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Pirate Justice and Discipline

The internal disciplinary order of a self-governing pirate company of about 1690 to 1725. An elected quartermaster settled everyday quarrels, the whole company judged serious offences by majority, and the articles set a scale of penalty from death and marooning to flogging, with quarrels carried ashore to a duel.

Also writtenPirate discipline; Shipboard justice; Punishment under the articles; The pirate code as disciplinary law

A pirate company of the golden age, roughly 1690 to 1725, governed itself under a code its members swore to before the cruise began, and much of that code was disciplinary. It was distinct from the state justice that hunted the same men: the Admiralty courts applied the law of nations to pirates, while the articles were the crew's own code for life aboard. The contractual habit was older than the golden age: the shipboard agreement and the buccaneer chasse-partie of the later seventeenth century had set shares and compensation before a cruise, and it is possible that the disciplinary articles grew from that root, the same document that fixed each man's share coming to fix the rules and penalties of the ship.

Who judged what

Disciplinary authority was divided so that no one man held it whole. The captain commanded absolutely in action and at no other time. Between fights the ordinary magistrate of the ship was the elected quartermaster, who kept order, settled small quarrels over food, drink and property, and inflicted the lesser corrections. Grave matters went to the company. Bartholomew Roberts's code reserves the penalty for serious offences to a judgement made "as the Captain and the Majority of the Company shall think fit", a trial by the assembled crew and part of the wider practice of the whole-company vote.1

The scale of punishment

Roberts's articles, as Charles Johnson printed them in 1724, set out a scale of punishment rather than one sanction. Defrauding the company was punished by marooning. Theft between shipmates brought the mutilation clause, "slitting the Ears and Nose", before the offender was put ashore somewhere hard. Deserting the ship or quitting quarters in action carried death or marooning. Below all that, in the general run of the codes, sat the lesser expulsion of being set ashore in a settled place.2

The clearest documented flogging clause belongs to John Phillips's small company of the Revenge, whose articles were sworn on a hatchet for want of a Bible about 1723 to 1724. A man who struck another while the articles were in force was to have "Moses's Law (that is, 40 stripes lacking one) on the bare back". The same code maroons a man who attempts to run or keeps a secret from the company "with one bottle of powder, one bottle of water, one small arm, and shot", the single ball understood as the means of ending it. Theft or gaming above the value of a piece of eight drew marooning or shooting under the same code.3

No striking aboard

The ban on fighting between shipmates came paired with an outlet. Roberts's eighth article reads: "No striking one another on board, but every Man's Quarrels to be ended on Shore, at Sword and Pistol." In such a duel the quartermaster took the two men ashore, set them back to back at a measured distance, and on the word they turned and fired; if both missed they went to their cutlasses, and the man who drew first blood won. A brawl on a powder-laden ship could destroy the company, so lethal personal violence went ashore with the quarrel.4

Discipline as ship safety

The Phillips code also penalises snapping a weapon, smoking in the hold with an uncapped pipe, and carrying a candle without a lantern. Much of what is called pirate justice was the management of fire and powder aboard a wooden ship.5

How the codes come down

The codes of Roberts, Phillips, Lowther, Low and Gow come down through Johnson's book or through Admiralty court papers, and only a handful survive in any form. Articles were the self-incriminating evidence prosecutors wanted, so crews facing capture burned them or put them over the side.6

Articles record what a company resolved, not what it did. That a code prescribed thirty-nine stripes for striking a shipmate does not establish that the sentence was ever laid on. Marooning is supported by trial and narrative testimony as well as by the codes, and the quartermaster's office is attested across many crews. Peter Leeson reads the codes as a private constitution, Marcus Rediker as an egalitarian counter-order.

The Anstis mock court

The costumed pirate tribunal of the popular imagination has one ancestor in the period. Johnson records that the crew of Thomas Anstis, camped on an island off Cuba in 1722 while they waited for news of a pardon, held a "Mock Court of Judicature to try one another for Pyracy". By its own description this was a pastime and a burlesque, a parody of the royal courts that hanged pirates. Serious discipline ran through the vote of the company.7

What these sources cannot give is the ratio of prescription to practice. No record cited here describes, from inside a company, a flogging ordered, a man marooned by vote or a duel fought under the eighth article. Whether any crew convened a genuine formal tribunal, rather than an ad hoc vote, is not established. The numbered list of Roberts's articles is a reconstruction rather than a transcript: the 1724 book gives the substance only, the full copy being lost. The mechanics of the company vote and the choreography of the duel are described in that book alone, and the readings Peter Leeson and Marcus Rediker build on them rest on the same narrow base. The testimony that would test Johnson's picture sits in the High Court of Admiralty and colonial vice-admiralty papers, where witnesses sometimes described internal pirate discipline.

What the evidence does not settle

Articles versus practice

  • Surviving articles show what was resolved, not how discipline was enforced

Duel ashore and vote procedures

  • The duel ashore procedure's detail is under evidenced beyond Johnson's accountPossible

The Anstis mock trial

  • The Anstis 1722 mock trial is satire, not evidence of practiceUnverified

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. Disciplinary authority in a pirate company was divided, the captain commanding absolutely only in action, the elected quartermaster acting as the ordinary magistrate of the ship between fights by keeping order, settling small quarrels over food, drink and property and inflicting the lesser corrections, and grave offences being referred to the whole company, Bartholomew Roberts's code reserving the penalty for serious offences to a judgement made as the Captain and the Majority of the Company shall think fit. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Period narrative and transcribed articles: A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, attributed to Captain Charles Johnson, 1724; The Articles of Bartholomew Roberts, as printed by Johnson
  2. The articles of Bartholomew Roberts, known only as Charles Johnson printed them in 1724, set out a scale of punishment rather than a single sanction, prescribing marooning for defrauding the company, the mutilation clause of slitting the ears and nose followed by being set ashore in a hard place for theft between shipmates, and death or marooning for deserting the ship or quitting quarters in action. Possible Consistent with the evidence, not established. Transcribed articles as printed in a period narrative: The Articles of Bartholomew Roberts, as printed by Johnson
  3. The articles sworn by John Phillips's company of the Revenge about 1723 to 1724, taken upon a hatchet for want of a Bible and reaching us only through Johnson's printing, carry the clearest documented flogging clause in the corpus, prescribing Moses's Law, that is 40 stripes lacking one, on the bare back for a man who struck another while the articles were in force, and marooning with one bottle of powder, one bottle of water, one small arm and shot for a man who attempted to run or kept a secret from the company. Possible Consistent with the evidence, not established. Transcribed articles as printed in a period narrative: The Articles of John Phillips' crew, as printed by Johnson in the General History, chapter on Phillips
  4. Fighting between shipmates was banned outright and personal quarrels were reserved for a duel ashore, Roberts's eighth article reading No striking one another on board, but every Man's Quarrels to be ended on Shore, at Sword and Pistol, while the choreography of that duel, in which the quartermaster placed the disputants back to back at a set distance, gave the word to turn and fire, sent them to their cutlasses if both missed and declared the man who drew first blood the victor, rests on a single passage of Johnson's 1724 General History and is no better than possible as regular practice. Possible Consistent with the evidence, not established. Transcribed articles and period narrative: The Articles of Bartholomew Roberts, as printed by Johnson; A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, attributed to Captain Charles Johnson, 1724
  5. The Phillips articles as printed by Johnson also carry a safety-discipline clause penalising snapping a weapon, smoking tobacco in the hold with an uncapped pipe and carrying a candle without a lantern, indicating that a substantial part of shipboard justice was the management of fire and powder risk. Possible Consistent with the evidence, not established. Transcribed articles as printed in a period narrative: The Articles of John Phillips' crew, as printed by Johnson in the General History, chapter on Phillips
  6. Almost all surviving pirate articles reach us because Charles Johnson printed them in the 1724 General History, the codes of Roberts, Phillips, Lowther, Low and Gow coming through that book or through Admiralty court papers and only a handful surviving in any form, the scarcity being explained by the routine destruction of articles by crews facing capture, and Johnson himself stating that for Roberts's code he could give only the substance, the full copy having been lost, so that the numbered list as printed is a reconstruction rather than a transcript. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Period narrative: A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, attributed to Captain Charles Johnson, 1724
  7. The theatrical pirate courtroom of popular imagination derives largely from Johnson's account of the crew of Thomas Anstis holding a Mock Court of Judicature to try one another for Pyracy on an island off Cuba in 1722 while they waited for news of a pardon, an episode described by its own source as a burlesque and a pastime, a parody of the royal courts that hanged pirates rather than a working instrument of discipline, serious discipline having run instead through the vote of the company. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Period narrative with modern annotation: A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, attributed to Captain Charles Johnson, 1724; Anstis Crew Mock Trial, World History Commons