unlikely to be prosecuted, and neither of those was.
CONFLITTO D'INTERESSE DEL P.M.
In eighteenth-century England, the solution was much simpler: Any Englishman could prosecute any crime.
SOLUZIONE
In the U.S. at present, it is illegal for college students who are under twenty-one to buy, possess, or consume alcoholic drinks and illegal for others to provide alcoholic drinks to them. Would it be a good thing for a student with a grudge against his ex-girlfriend or her new boyfriend to be able to have one or both arrested, charged with (depending on the state and circumstances) a misdemeanor or felony and, if convicted, jailed for several months, conceivably several years?[ 7]
POSSIBILI INCONVENIENTI
Under the English game laws, some wild animals were considered property of the Crown and hunting them restricted to the king or those he had authorized. The result, by the early 19th century, was that the right to hunt such animals did not always belong to the owner of the land on which they were hunted. The restriction was widely ignored, providing opportunities for the threat to prosecute to be used to extort money from landowners guilty of the crime of hunting the king’s deer on their own land.[ 8]
ANALOGIA DEI CERVI NEL PARCO DEL RE
A possible compromise might be to permit private prosecution only against government employees.
COMPROMESSO

martedì 7 febbraio 2017

L'arte della tortura presso i pirati

Se pensiamo al classico pirata ce lo immaginiamo brutale, scarmigliato, magari con un pappagallo sulla spalla e un uncino al posto della mano, che tortura un prigioniero costringendolo a "passeggiare" in precario equilibrio su un' asse sporgente dalla nave che dà sul un oceano in tempesta infestato da squali.
Tutta intorno a lui la marmaglia della ciurma lo incoraggia ad essere sempre più crudele.
Ma questa immagine è falsa, per i prati la tortura non era un sadico passatempo, tutt'altro.
Il miglior modo per capirlo è leggere “WALK THE PLANK THE ECONOMICS OF PIRATE TORTURE - The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates” di Peter Leeson…
... There are, in fact, no recorded cases of seventeenth- or eighteenth-century pirates, hook-handed or otherwise, forcing captives to jump off wooden planks. Further, pirates weren’t sadists who tortured everyone they encountered for fun...
Certo, a noi è giunta una descrizione dei pirati come esseri assetati di sangue, e come vedremo, non è affatto un caso. Ma ecco un esempio...
... Charles Johnson, for example, described Bartholomew Roberts’s crew’s apparent violent madness as follows: “It is impossible to particularly recount the Destruction and Havock,” which these pirates committed “without Remorse or Compunction; for nothing is so deplorable as Power in mean and ignorant Hands, it makes Men wanton and giddy …. They are like mad Men, that cast Fire-Brands, Arrows, and Death, and say, are not we in Sport?” “Like their Patron, the Devil,” Johnson observed, pirates “must make Mischief their Sport, Cruelty their Delight, and damning of Souls their constant Employment.”...
Dando retta al bollettino ci facciamo l'idea di un depravato, di uno psicopatico. In realtà parliamo di egoisti razionali molto vicini a noi...
... pirates comported more with the attitude Captain Sam Bellamy expressed when he said, “I scorn to do any one a Mischief, when it is not for my Advantage.”...
I pirati torturavano spesso i loro prigionieri ma lo facevano a ragion veduta, mostrando oltretutto una notevole abilità nell'uso di questo terribile strumento.
Coltivare la reputazione di esseri crudeli era al centro del loro piano: in questo modo era più facile fiaccare in anticipo la resistenza delle vittime ed estrarre informazioni...
... that they elevated their reputation to the status of a piratical “brand name.” As a result of this brand name pirates improved their efficiency on the account, reaping greater rewards from their plunder...
Ecco allora le tre ragioni di fondo per cui si torturava...
... Pirates tortured captives for three main reasons. First, they did so to elicit information, usually regarding the whereabouts of hidden valuables aboard captured ships. Second, pirates tortured captives to punish government officials for attempting to capture them or for capturing and hanging fellow pirates. Third, pirates used torture to punish unscrupulous or abusive merchant captains...
Innanzitutto, si voleva sapere dai prigionieri dove erano occultati i tesori a bordo. Mi sembra del tutto logico.
A volte, nell'imminenza dell'abbordaggio, la vittima distruggeva il bottino. Bisognava assolutamente evitarlo facendole sapere che sarebbe andata incontro a punizioni terribili. Altre volte lo occultava in luoghi reconditi della nave...
..." hung eleven thousand moydores of gold in a bag out of the cabbin window, and as soon as he was taken by the said Lowe, cutt the rope and lett them drop into the sea.”...
Ma era importante anche impossessarsi di documenti con preziose informazioni (per esempio le rotte dei mercantili e dei guardiacoste)...
... After Blackbeard’s crew seized one vessel, for example, “all their Papers were perused with the same Diligence as tho’ it had been at the Secretary’s Office here in England.”...
La tortura spettacolare serviva dunque a prevenire occultamenti e distruzioni...
... By inflicting heinous tortures on those who hid or destroyed valuables, or who were suspected of hiding or destroying them, pirates could prevent behaviors that would otherwise erode their revenue... heinous pirate torture prevented crew members on future prizes from attempting to withhold valuable boot...
La reputazione delle pratiche barbariche doveva diffondersi in tutto il mondo marittimo. In questo senso la pubblicità data dalle cronache dei giornali era preziosa...
... What’s more, pirates received advertisement for their reputation in popular eighteenth-century newspapers, which unwittingly contributed to pirates’ ruthless brand name, indirectly facilitating pirates’ profit...
Ora sappiamo perché i pirati dedicassero tanto tempo alle loro "diaboliche invenzioni" come le ribattezzò un tribunale dell'epoca. La passeggiata sopra gli squali, la cottura della vittima viva, il pasto delle proprie orecchie, il coltello nell'occhio,  l'impalatura senza ledere organi vitali... un vasto e giustificato repertorio degli orrori.
Come reagì, per esempio, Edward Low al capitano del mercantile che gettò in mare il carico prima dell'abbordaggio?...
... “Lowe cutt off the said Masters lipps and broyl’d them before his face, and afterwards murder’d the whole crew being thirty two persons” In a newspaper article in the American Weekly Mercury, a witness described how Low’s crew treated other resistant prisoners: “They cut and whiped some and others they burnt with Matches between their Fingers to the bone to make them confess where their Money was.”...
Charles Vane?
... “bound [one captive’s] hands and feet and ty’d (upon his back) down to the bowspritt with matches to his eyes burning and a pistol loaded with the muzzle into his mouth, thereby to oblige him to confess what money was on board.”...
George Lowther?...
... “placing lighted matches between the fingers of” his prisoners “to make them discover where the gold was.”...
bucanieri erano particolarmente abili nell'arte della tortura. Furono loro a introdurre la raccapricciante pratica del "woolding"...
... “they strappado’d him until both his arms were entirely dislocated, then knotted the cord so tight round the forehead that his eyes bulged out, big as eggs. Since he still would not admit where the coffer was, they hung him up by his male parts, while one struck him, another sliced off his nose, yet another an ear, and another scorched him with fire.”... “they tied long cords to his thumbs and his big toes and spreadeagled him to four stakes. Then four of them came and beat on the cords with their sticks, making his body jerk and shudder and stretching his sinews. Still not satisfied, they put a stone weighing at least two hundred-weight on his loins and lit a fire of palm leaves under him, burning his face and setting his hair alight.”...
Un altro innovatore nel settore fu Francesco l' Olonese...
... “being possessed of a devil’s fury, ripped open one of the prisoners with his cutlass, tore the living heart out of his body, gnawed at it, and then hurled it in the face of one of the others.”...
L'inventiva era portentosa, pensate solo alla "tortura del compasso", nota anche come "shock corridor"...
... “The Manner of a Sweat,” one pirate prisoner explained in the pages of the British Journal, “is thus: Between the Decks they stick Candles round the Mizen-Mast, and about twenty five Men surround it with Points of Swords, Penknives, Compasses, Forks, &c. in each of their Hands: Culprit enters the Circle; the Violin plays a merry Jig, and he must run for about ten Minutes, while each Man runs his Instrument into his Posteriors.”...
Ma la tortura non era indiscriminate, bensì mirata e con obbiettivi ragionevoli. Ecco una testimonianza in tal senso...
... Philip Ashton, for instance, “learned from some” of his pirate captors “that it was one of their Articles Not to Draw Blood, or take away the Life of any Man, after they had given him Quarter.”...
Chi abusava dei prigionieri veniva punito...
... This explains the seeming generosity of the quartermaster on Captain Roberts’s ship who observed one of his men abusing a captive. When he saw this “the Quarter-master came forward, and took the Pyrate off from beating him, asking him how he wou’d like it were he a Prisoner.”...
Torturare non equivaleva a macellare: un uomo morto è un uomo che non parla. Inoltre, dei sopravvissuti dovevano sempre esserci: a loro era affidata la pubblicità, come in una tragedia Shakespeariana...
... Thus, when Phillips captured John Fillmore, for instance, Fillmore was “dread to fall into [Phillips’s] hands,” he later recorded, “having heard of the cruelties committed by that execrable pirate.”...
Ma l'opportunismo era sempre in agguato: io compio orribili atti di sadismo e anche tu, per il solo fatto di battere la mia stessa bandiera nera, puoi godere della fama di sadico. Non è giusto!
Anche per questo l’inventiva si scatenò: ciascun pirata tentava di personalizzare le torture in modo da creare un proprio brand ben riconoscibile
... Captain John Phillips, for example, enjoyed a fearsome reputation particular to him. And as I discuss below, so did Blackbeard and other ...
I giornali in tutto questo erano fondamentali, a loro spettava diffondere la reputazione terrificante dei pirati torturatori riportando la testimonianza dei sopravvissuti: un po'come oggi per le rapine in villa o per l' ISIS.
Altra immagine utile da coltivare: il pirata non si ferma davanti a nulla, non teme la morte e nemmeno il demonio in persona. Indi: inutile contare sul fatto che desista o che abbia pietà. Il motto di Bartolomeo Roberts...
... As Bartholomew Roberts famously boasted, for example, “A merry Life and a short one, shall be my Motto.”...
L'orizzonte dei pirati doveva apparire breve, il pirata non pensa al domani, il suo tasso di sconto elevatissimo.
Ecco il resoconto di una vittima...
... in the Boston News-Letter. According to the victim, Roberts’s men proceeded “with madness and rage to tare up the Hatches” and then “enter[ed] the Hould like a Parcel of Furies, where with Axes, Cutlashes, &c they cut, tore, and broke open Trunks, Boxes, Cases, and Bales, and when any of the Goods came upon Deck which they did not like to carry with them aboard their Ship … they threw them over board into the Sea … There was nothing heard among the Pirates all the while but Cursing, Swearing, Damning, and Blaspheming to the greatest degree imaginable.”...
A proposito del pirata "pazzo", ecco Richard Hawkins sul British Journal...
... “every Thing that please them not they threw over board … every individual Thing they destroy’d; broke all my Windows, knock’d down the Cabbin … and then deliver’d me my Ship in a despicable Condition.”...
Di seguito, invece, sul tema classico del pirata "posseduto dal demonio"...
... One pirate victim’s account, published in the Boston News-Letter, spoke specifically to pirates’ apparent godlessness and confirmed the popular perception that pirates were “in the Possession of the Devil” and “laughing at the very thunders of God.” “In ravaging the Vessel,” this victim reported, “they met with two or three Bibles, at the sight whereof some started and said, They had nothing to do with them; or with God, nor any thing Above.”...
Anche la piromania era un loro tratto caratteristico. Ma anche qui c’erano delle ragioni, e tra queste anche propagandare un'immagine di insanità mentale...
... sometimes to prevent giving Intelligence, sometimes because they did not leave men to navigate them, and at other Times out of Wantonness, or because they were displeased with the Master’s Behaviour.”... “Wanton” destruction Johnson describes was more likely a deliberate effort to foster an image of insanity... when a prisoner asked pirate John Phillips why his crew needlessly burned ships, Phillips “answer’d, it was for fun.”...
C'era chi, come Barbanera, puntava molto anche sulla sua immagine fisica per intimidire il pubblico. Si puntava ad apparire come zombie assetati di sangue.  L'effetto ottenuto secondo un cronista dell'epoca...
... Captain Teach, assumed the Cognomen of Black-beard, from that large Quantity of Hair, which, like a frightful Meteor, covered his whole Face, and frightened America more than any Comet that has appeared there in a long Time. This Beard was black, which he suffered to grow of an extravagant Length; as to Breadth, it came up to his Eyes; he was accustomed to twist it with Ribbons, in small Tails … and then turn them about his Ears: three Brace of Pistols, hanging in Holsters like Bandaliers; and stuck lighted Matches under his Hat, which appearing on each Side of his Face, his Eyes naturally looking fierce and wild, made him altogether such a Figure, that Imagination cannot form an Idea of a Fury, from Hell, to look more frightful...
Barbanera era conscio di tutto questo e investiva consapevolmente sul suo aspetto esteriore. Una reputazione di crudeltà diminuiva la resistenza delle prede e incrementava i suoi profitti.
Angus Konstam riferisce che Barbanera, il pirata più spietato della Costa, non uccise mai un uomo con le sue mani.
Un altro scopo dei pirati era quello di spaventare chi dava loro la caccia, in modo da farlo desistere. Ogni tanto, infatti, qualche Governatore ordinava un repulisti dei mari e delle rotte più comuni: costui doveva pagarla cara. Il caso delle Barbados e di Cap. Johnson...
... in response to the governors of Barbados and Martinique seeking to capture him, Captain Roberts constructed a special flag communicating his new policy: death for any Barbadians and Martinicans he might take on the account...
Il caso di Cap. Low...
... Captain Low, for example, was said to have an “irreconcileable Aversion to New-England Men” and consequently “let none of that Country depart without some Marks of his Rage.” Low’s “aversion” stemmed from the audaciousness of the New York–based man-o’-war HMS Greyhound, which once attacked Low and succeeded in capturing his pirate consort, Charles Harris...
La vendetta dei pirati si estendeva sui connazionali del Governatore temerario che disturbava i loro piani...
... Captain Low, for example, met with a ship “manned partly with English and partly Portuguese; the latter Low caused to be hang’d, by Way of Reprisal, for some of his own Men sent thither.” The English got off easier since Low had no axe to grind with them...
Oppure sui conoscenti...
... Bart Roberts used similar tactics to send a message to those acquainted with Captain Rogers, the man who led the two-ship expedition sent to attack him off the coast of Barbados...
Particolarmente a rischio erano i cittadini di Bristol. Perchè?...
...  “The Pirates seem much enraged at Bristol Men, for Capt. Rogers sake.” When Roberts’s crew members took a ship from Bristol, “They us’d” its captain “barbarously, because his Countryman, Captain Rogers … was of the City of Bristol.”...
Oppure gli abitanti delle Bermuda...
... Charles Vane instituted a policy of mistreating Bermudan vessels because Bermuda’s governor arrested pirate Thomas Brown...
La tattica si rivelò spesso efficace: ecco come se la fece sotto il Governatore della Virginia...
... Virginia governor Alexander Spotswood, for example, couldn’t have been pleased when he learned from one of Bartholomew Roberts’s victims in 1721 that Roberts “expected to be joined by another ship and would then visit Virginia, and avenge the pirates who have been executed here.” If this frightened Spotswood, he must have wet himself a year earlier when he wrote to the Council of Trade and Plantations that if those “barbarous wretches can be moved to cutt off the nose and ears of a master for but correcting his own sailors, what inhuman treatment must I expect, should I fall within their power, who have been markt as ye principal object of their vengeance, for cutting off their arch-pirate Thatch, with all his grand designs, and making so many of their fraternity to swing in the open air of Virginia.” But Spotswood wasn’t alone...
Oppure il successo nel caso delle Bermuda...
... According to Marcus Rediker, in at least some cases these sorts of pirate threats—backed by implementation—actually worked. As one Bermudan colonial official complained, for example, the island’s residents “fear’d that this very execution [of two pirates] wou’d make our vessels fare the worse for it, when they happen’d to fall into the pyrates’ hands” and so were reluctant to provide the testimony needed to condemn them...
Un altro obbiettivo era quello di "fare giustizia sui mari". I pirati si piccavano di punire i capitani dei mercantili soliti ad abusare del loro equipaggio. Un capitano notoriamente scorretto con i sottoposto rischiava grosso se finiva nelle mani dei pirati…
... “They pretend one reason for these villainies is to do justice to sailors.”... several pirates identified captain mistreatment of merchant sailors as their reason for turning to piracy... by punishing abusive merchant captains, pirates contributed to a positive reputation among merchant sailors... make merchant crews more willing to surrender to pirate attack,...
La legge inglese prevedeva pene contro gli abusi verso gli inferiori, ma un provvedimento del genere era di applicazione problematica. In questo senso l'azione dei pirati completava la legge formale...
...  to prevent situations of captain predation, British law included several protections for merchant sailors. But official legal protections could and did fail, leaving sailors without effective, or at least immediate, shelter from captain abuse. Where the law failed to reign in predatory merchant captains, pirates, oddly enough, picked up the slack... for pirates, the additional cost of administering justice to predatory merchant ship captains was very low. Pirates were searching for and stopping merchant vessels to plunder them anyway.... If the crew informed their captors that its captain had “misbehaved,” the pirates punished him. Pirates did this with torture...
Il caso Condent...
...  On taking a “whole Salt Fleet, consisting of about 20 Sail,” pirate captain Christopher Condent, for example, “enquir[ed] into the Manner of the Commanders’ Behaviour to their Men, and those, against whom Complaint was made, he whipp’d and pickled”—a torture that involved lashing the abusive officers and pouring brine on their open wounds...
testimoniare contro i capitani dei mercantili era perlopiù il suo equipaggio, oppure pirati stessi che in passato avevano lavorato per il malcapitato ricavandone una cattiva impressione. Il caso Skinner...
... One of Edward England’s pirates, for instance, immediately recognized Captain Skinner, whom he’d previously sailed under as boatswain... “Ah, Captain Skinner! It is you? The only Man I wished to see; I am much in your Debt, and now I shall pay you all in your own Coin.” The pirates tied Skinner “to the Windless, and there pelted him with Glass Bottles, which cut him in a sad Manner;...
Il caso Tarlton...
... Captain Thomas Tarlton must have been equally distressed to encounter a prisoner aboard Bartholomew Roberts’s ship whom he’d refused help to in the past. The prisoner “could not spare using some Reproaches of” Tarlton “for what he thought was Inhumanity.” This “getting to the Ears of Roberts, he took upon him, as a Dispenser of Justice, the Correction of this Tarlton, beating and misusing him grievously.”...
Ma accadeva anche il contrario: che uomini di mare intercedessero per il capitano. Il caso Snelgrave...
...  For instance, when Thomas Cocklyn’s pirate crew took William Snelgrave’s ship and “endeavoured to beat out my Brains,” as Snelgrave put it, for ordering his sailors to defend their vessel, “some of my People that were on the Quarter-Deck observing, cried out aloud, ’For God’s sake don’t kill our Captain, for we never were with a better Man.’”...
Un'usanza dei pirati era quella di far doni al capitano saccheggiato. Forse l'obbiettivo era quello di forgiare un'amicizia utile in futuroIl caso di William Lewis...
... Pirate captain William Lewis, for example, took a ship “belonging to Carolina, commanded by [a] Captain Smith.” “Lewis used him very civilly, and gave him as much, or more in Value, than he took from him, and let him go, saying, he would come to Carolina when he had made Money on the Coast, and would rely on his Friendship.”...
Il caso Prince
… Sam Bellamy’s pirates showed surprising kindness to Captain Lawrence Prince who they’d recently plundered. “They gave the ship taken from Capt. Richards [another recent prize] to Capt. Prince, and loaded her with as much of the best and finest goods as She could carry, and gave Capt. Prince above Twenty Pounds in Silver and Gold to bear his charges.”…
Altri casi di dono “interessato”…
… Merchant ship captain Knott, for example, couldn’t have been too disappointed at his crew’s capture in 1720. His pirate attackers “took what they wanted out of the merchantman and gave him money and goods of a very considerable value for the same.” Captain John Gow’s pirates felt particularly compelled to “ma[k]e a Reparation” to some of their victims, “giving” to one “what they had taken Violently from another” in “a strange Medley of Mock-Justice made up of Rapine and Generosity blended together.”…
I capitani che temevano la giustizia dei pirati forse attenuarono la loro severità verso i marinai, in questo senso i pirati potrebbero aver contribuito al benessere dei naviganti. Di certo, corre l’obbligo di ricordare che quello intentato dai pirati non era un processo con le carte in regola: non esisteva difesa, veniva ascoltata una sola parte e il capitano dei pirati decideva a sua discrezione.
***
Detto questo, è giusto ammettere che anche tra i pirati esistevano dei veri e propri psicopatici evidentemente attirati da quella vita che consentiva loro di scatenarsi. Alcuni raggiunsero anche posizioni apicali.
Il caso di Francis Spriggs
… Francis Spriggs, for example, forced merchant captain Richard Hawkins to eat “a Dish of Candles” for his amusement…
Oppure quel sadico genuino che fu Edward Low
… Low, for example, burned one victim alive for no other reason than, “being a greazy Fellow,” he thought he “would fry well in the Fire.”…
continua…
86_Torture2

DEDICA
Questo post è dedicato al Marco Magni, un cantastorie favoloso che mi ha introdotto per primo al magico mondo dei pirati. Forse il suo resoconto non era rigorosissimo, era però come doveva essere, e se a distanza di decenni ancora il mio interesse non cala lo devo anche a lui.

lunedì 6 febbraio 2017

5 WALK THE PLANK THE ECONOMICS OF PIRATE TORTURE - The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates by Peter T. Leeson

5   WALK THE PLANK THE ECONOMICS OF PIRATE TORTURERead more at location 1582
Note: 5@@@@@@@@@@@@§§ Edit
brute and bearded captain, perhaps with a hook for a handRead more at location 1584
barking at a prisoner with sadistic pleasure, “Walk the plank!”Read more at location 1585
Note: TIPICA IMMAGINE Edit
surrounded by a mob of encouraging pirates,Read more at location 1586
Below him swirl the ominous and devouring waves of the sea,Read more at location 1587
circling sharks.Read more at location 1587
torture as a pirate pastime,Read more at location 1588
There are, in fact, no recorded cases of seventeenth- or eighteenth-century pirates, hook-handed or otherwise, forcing captives to jump off wooden planks. Further, pirates weren’t sadists who tortured everyone they encountered for fun.Read more at location 1589
Note: x L IMMAGINE È FALSA Edit
easy to think of pirates as bloodthirsty fiends—Read more at location 1591
Charles Johnson, for example, described Bartholomew Roberts’s crew’s apparent violent madness as follows: “It is impossible to particularly recount the Destruction and Havock,” which these pirates committed “without Remorse or Compunction; for nothing is so deplorable as Power in mean and ignorant Hands, it makes Men wanton and giddy …. They are like mad Men, that cast Fire-Brands, Arrows, and Death, and say, are not we in Sport?” “Like their Patron, the Devil,” Johnson observed, pirates “must make Mischief their Sport, Cruelty their Delight, and damning of Souls their constant Employment.”Read more at location 1592
Note: x DESCRIZIONI DEL PIRATA SPIETATO Edit
depraved,Read more at location 1599
psychopathicRead more at location 1599
pirates comported more with the attitude Captain Sam Bellamy expressed when he said, “I scorn to do any one a Mischief, when it is not for my Advantage.”Read more at location 1600
Note: x LA REALE ATTIRTUDINE DEI PIRATI. EGO Edit
Pirates did in many cases torture captives. But they did so rationallyRead more at location 1601
skillfully deployed their infamous instruments of terror,Read more at location 1602
that they elevated their reputation to the status of a piratical “brand name.” As a result of this brand name pirates improved their efficiency on the account, reaping greater rewards from their plunder.Read more at location 1603
Note: x REPUTAZIONE Edit
Pirates tortured captives for three main reasons. First, they did so to elicit information, usually regarding the whereabouts of hidden valuables aboard captured ships. Second, pirates tortured captives to punish government officials for attempting to capture them or for capturing and hanging fellow pirates. Third, pirates used torture to punish unscrupulous or abusive merchant captains.Read more at location 1606
Note: x I TRE MOTIVO DELLA TORTIRA Edit
Discovering Hidden BootyRead more at location 1612
the location of certain valuables aboardRead more at location 1614
captured crew members sometimes hid valuablesRead more at location 1616
passengers might destroy booty to prevent pirates from takingRead more at location 1617
Edward LowRead more at location 1618
“hung eleven thousand moydores of gold in a bag out of the cabbin window, and as soon as he was taken by the said Lowe, cutt the rope and lett them drop into the sea.”Read more at location 1618
Note: x ES DI TESORI OCCULTATO DALLE VITTIME Edit
interested in discovering papers that might provide them with valuable information,Read more at location 1622
After Blackbeard’s crew seized one vessel, for example, “all their Papers were perused with the same Diligence as tho’ it had been at the Secretary’s Office here in England.”Read more at location 1623
Note: x LA REQUISIZIONE DEI DOCU Edit
By inflicting heinous tortures on those who hid or destroyed valuables, or who were suspected of hiding or destroying them, pirates could prevent behaviors that would otherwise erode their revenue.Read more at location 1628
Note: x OBBIETTIVO PREVENZIONE.SIA DEI PRIGIONIERI CHE DELLA CIURMA Edit
heinous pirate torture prevented crew members on future prizes from attempting to withhold valuable booty.Read more at location 1631
Note: c Edit
creating a reputation for pirate barbarity that spread throughout the maritime world.Read more at location 1631
What’s more, pirates received advertisement for their reputation in popular eighteenth-century newspapers, which unwittingly contributed to pirates’ ruthless brand name, indirectly facilitating pirates’ profit.Read more at location 1651
Note: x PUBBLICITÀ DEI GIORNALI Edit
This is why pirates spent so much time, as one court remarked, “making their Hellish InventionsRead more at location 1654
walking of the plank, couldn’t create a reputationRead more at location 1655
being cooked aliveRead more at location 1656
forced to eat the severed earsRead more at location 1656
in response to the merchant captain discussed above who threw a bag of gold into the oceanRead more at location 1658
Edward Low’sRead more at location 1659
“Lowe cutt off the said Masters lipps and broyl’d them before his face, and afterwards murder’d the whole crew being thirty two persons” In a newspaper article in the American Weekly Mercury, a witness described how Low’s crew treated other resistant prisoners: “They cut and whiped some and others they burnt with Matches between their Fingers to the bone to make them confess where their Money was.”Read more at location 1659
Note: x IN RISPOSTA AL CAPIT CHE SI LIBERÒ IN MARE DEI VALORI Edit
Charles VaneRead more at location 1664
“bound [one captive’s] hands and feet and ty’d (upon his back) down to the bowspritt with matches to his eyes burning and a pistol loaded with the muzzle into his mouth, thereby to oblige him to confess what money was on board.”Read more at location 1664
Note: x VANE Edit
George LowtherRead more at location 1667
“placing lighted matches between the fingers of” his prisoners “to make them discover where the gold was.”Read more at location 1668
Note: x LOWTHER Edit
buccaneers had a particular skillRead more at location 1673
Their practice of “woolding”Read more at location 1673
“they strappado’d him until both his arms were entirely dislocated, then knotted the cord so tight round the forehead that his eyes bulged out, big as eggs. Since he still would not admit where the coffer was, they hung him up by his male parts, while one struck him, another sliced off his nose, yet another an ear, and another scorched him with fire.”Read more at location 1674
Note: x WOOLDING Edit
“they tied long cords to his thumbs and his big toes and spreadeagled him to four stakes. Then four of them came and beat on the cords with their sticks, making his body jerk and shudder and stretching his sinews. Still not satisfied, they put a stone weighing at least two hundred-weight on his loins and lit a fire of palm leaves under him, burning his face and setting his hair alight.”Read more at location 1677
Note: c Edit
Francois L’OllonaisRead more at location 1680
“being possessed of a devil’s fury, ripped open one of the prisoners with his cutlass, tore the living heart out of his body, gnawed at it, and then hurled it in the face of one of the others.”Read more at location 1682
Note: x OLONESE Edit
inventiveness,Read more at location 1686
Consider, for instance, “the sweat.”Read more at location 1687
“The Manner of a Sweat,” one pirate prisoner explained in the pages of the British Journal, “is thus: Between the Decks they stick Candles round the Mizen-Mast, and about twenty five Men surround it with Points of Swords, Penknives, Compasses, Forks, &c. in each of their Hands: Culprit enters the Circle; the Violin plays a merry Jig, and he must run for about ten Minutes, while each Man runs his Instrument into his Posteriors.”Read more at location 1687
Note: x TORTURA DEL COMPASSO Edit
captives expected to be brutalized whether they delivered up their valuables or not,Read more at location 1694
Note: NO TORTURE INDISCRIMINATA Edit
Philip Ashton, for instance, “learned from some” of his pirate captors “that it was one of their Articles Not to Draw Blood, or take away the Life of any Man, after they had given him Quarter.”Read more at location 1696
Note: X PHILIP ASHTON Edit
This explains the seeming generosity of the quartermaster on Captain Roberts’s ship who observed one of his men abusing a captive. When he saw this “the Quarter-master came forward, and took the Pyrate off from beating him, asking him how he wou’d like it were he a Prisoner.”Read more at location 1698
Note: x PUNIRE CHI ABUSA DEINPRIGIONIERI Edit
“Dead men tell no tales.”Read more at location 1709
strong incentive to avoid slaughteringRead more at location 1710
pirates often released some or all of the crew membersRead more at location 1711
Note: PUBBLICITÀ Edit
they could communicate their experience to others.Read more at location 1712
Thus, when Phillips captured John Fillmore, for instance, Fillmore was “dread to fall into [Phillips’s] hands,” he later recorded, “having heard of the cruelties committed by that execrable pirate.”Read more at location 1713
Note: x CASO BPHILLIPAS Edit
free-riding problem within the pirate community,Read more at location 1715
particular pirate captains, for instance, enjoyed their own individual reputations.Read more at location 1719
Captain John Phillips, for example, enjoyed a fearsome reputation particular to him. And as I discuss below, so did Blackbeard and other pirates.Read more at location 1720
Note: x PHILLIPS E BARBANERA Edit
newspapers published in London and New England.Read more at location 1723
Note: NEDIA DI ALLORA Edit
related information from pirate victims and released pirate prisoners.Read more at location 1724
Note: FONTI Edit
Pyrates gave us an account of”Read more at location 1729
Note: PRIGIONIERO Edit
fostering a “devil-may-care” image among the legitimate persons they interacted with,Read more at location 1733
Note: ALTRA IMMAGINE DA SPINGERE Edit
they feared neither death nor the law.Read more at location 1735
Note: TERZA IMMAGINE Edit
As Bartholomew Roberts famously boasted, for example, “A merry Life and a short one, shall be my Motto.”Read more at location 1742
Note: x IL MOTTO DI VBARTOLOMEO ROBERTS Edit
pirates’ reputation as short-sighted demons.Read more at location 1749
Note: ALTRA IMMAGINE Edit
high discount rates,Read more at location 1754
in the Boston News-Letter. According to the victim, Roberts’s men proceeded “with madness and rage to tare up the Hatches” and then “enter[ed] the Hould like a Parcel of Furies, where with Axes, Cutlashes, &c they cut, tore, and broke open Trunks, Boxes, Cases, and Bales, and when any of the Goods came upon Deck which they did not like to carry with them aboard their Ship … they threw them over board into the Sea … There was nothing heard among the Pirates all the while but Cursing, Swearing, Damning, and Blaspheming to the greatest degree imaginable.”Read more at location 1755
Note: X IL RESOCONTO DI UNA VITTIMA Edit
Richard Hawkins,Read more at location 1759
British JournalRead more at location 1760
“every Thing that please them not they threw over board … every individual Thing they destroy’d; broke all my Windows, knock’d down the Cabbin … and then deliver’d me my Ship in a despicable Condition.”Read more at location 1760
Note: x PIRATI PAZZI Edit
One pirate victim’s account, published in the Boston News-Letter, spoke specifically to pirates’ apparent godlessness and confirmed the popular perception that pirates were “in the Possession of the Devil” and “laughing at the very thunders of God.” “In ravaging the Vessel,” this victim reported, “they met with two or three Bibles, at the sight whereof some started and said, They had nothing to do with them; or with God, nor any thing Above.”Read more at location 1762
Note: x DEMONIACI Edit
pirates’ pyromania.Read more at location 1766
sometimes to prevent giving Intelligence, sometimes because they did not leave men to navigate them, and at other Times out of Wantonness, or because they were displeased with the Master’s Behaviour.”Read more at location 1767
Note: x RAGIONI X BRUCIARE UNA NAVE Edit
“Wanton” destruction Johnson describes was more likely a deliberate effort to foster an image of insanityRead more at location 1769
Note: c Edit
when a prisoner asked pirate John Phillips why his crew needlessly burned ships, Phillips “answer’d, it was for fun.”Read more at location 1770
Note: c Edit
Blackbeard,”Read more at location 1775
creating a horrible and intimidating physical appearance,Read more at location 1775
created a bloodcurdling reputation,Read more at location 1776
Captain Teach, assumed the Cognomen of Black-beard, from that large Quantity of Hair, which, like a frightful Meteor, covered his whole Face, and frightened America more than any Comet that has appeared there in a long Time. This Beard was black, which he suffered to grow of an extravagant Length; as to Breadth, it came up to his Eyes; he was accustomed to twist it with Ribbons, in small Tails … and then turn them about his Ears: three Brace of Pistols, hanging in Holsters like Bandaliers; and stuck lighted Matches under his Hat, which appearing on each Side of his Face, his Eyes naturally looking fierce and wild, made him altogether such a Figure, that Imagination cannot form an Idea of a Fury, from Hell, to look more frightful.Read more at location 1778
Note: x L EFFETTO OTTENUTO SECONDO UN CRONISTA DELL EPOCA Edit
Blackbeard,” for instance, “was conscious of the public image he had created”Read more at location 1786
invest in appearancesRead more at location 1789
reputations for cruelty and insanity, which reduced victim resistance, and in turn promoted profits.Read more at location 1790
Angus KonstamRead more at location 1791
Note: sotto Edit
the world’s most notorious and fearsome pirate hadn’t so much as killed a single man.Read more at location 1792
another reason as well: to deter authorities from clamping down on them.Read more at location 1798
Note: ALTRO SVOPO DELLA CRUDELTÀ Edit
pirates directed their barbarity at government officialsRead more at location 1799
Note: CVONTRO LA PULA Edit
in response to the governors of Barbados and Martinique seeking to capture him, Captain Roberts constructed a special flag communicating his new policy: death for any Barbadians and Martinicans he might take on the account.Read more at location 1801
Note: x CAPTAIN JOHNSON E BARBADOS Edit
Captain Low, for example, was said to have an “irreconcileable Aversion to New-England Men” and consequently “let none of that Country depart without some Marks of his Rage.” Low’s “aversion” stemmed from the audaciousness of the New York–based man-o’-war HMS Greyhound, which once attacked Low and succeeded in capturing his pirate consort, Charles Harris.Read more at location 1805
Note: CAP LOW Edit
Captain Low, for example, met with a ship “manned partly with English and partly Portuguese; the latter Low caused to be hang’d, by Way of Reprisal, for some of his own Men sent thither.” The English got off easier since Low had no axe to grind with them.Read more at location 1821
Note: x VENDETTA SUI CONNAZIONALI Edit
Bart Roberts used similar tactics to send a message to those acquainted with Captain Rogers, the man who led the two-ship expedition sent to attack him off the coast of Barbados.Read more at location 1823
Note: x VENDETTA SUI CONOSCENTI Edit
“The Pirates seem much enraged at Bristol Men, for Capt. Rogers sake.” When Roberts’s crew members took a ship from Bristol, “They us’d” its captain “barbarously, because his Countryman, Captain Rogers … was of the City of Bristol.”Read more at location 1825
Note: x AGUAI A BRISTOL Edit
Charles Vane instituted a policy of mistreating Bermudan vessels because Bermuda’s governor arrested pirate Thomas Brown.Read more at location 1828
Note: x CONTRO I BERMUDESI Edit
Virginia governor Alexander Spotswood, for example, couldn’t have been pleased when he learned from one of Bartholomew Roberts’s victims in 1721 that Roberts “expected to be joined by another ship and would then visit Virginia, and avenge the pirates who have been executed here.” If this frightened Spotswood, he must have wet himself a year earlier when he wrote to the Council of Trade and Plantations that if those “barbarous wretches can be moved to cutt off the nose and ears of a master for but correcting his own sailors, what inhuman treatment must I expect, should I fall within their power, who have been markt as ye principal object of their vengeance, for cutting off their arch-pirate Thatch, with all his grand designs, and making so many of their fraternity to swing in the open air of Virginia.” But Spotswood wasn’t alone.Read more at location 1832
Note: x IL GOV DRLLA VIRGINIA SE LA FA SOTYO Edit
According to Marcus Rediker, in at least some cases these sorts of pirate threats—backed by implementation—actually worked. As one Bermudan colonial official complained, for example, the island’s residents “fear’d that this very execution [of two pirates] wou’d make our vessels fare the worse for it, when they happen’d to fall into the pyrates’ hands” and so were reluctant to provide the testimony needed to condemn them.Read more at location 1840
Note: x LA STRATEGVDEI P HA SUCCESSO JELLE BERMUDA Edit
Mixing Business and Pleasure: Pirate JusticeRead more at location 1845
Note: t Edit
other purpose: to bring “justice” to predatory captains.Read more at location 1846
William SnelgraveRead more at location 1847
“They pretend one reason for these villainies is to do justice to sailors.”Read more at location 1847
Note: x SNEL Edit
several pirates identified captain mistreatment of merchant sailors as their reason for turning to piracy.Read more at location 1848
Note: c Edit
by punishing abusive merchant captains, pirates contributed to a positive reputation among merchant sailors.Read more at location 1851
Note: c Edit
make merchant crews more willing to surrender to pirate attack,Read more at location 1852
Note: c Edit
it doesn’t seem pirates had profit seeking in mind.Read more at location 1854
Note: MA IN QS CASO Edit
to prevent situations of captain predation, British law included several protections for merchant sailors. But official legal protections could and did fail, leaving sailors without effective, or at least immediate, shelter from captain abuse. Where the law failed to reign in predatory merchant captains, pirates, oddly enough, picked up the slack.Read more at location 1857
Note: x LA LEGGE UFFICIALE E IL SUO COMPLETAMENTO Edit
for pirates, the additional cost of administering justice to predatory merchant ship captains was very low. Pirates were searching for and stopping merchant vessels to plunder them anyway.Read more at location 1867
Note: c Edit
If the crew informed their captors that its captain had “misbehaved,” the pirates punished him. Pirates did this with torture,Read more at location 1872
Note: c Edit
On taking a “whole Salt Fleet, consisting of about 20 Sail,” pirate captain Christopher Condent, for example, “enquir[ed] into the Manner of the Commanders’ Behaviour to their Men, and those, against whom Complaint was made, he whipp’d and pickled”—a torture that involved lashing the abusive officers and pouring brine on their open wounds.Read more at location 1874
Note: x IL CASO CONDENT Edit
pirates who used to sail under them as merchant sailors.Read more at location 1877
One of Edward England’s pirates, for instance, immediately recognized Captain Skinner, whom he’d previously sailed under as boatswain,Read more at location 1878
Note: x IL CASO SKINNER Edit
“Ah, Captain Skinner! It is you? The only Man I wished to see; I am much in your Debt, and now I shall pay you all in your own Coin.” The pirates tied Skinner “to the Windless, and there pelted him with Glass Bottles, which cut him in a sad Manner;Read more at location 1880
Note: c Edit
Captain Thomas Tarlton must have been equally distressed to encounter a prisoner aboard Bartholomew Roberts’s ship whom he’d refused help to in the past. The prisoner “could not spare using some Reproaches of” Tarlton “for what he thought was Inhumanity.” This “getting to the Ears of Roberts, he took upon him, as a Dispenser of Justice, the Correction of this Tarlton, beating and misusing him grievously.”Read more at location 1883
Note: x CASO TARLTON Edit
Conversely, if a captured merchant crew spoke well of its captain,Read more at location 1886
For instance, when Thomas Cocklyn’s pirate crew took William Snelgrave’s ship and “endeavoured to beat out my Brains,” as Snelgrave put it, for ordering his sailors to defend their vessel, “some of my People that were on the Quarter-Deck observing, cried out aloud, ’For God’s sake don’t kill our Captain, for we never were with a better Man.’”Read more at location 1888
Note: x CASO SNELGRAVE Edit
Pirates might also make giftsRead more at location 1897
forge friendships with these men that could serve them in the future.Read more at location 1897
Pirate captain William Lewis, for example, took a ship “belonging to Carolina, commanded by [a] Captain Smith.” “Lewis used him very civilly, and gave him as much, or more in Value, than he took from him, and let him go, saying, he would come to Carolina when he had made Money on the Coast, and would rely on his Friendship.”Read more at location 1898
Note: x CASO WILIA LEWIS Edit
Sam Bellamy’s pirates showed surprising kindness to Captain Lawrence Prince who they’d recently plundered. “They gave the ship taken from Capt. Richards [another recent prize] to Capt. Prince, and loaded her with as much of the best and finest goods as She could carry, and gave Capt. Prince above Twenty Pounds in Silver and Gold to bear his charges.”Read more at location 1900
Note: x IL CASO PRINCE Edit
Alexander SpotswoodRead more at location 1905
common practice among the Pirats to make presents to MastersRead more at location 1905
Merchant ship captain Knott, for example, couldn’t have been too disappointed at his crew’s capture in 1720. His pirate attackers “took what they wanted out of the merchantman and gave him money and goods of a very considerable value for the same.” Captain John Gow’s pirates felt particularly compelled to “ma[k]e a Reparation” to some of their victims, “giving” to one “what they had taken Violently from another” in “a strange Medley of Mock-Justice made up of Rapine and Generosity blended together.”Read more at location 1906
Note: x ALTRI CASI Edit
Merchant captains who feared pirate justice may have lessened their severityRead more at location 1913
pirates may have contributed to merchant seamen’s welfare.Read more at location 1914
Captains received no hearing for their part. Thus there was no objectivity under pirate justice.Read more at location 1919
relied only on sailors’ “testimony.”Read more at location 1920
at pirate hands. Pirate torture, while often heinous, was rarely arbitrary.Read more at location 1926
Note: CONC Edit
a minority of pirates were also simply psychopaths.Read more at location 1941
Note: t Edit
Francis Spriggs, for example, forced merchant captain Richard Hawkins to eat “a Dish of Candles” for his amusement.Read more at location 1941
Note: x SPRIGGS Edit
truly sadistic pirates, such as Edward Low.Read more at location 1943
Low, for example, burned one victim alive for no other reason than, “being a greazy Fellow,” he thought he “would fry well in the Fire.”Read more at location 1943
Note: x CASO LOW Edit