For Our Pirate Readers

Arrr. Shiver me timbers! Why hasn’t CEI done more t’ celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day? Only one post? Although Seafarin’ heartys be, fer th’ most part, thieves an’ murderers, th’ romantic vision o’ th’ swashbuckler does be havin’ some truth. Seafarin’ heartys, historians tell us, mostly had regular, careers an’ chose t’ reinvent they’s self on th’ high seas. Eighteenth century swashbucklers be rebellin’ against th’ class system that Britain then imposed. They e’en get a brief aside in Gordon Wood’s great Radicalism o’ th’ American Revolution. Although brutal in many respects, swashbuckler crews be egalitarian: almost all welcomed escaped slaves an’ more than a wee allowed lasses t’ join. (At least two lasses e’en became swashbuckler captains.) So, on this tide, two cheers fer sweet trade.