People: Captain Jonnia and Lieutenant Bolivar

Today's individuals are mentioned not only by Philip Gosse in The Pirate's Who's Who but also by our old friend Charles Ellms in The Pirate's Own Book. It is probably safe to say that they were real individuals who sailed together in the vast Caribbean sea, but how much their brief life stories have been altered for the sake of entertainment is up for speculation.

Jonnia and Bolivar (or Bolidar according to Ellms) were in that last wave of piracy that sprang up out of the revolutions in Central and South America. When nations like Argentina, Chile and particularly Simon Bolivar's Grand Columbia discontinued their habit of doling out letters of marque against the Spanish, many a man turned from privateer to pirate. While that cannot be said to be the absolute case with our current subjects, their years of operation - 1821 in particular - hint at such goings on.

Gosse tells us that Jonnia, a Spaniard by birth, commanded a "fast schooner in 1821." He carried a crew of 40 men and for a small ship he appears to have been armed to the teeth. A curious aside in the short paragraph that Gosse allows for Jonnia notes that the schooner "had three Mexican negresses" aboard. Whether or not the ladies were wives or paramours of crewmen or were actually a-pirating themselves is not discussed. What a wonderful piece of historical fiction could be made of their possible adventures, however.

Jonnia's schooner took a Boston merchant, Exertion, on December 17, 1821. Gosse notes that the crew was "considerably drunk at the time" and plundered the merchant with reckless abandon:

The pirates took everything from their prisoners, even their clothes, but as a parting gift sent the captain a copy of the "Family Prayer Book" by the Rev. Mr. Brooks. The prisoners were marooned on a small mangrove quay, but they eventually escaped.

This torturous disposal of the prisoners - imagine being marooned naked on a sun baked, mosquito infested salt water quay - seems to have fallen to Lieutenant Bolivar, whom Gosse describes in particular and amusing detail as:

... a stout, well-built man of swarthy complexion and keen, ferocious eyes, huge black whiskers and beard, and a tremendously loud voice.

Jonnia and his crew took the booty they had carried away from Exertion to Principe, Cuba, doubtless to sell and/or trade. Their next cruise was not so felicitous, however, as Gosse ends the entry: "Jonnia and some of his crew were afterwards captured by an English ship and taken to Kingston, Jamaica, and there hanged." Whether or not the jovial Lieutenant Bolivar was in that batch, Gosse does not say.

Header: Pirates by Howard Pyle via Wikimedia

People: Shadow of a Privateer

It was a perfect example of how the violence and barbarity that lay beneath the surface of privateering could suddenly and frighteningly erupt once the restraints of legal pretense were removed… The collapse of Cartagena negated any remaining legitimacy of its privateering commissions. ~ from The Pirates Laffite by William C. Davis


In the above instance, the “it” in question are the savage actions of a certain shadowy privateer who was a fringe member of the Laffite brothers’ freebooting band. The man was William Mitchell, and though his origins are lost to history, some of his actions remain as bloody testament to the worst atrocities committed under the guise of “privateering.”

Mitchell’s name – if it is not an alias as was occasionally the case with the privateers of the era – would lead one to believe that he was American or possibly Canadian by birth. The Anglo-Saxon ring of his moniker gives it a certain legitimacy. Privateers connected with Barataria who chose to use aliases, such as Vincent Gambi and Renato Beluche, generally stuck with Gallic names: Jean Roux for the former and Rene Brougman for the latter.

Mitchell is not mentioned in any records associated with the Laffites’ New Orleans operations and indeed his name finds no place on the rosters of those Baratarians who fought at the Battle of New Orleans. What he did prior to the fall of 1815 cannot be said with certainty. Since we know he was captaining his own vessel, Cometa, at that time, it is safe to assume that he came from a seafaring background.

Cartagena, one of the first cities in Bolivar’s revolution against Spain to declare independence, had been under siege by the Spanish for over three months as of December, 1815. Louis Aury, an old Laffite associate, was in charge of a rebel fleet whose captains included familiar Baratarians such as Dominique Youx, Jean Jannet and Renato Beluche. These men harassed Spanish ships and attempted blockade runs to feed the starving citizens trapped inside the city, but to no avail. The city finally surrendered but the Spanish – who could not take care of the withering citizenry – gave lip service to allowing Aury’s ships to rescue the Cartagenans and remove them to other shores. In the end they would chase some of those ships down and send all aboard to a watery grave.

Mitchell and his Cometa joined this mission of mercy, taking on some of the cities wealthiest citizens including her Governor.

The ships, packed with refugees, were to set out for Haiti where Bolivar was in negotiations with her President for assistance with his floundering uprising. Storms and Spanish ships beset the little flotilla. Ships were separated and some foundered all together, going down with all hands. Mitchell, seeing an opportunity, veered off from the set course and put in at San Andres Island not far from Nicaragua. Here he dumped his starving passengers after divesting them of all their worldly goods. He and his men went on to sack the only city on the island, killing the Spanish governor and taking more loot including about twenty slaves. Cometa sailed off toward the Gulf of Mexico with Mitchell and his crew richer by an estimated $40,000.

Not finished by half, Mitchell took a Spanish vessel somewhere in the Gulf and relieved her of some $25,000 in silver. With that, he pointed Cometa toward the Mississippi, intent on heading for New Orleans to sell what he could not spend, including the slaves.

Mitchell’s plan went awry at the Balize, the small customs station located where the river meets the Gulf. Here inspector John Rollins, confronting Mitchell after a sweep of Cometa, was told in no uncertain terms that the captain had every intention of selling the humans in his hold when he reached New Orleans. Since importation of slaves was illegal, Rollins seized Cometa and Mitchell was indicted on three counts of piracy in May of 1816.

The atrocities committed by Mitchell at San Andres Island could very well have gone unknown to history had it not been for that indictment, which still exists in New Orleans as case number 0909. As Davis notes in his book, Commodore Daniel Tod Patterson remarked at the time of the indictment that Mitchell would never be tried. The Commodore’s comment held more than sarcasm; Mitchell would not see a day in court.

William Mitchell continued his piracy in the Gulf of Mexico, taking ships around Barataria, Galveston and Matagorda. He used Galveston as a base while first Louis Aury and then the Laffites ran thinly veiled smuggling operations from the bay. In fact, he was one of the first to receive an essentially bogus Mexican “commission” issued at Galveston by the Laffite brothers’ associate Humbert in February of 1817. He was also tapped as something of an errand boy for the brothers, sailing back and forth from Galveston to New Orleans aboard the converted gunboat Pegasus to retrieve supplies, arms and men. His last such mission ended with Pegasus being libeled by the U.S. for carrying illegal arms in February of 1820.

After that court action, which again never saw a climax, Mitchell disappeared from the record. Davis does give us a glimpse of the pirate’s possible end, stating that he “supposedly died May 1, 1821, on Great Corn Island off Nicaragua” which is somewhat unsatisfying to say the least.

The shadowy privateer known by the name William Mitchell remains a mystery, and we have only his evident treachery and brutality to remember him by. Something he has in common with so many of history’s pirates.

Header: San Andres Island via Wikimedia

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Prize

Talk of prizes is cheap when one is around pirates and privateers. Seemingly contradictorily, it is dear as well. All sailors – even as recently as 100 years ago – loved a prize. But what exactly was a prize, legally? Was there even such a thing? As long as there have been ships at sea, the answers have been more complicated than one might imagine.


A number of prize acts have been passed by the various naval countries on both sides of the Atlantic, with the one that really got the ball rolling issued by Henry VIII of England to institute his all-privateer navy. Elizabeth I solidified these laws, with Queen Anne passing a revised act in 1708 and King George adding to it in 1793.

The next great wave of privateers would sprout up in 1810 when the government of Bolivar’s free Cartagena began issuing letters of marque. In all these situations, legal prizes were required to first be judged so via a libel in a court of the country issuing the letter of marque. Of course, this was not always possible and in some cases – notably the Laffites’ Barataria and Galveston operations – rarely if ever happened.

Prize acts, again often in theory more than practice, technically expired at the end of whatever war they were written for. A good example here is the resending of Queen Anne’s 1708 prize act which contributed greatly to the period known now as the Golden Age of piracy. Many recognizable names of the era, from Edward Teach to Howell Davis, had sailed with legitimate letters of marque and simply continued to take prizes after their papers expired, thus becoming pirates rather than privateers.

Prize goods were those taken legally from an enemy at sea. A prize master is the man given control of the prize ship to see her safely into a port controlled by the privateer’s or man-of-war’s country. Young officers often cut their teeth as commanders aboard prizes. Prize money was the result of the sale of prize goods and sometimes the ship itself, which was then divided according to the articles of the privateer or the navy in question. Prizeage was the share of that money belonging to the government.

No one can put the pieces together quite as succinctly as Admiral Smyth, however, so I offer the entry under “prize” from his The Sailor’s Word Book:

A vessel captured at sea from the enemies of a state, or from pirates, either by a man-of-war or privateer. Vessels are also looked upon as prize if they fight under any other standard than that of the state from which they have their commission, if they have no charter-party, and if loaded with effects belonging to the enemy, or with contraband goods. In ships of war, the prizes are to be divided among the officers, seamen &c., according to the act; but in privateers, according to the agreement of the owners.

And nothing could be more thorough than that in describing a lovely – and legal – prize. Happy Saturday, Brethren; I’m off to dine with the first mate. I’ll spy ye tomorrow for Seafaring Sunday.

Header: Revenue cutter Harpy chasing a smuggler via National Museum of Liverpool Blog

History: Piracy Statutes of 1724 and Beyond

The British statute against piracy issued by the Crown in 1724 as an addendum to the nation’s civil law is one of the most far reaching pieces of legal action in history. The law, as it is presented in Johnson’s History of Pyrates effectively ended the so called Golden Age of piracy, leaving only pockets of plundering in out of the way places. A resurgence in freebooting would not occur until the late 18th century with the dawn of the age of privateering that began with the great American revolutions and ended when David Porter’s Mosquito Fleet put down the last of the “Caribbean” pirates.


You can find the statute as set down by Johnson online here. Over the course of a few recurring posts, I’d like to take a closer look at the points of law in the statute, and see how they have effect piracy and the battle against piracy over the course of almost three hundred years.

The first paragraph notes “Though Pyrates are called common Enemies, yet they are properly not to be term’d so.” Sighting Cicero, the law points out that only a group with an “ongoing Government or State” can be called an enemy and uses the example of the Barbary states, who should be afforded the “Solemnities of War, and the Rights of Legation.” It would be another hundred years before the combined forces of British, French, Dutch and U.S. navies put this point to the test in the Mediterranean and at last ended the predations of Barbary corsairs.

This principle was followed in dealing with pirates by almost every nation in the western world within just a few decades of the British statute. A pirate was not an enemy but a criminal; a rogue working under his own auspices and outside any law. This principle “of necessity” allowed privateering but set up a gray area in such ventures as well. “Unrecognized states” such as, at various points in history, Bolivar’s Grand Columbia, Mexican rebels, Texas, and others could have their privateers prosecuted and hanged as pirates because of their questionable status according to established nations. This was certainly the case with the Continental Navy during the Revolutionary War.

This idea also, in an even deeper shade of gray, applied to the Laffite brothers Barataria operation. The brothers together, and Jean in particular, claimed Barataria was a sovereign state and therefore above the laws of piracy. Their ships were not engaged in criminal activity, they reasoned, but the taking of enemy ships. It is worth noting that, though the Laffites issued passports to those who wished to enter Barataria, they never went so far as to create their own letters of marque but used those issued from Cartagena, Caracas and Mexico.

The issue of enemy vs. criminal continues to create problems for modern navies battling pirates in Southeast Asia, the Gulf of Aden and elsewhere. The pirates claim they are freedom fighters from nations in revolt; the navies claim they are thugs. Iran’s recent protest against U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf is an excellent example of this ongoing issue.

This idea also applies in part on the issue of “Subjects in Enmity with the Crown of England”, mentioned a few paragraphs later. In this point of law, a foreigner whose country is at war with (in this case) England but is serving aboard a pirate ship run by a British national is not subject to prosecution as a criminal. Though the foreigner would still be tried for piracy, his proceeding would be under the auspices of Martial rather than Civil Law. This may appear to be splitting hairs but it certainly gives the foreigner an out that his mates would not have. Enemies of the state can be exchanged for prisoners of war or espionage.

All this legal jargon goes right out the window in paragraph number six:

If Pyracy be committed on the Ocean, and the Pyrates in the attempt be overcome, the Captors may, without any Solemnity of Condemnation, hang them up at the Main-Yard; if they are Brought to the next Port, & the Judge rejects the Tryal, or the Captors cannot wait for the Judge, without Peril or Loss, Justice may be done upon them by the Captors.

At this point the gloves are off and so are all bets. Those capturing pirates on the high seas may quite literally do with them as they please “without peril or loss”. Since just about every sovereign state with an Atlantic coast established similar piracy statutes by the mid-18th century, piracy was a very dangerous profession indeed. Even men that we think of now as legal privateers – John Paul Jones and Renato Beluche, for instance – could easily have been put to death “on the Ocean” under similar law.

That’s enough for today, I think. Next time, bribes, goods and when ransacking a ship at anchor is – and isn’t – piracy.

Header: 19th century engraving of a pirate via gutenberg.org

Seafaring Sunday: El Libertador

July 24, 1783: Simon Bolivar, liberator of half a continent and patron of many a famous privateer, is born near Caracas, Venezuela.

Header: Equestrian statue of Bolivar in Washington D.C.

Home Ports: Cradle of Buccaneers

The island of Hispaniola, which today holds the countries of Haiti and Santo Domingo on her shores, has for centuries been a base camp for all manner of freebooters. Stomping ground, home port and mother island, Hispaniola and in particular the French third of her land, has given us a myriad of colorful characters who are often spoken of here at Triple P. Tortuga, Petit Goave, Basse-Terre, Leogane and even Port-au-Prince were all used by high seas renegades as staging areas. So today, as a bit of a tribute, the history of forgotten Haiti and the contribution of her pirate progeny.


Centuries before Columbus, who “discovered” Hispaniola in 1492, the Taino people arrived. They most probably came in long canoes – similar to Polynesians in the South Pacific – from what is now Venezuela. They spoke an Arawakan language and are therefore sometimes mistakenly referred to as Arawaks themselves. These people named the island “Ayiti” which is where the modern name Haiti comes from.

The Taino had a complicated system of government that broke Ayiti into five kingdoms ruled by caciques. Twenty years after Columbus’ first landing the Spanish decided to wrest control of the island from the Taino. Not necessarily warlike by nature, the Taino were also not about to back down to the invaders and destroyed both the settlements of Saint Nicolas and La Navidad. All this was done under the leadership of Taino cacique Anacaona, the widow of Caonabo. Despite her valiant resistance, Anacaona was captured and hanged with all ceremony. The message was clear and the Taino people, for the most part, fell under the rule of their new overlords. The majority of the population was wiped out by smallpox, pneumonia, gonorrhea and other decidedly European diseases.

In 1517, with the indigenous population rung out as a source of free labor, Charles V of Spain authorized European indentured servitude and the importation of African slaves to Hispaniola. This decision would bring a fatal mix of disgruntled people, mostly male at first, to an under-protected backwater, leading to runaways and even small revolts. The men ran to the island of Tortuga where they became the original boucaniers, hunting black pigs and raiding small merchant craft.

Interestingly, a good many of the indentured servants in Hispaniola (and on surrounding Caribbean islands) were French. They set up shop on Tortuga, creating their own outlaw paradise that saw the inclusion of women – at this point, often runaway slaves – by the mid-16th century. By 1600, these people were heading out in ships and striking in particular against the Spanish. The most infamous of the era was Francois L’Olonnais. Born David Nau in the Olon region of France, indenture under a brutal Spanish master seems to have driven him insane. When he took up buccaneering he became a brutal monster, torturing Spanish captives without remorse and licking their blood from his sword.

By the 1660s the fame – and success – of these buccaneers had spread prompting French, Dutch and English adventurers to voluntarily travel to Tortuga and take up the black flag. When former buccaneer Bertrand d’Ogeron settled in the Massif de la Selle above Petit Goave and began successfully growing tobacco, France herself took note. Colonists immigrated to Hispaniola from France and French islands in the Caribbean. Spain naturally saw this as an invasion (as they had always imagined the buccaneers to be invaders, it was a natural progression) and hostilities on the island reached a fever pitch in the 1690s.

In 1697 the Treaty of Ryswick officially divided Hispaniola, with the western third going to France and becoming Saint Domingue. Immigration boomed and by the start of the French Revolution in 1789 there were upwards of 40,000 colonists of French descent on the island (by comparison, French Canada had a population of approximately 63,000 Europeans at relatively the same time).

With the Revolution, though, came the breakdown of the institutions that had made Saint Domingue a wealthy colony. When Robespierre announced the abolition of slavery at the end of 1793, the slave revolt led by Jean Jacques Dessalines in 1791 was confirmed as valid. By the end of 1794 Saint Domingue was at peace and under the capable governance of Toussaint Louverture, a former slave and brilliant military leader.

This taste of freedom was short lived, however. Bonaparte, in need of income for his war machine, reinstituted slavery and the plantation system in France’s Caribbean colonies. Louverture was hauled off to France in chains and died in a dungeon. The now free black Saint Domiguens, unwilling to return to slavery, revolted again and this time the consequences were brutal. Out of this unfortunate bloodbath, which saw an unprecedented exodus of white, mixed race and free black people from the island, came men who are surely familiar to the Brethren. The Laffite brothers, who were certainly not born in Port-au-Prince as many writers would have us believe, may very well have done business – possibly piratical business – out of the city prior to 1804. Dominique Youx, that old sea dog and “bravest of the Baratarians”, was almost certainly born in Saint Domingue. Other privateers of the era were probably the product of the upheaval on the island as well, though their names are lost to us.

When the dust settled, the newly christened Haiti became the first and only free nation born of a slave revolution. At the height of the privateering era, in 1817, Haitian President Alexandre Petion would first welcome the Liberator Simon Bolivar at Aux Cayes and then supply him with ships, men and arms. All in exchange for the promise that slavery would be abolished in Grand Columbia once Bolivar’s revolution was successful. The privateer that saw Bolivar safely to and from Haiti was none other than Renato Beluche in his sloop General Arismendi.

The story of modern Haiti is less glorious than her past, of course, but that is due in large part to foreign influence and not her generous people. Personally, I feel that historians – who tend to glorify New Providence and Port Royal as the crown jewels of pirate ports – should give a little more attention to the western third of Hispaniola, where buccaneers and privateers were born.

Header: Navigational map of Hispaniola c 1639

History: Cais do Valongo

Brazil has a long history of slave trading. The vast plantations that cut a living out of the verdant jungle north and south of the Amazon River needed human labor to create them, cultivate them and keep them running. Though native populations were exploited to some degree – anyone who has seen the movie The Mission has an idea of how that was handled – the vast majority of agricultural labor was done by enslaved Africans.

The wealth inherent in the slave trade meant that its history is forever entangled with the history of piracy and privateering. Because Brazil continued to import Africans to the New World after other slave-exploiting economies, like that of the U.S. and Mexico, had put embargoes on the trade, her ports and the seas outside them became targets for the opportunistic freebooters. Bartholomew Roberts routinely captured slavers off the west coast of Africa and then brought them to Brazil for the sale of their cargo at a tidy profit. If he was lucky he might even be able to sell the ship he appropriated. Later, in the heyday of the privateers, the Brazilian coast was a great hunting ground. Just as Roberts had off the coast of Africa, men like William Mitchell and Louis Aury would take a slave ship headed for Brazil and divert her to the Gulf Coast of Mexico, Texas or Louisiana for the sale of the unfortunate people she carried.

The history is both rich and disgusting. Slavery made the New World a more culturally diverse place for adding the unwilling immigrants to the mix. It also created a permanent stain on the otherwise forward thinking intentions of all of our founding fathers. For me personally, it is telling that Bolivar’s revolution was the first widespread uprising in the New World to include freedom for both African and Native slaves as an unquestioned tenant of its mission. And historical slave trading by buccaneers, pirates and privateers certainly takes a bit of the “heroic” and “egalitarian” wind out of their sails. Forgetting an injustice only makes it possible to repeat it – in fact slavery is a very real horror all over the world even as I write – and so a new archaeological find in Rio de Janeiro can only add to our knowledge of a practice that makes most of us uncomfortable at best.

The Cais do Valongo, or the Valongo wharf, was one of the largest intake ports for African slaves in Brazil. For over two hundred years people were off-loaded from ships and taken to holding houses where they were washed, fed and shaved before being exposed at local auctions. Once purchased, most would be marched to the interior and their new home on a sugar, cotton or – most likely – coffee plantation. The practice, which began in the later half of the 16th century, continued until Brazil officially banned slavery in 1888.

This article from Guardian UK tells us that what may have been the hub of the wharf was unearthed in the process of giving the Rio de Janeiro port a face lift in preparation for the 2016 Olympics. It includes information on the ongoing recovery and hoped for preservation of historical finds that include the possible slave-trade wharf as well as the Empress’ wharf, which was built on or near Valongo in the 1840s to welcome Brazil’s future Empress Teresa Cristina, and a 19th century sewer system. Archaeologist Tania Andrade Lima, who has been looking for Valongo for the National Museum, is hopeful that the find is authentic and that it will be possible to “integrate the finds into the new ports design”.

Rio’s mayor, Eduardo Paes, is quoted as saying “These are our Roman ruins,” and I think that speaks volumes. Rome was a master slaver, unrivalled before or since. As a person of mixed race and multicultural heritage I hope that none of what we as humans have done to one another, good or evil, will be forgotten. That way we can continue to do what is right, and never again build a Cais do Valongo anywhere in the world.

Header: Rugendas Slave Market, Brazil, via Virginia.edu

History: Renato Beluche vs. Jose Padilla

On this day in 1780, in an old style Creole house on Rue Dumaine in the city of New Orleans, my most illustrious ancestor was born. Renato Beluche came into the world the son of a French-Creole merchant and smuggler affectionately known around town as Big Rene. He would leave the world 80 years later as an honored veteran of both the Battle of New Orleans and Bolivar’s Revolution, as well as a Commodore in what is now the Venezuelan Navy. 103 years later, his remains would me moved to the Panteón nacional in Caracas where they rest to this day in sight of those of the Great Liberator, Simon Bolivar.

A lot of living – and a lot of sailing – went on for my Uncle Renato between birth and death. One of the highlights of a career full of privateering and freedom fighting was the Battle of Lake Maracaibo. History lists the date of the battle, fought mostly on the water, as July 24th. Actually, it occurred over almost a year from initial planning in September of 1822 to the evacuation of defeated Spanish troops in August of 1823. The lake and the city by the same name are now in the country of Venezuela. At the time they were part of the province of Gran Colombia.

Beluche was a Captain in Bolivar’s navy at the time and when, in November of 1822, he was given command of the largest ship in that small fleet and oversight of the blockade of Maracaibo, some local feathers were ruffled. As noted in a letter from General Mariano Montilla to General Francisco de Paula Santander:

Soublette has ordered that Beluche be given command of Constitucion. This has caused discord because Padilla’s disposition is not compatible with that of Beluche, Joly or Chitty [other men commanding smaller ships with Beluche]. They are our first and best officers of the squadron. We will see, and work with tact in this matter. In any event, Padilla will remain in command at Cartagena.

Jose Padilla, like his rival, was a sailor who had been aboard ship since his youth and known hardships including imprisonment by the British after the Battle of Trafalgar. Padilla was born in Rio Hacha, in modern Venezuela, and his Native and African blood made him a virtual symbol of Bolivar’s revolutionary vision. He bristled mightily at being usurped by Beluche who was not only his subordinate (Padilla was, by this time, an Army General) but a foreigner. Beluche had no love lost for Padilla either; he considered him a hothead who endangered men and ships at Maracaibo. It was only after the Battle of Maracaibo was put to bed that these two men really went at it and this time, in the press.

Thanks to the indefatigable research of Professor Jane Lucas de Grummond, we have the accurate cant and response of Beluche’s and Padilla’s literal flame war published in real time by local papers. The very public argument was sparked by Beluche hearing that Padilla was deprecating his contribution to the victory at Maracaibo and to the Bolivarian revolution in general. Padilla was, in effect, calling Beluche out as an opportunistic, foreign pirate.

In response, Beluche wrote a scathing article entitled “An Answer to False Accusations” in which he delineated Padilla’s errors in relation to his own service for Gran Colombia. The ball really got rolling when Padilla added his opinions and re-published the article. Beluche in turn commented on Padilla’s input and so it went until, like a vitriolic comment thread on a political blog, the two men ground each other down in amusing if unbecoming fashion.

Here is some of this discourse as printed in de Grummond’s scholarly biography, Renato Beluche: Smuggler, Privateer and Patriot.

Original article by Beluche: I was born in the new world and acquired a love of glory in the defense of her liberty. Scarcely had the cry of independence gone up from South America when I hurried to enlist myself among her defenders.

Padilla: What Senor Beluche says is true. He did come to South America but as a corsair; that is to say, to serve his own interests.

Beluche: Padilla remembers that I was a corsair. And what is the matter with that? If I served my own interests and at the same time those of Colombia, what more could one desire? His Excellency is ignorant of the fact that uniting public and private convenience is the essence of government.

Original article by Beluche: I have the satisfaction of having taken part in actions which it is not necessary to mention, for which I was praised by my chiefs. Envy has never found a resting place in my breast; and the brilliant actions of my companions in arms, far from exciting any base passion in me, had only stimulated me to imitate them.

Padilla: Senor Beluche’s deportment has not corresponded with this expression of his sentiments.

Beluche: This note is so vague and insignificant that it does not merit a reply.

This snippy backbiting goes on, when all comments have been added, for twenty-five pages. It is interesting to note that Padilla uses the honorific Senor but not the title of Captain when addressing Beluche and that Beluche addresses Padilla correctly as General in his original text but not at all in his responses. Neither man was going to back down.

For me the entire episode is a little funny, a little sad and a lot human. When a long gone ancestor jumps off the page with a fresh voice and a clear purpose, it makes them live again. For that I am grateful regardless of the words or the sentiment. I’ll bet Padilla’s descendants feel the same way.

Happy Birthday, Uncle Renato. I’m sure you were much missed when you left this Earth, but you’re always right here with me.

Header: The Battle of Maracaibo by Jose Maria Espinosa Prieto c 1840

Ships: Chase The Tide

The little ship that could – be a mail packet, a revenue runner, a privateer or a smuggler, that is – was known to the French as a chasse-marée and to the British as a lugger. Chasse-marée (chaz mar-AY) translates as tide chaser and the ships were originally developed in the 16th century as coastal fishing vessels. Used initially around the coasts of France (and possibly developed in my paternal ancestral home, Bordeaux and Gascony), the ships caught on in other coastal countries like Holland and England. By the early 18th century, they were ubiquitous to the English Channel.

Chasse-marées (or, as the French derogatorily referred to the British version, lougres) were smallish, three-masted vessels square rigged on fore and main with a Mediterranean style lateen rig on the mizzen mast. Though the rigging was effective for the slow work of fishing, it would not do as the vessels evolved into privateers with the almost constant wars going on among European nations heading into the 18th century. The rigging evolved along with the chasse-marée’s duties and the lateen sail on the mizzen was replace by what is known as a lug sail (thus the name lugger). This type of sail, which resembled the more common gaff sail, allowed for ease of handling that the lateen sail did not. In fact, by the end of the 18th century the chasse-marée developed a short spar extending directly over the stern that carried a block. The lug sail’s sheet was carried inboard through the block and the mizzen was stepped very close to the stern. With this rig the chasse-marée could virtually turn on that proverbial dime.

Always a small ship, the general dimensions for a chasse-marée were comparable to a sloop of the same era. The length averaged about 75 feet, beam width at about 20 and tonnage just above 100. The draft of the ship was necessarily shallow, about 3 to 4 feet, and she was often packed to capacity with men when sailing as a privateer. The French in particular, during the Napoleonic Wars, would cram 50 or 60 men onto these little ships and then set prize crews aboard ships they took. Documents from the era show privateering chasse-marées leaving ports like Dunkirk and Saint-Malo with 55 men and returning with only 20.

It was during the Revolutionary War era that the British began to toy with their luggers’ rigging. They drastically raked the masts, pulling them backward to improve the weatherliness of their ships, and then added huge sails to afford all possible wind and speed. The French caught on and, finally taking one of these British luggers as a prize, began to pattern their own chasse-marées on their enemy’s version. The first such built for French naval service as a mail packet and tender, L’Espiegle (which means The Mischievous One), was based on the plans of a British lugger.

The chasse-marée was adopted and manipulated by the 19th century privateers of the New World, finally becoming the hermaphrodite brig. Slightly larger than her Old World cousins, and shipping just two masts, she was perfectly suited to the conditions of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean and she too was frequently jammed with men going out and surprisingly sparse on crew coming in. Unlike the chasse-marée, however, the hermaphrodite brig could carry a relatively large compliment of guns and was therefore also favored by the emerging navies of Argentina, Chile and Bolivar’s Grand Columbia.

Modern forms of the historical chasse-marée have become more like racing schooners and are popular with yachtsmen around the world. The traditional ship, with her long bowsprit and unusual lug spar at the stern, is more handsome to my eye. But then, I’m a sucker for history, particularly at sea.

Header: Revenue Cruiser Chasing a Smuggling Lugger by Charles Dixon

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Right Part 2

Today at my house is all about a certain hero who appears above in a portrait that hangs on the wall of my bedroom. That's right. Today is the 227th anniversary of the birth of El Libertador: Simon Bolivar. To my mind he out stripes many of the greatest most worshiped men ever spoken of. If I told you some of the guys I have in mind, cries of heresy would rise against me from all over the globe, including my own dear country. Despite Hugo Chavez co-opting the great man for his own bizarre political agenda, I believe as another political leader once said: Bolivar belongs to all those who love Liberty.

So, in tribute to a righteous man, Sailor Mouth Saturday is again about the word right and its application at sea.

A ship is righted, or her men are righting her, when she is pulled up off her keel and into the water after a careening. For a very large ship, this can be a tremendous undertaking requiring the strong arms of every man Jack available. And a staggering amount of rope and tackles. A ship can also right at sea, presenting her masts vertically once again after listing due to grounding, waves or wind. A frightening experience regardless of the ship's size.

Right is most commonly used in reference to a ship's heading. A ship is right on end when sailing straight ahead in line with her masts. Right way indicates the ship's head is pointing in the desired direction. Right sailing means the ship's course is along one of the cardinal compass points: North, South, East or West and straight on it. Right the helm! is an order to bring the rudder in line with the keel causing the boat or ship to head directly forward.

Right up and down indicates that a ship's cable has gone from horizontal to vertical in relation to the water it is in. This occurs when weighing anchor. The capstan reels in the anchor cable and when the ship has reached the place where the anchor or kedge is set, the cable will literally come straight up to the ship from the water. The call is then: "Up and down, sir!" This lets the captain, master, leadsman and so on know that the anchor will soon be out of the water. When she is, the call "Clean (or thick if the anchor has a deal of barnacles, etc. aboard) and dry for weighing!" is heard. The anchor is set in the cathead, and the ship is free in the water. A glorious moment indeed.

Finally, there is the right whale. These gentle beasts are the ones without dorsal fins such as a baleen whale that were so popular with whalers in the 18th and 19th century. Thanks in large part to fossil fuels, we no longer need to hunt our fellow mammals.

And that is enough for today. It's time for me to get ready for a celebratory evening in honor of Bolivar. First, a toast to that portrait in my room. And to all my distant relatives in Venezuela and Panama, Salute!

History: The General On His Deathbed

Then he crossed his arms over his chest and began to listen to the radiant voices of the slaves singing the six o'clock Salve in the mills, and through the window he saw the diamond of Venus in the sky that was dying forever, the eternal snows, the new vine whose yellow bellflowers he would not see bloom on the following Saturday in the house closed in mourning, the final brilliance of life that would never, through all eternity, be repeated.

Above is Antonio Herrera Toro's Death of Bolivar. Beneath that poignant painting is the final sentence of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' brilliant novel about Simon Bolivar's last months on Earth, The General In His Labyrinth. Bolivar, the consumate ladies' man, the original road warrior and arguably the most impressive revolutionary that ever lived (as Garcia Marquez' beautiful prose suggests) died December 17, 1830 in Santa Marta, Columbia at the age of 47.

Simon Jose Antonio de la Santisima Trinidad Bolivar y Palacios was born to a wealthy Creolo family in Venezuela on July 24, 1783. He grew to hate the Spanish overlords of his country and his continent to such a degree that he led a revolution so successful it freed half of South America. Even while he was beating back the Spanish he became the last great military leader to provide privateers with legitimate letters of marque. Until the second decade of the 19th century, Bolivarian commissions allowed men like Renato Beluche and Jean Laffite to raid Spanish shipping legally. Vain, rash, brilliant and in perpetual motion throughout his amazing life, Bolivar is one of my very few heroes.

So, of course, I was intrigued by this article from Yahoo! News sent to me by the first mate. Bolivar has returned to interest politically and historically largely because of Venezuelan Dictator Hugo Chavez' obsession with the Great Liberator. Chavez has dedicated his political "reforms" to the memory of Bolivar and frequently compares himself to the General. One of Chavez' pet theories is that Bolivar did not die of pulmonary tuberculosis, as his autopsy findings indicate, but was poisoned by former friend turned rival Francisco de Santander. And now an American has - to Chavez' mind - shown that the theory is true.

As the article indicates, Paul Auwaerter of Johns Hopkins University proposed at a medical conference last week that the cause of Bolivar's death was arsenic poisoning. According to Auwaerter, the arsenic was ingested either via contaminated water or purposeful dosing to alleviate headaches or hemorrhoids. You can read Chavez' comments on these findings for yourself but Auwaerter is clear in the article that he has concerns about his research being "misconstrued". From the article:

What I said has been taken and used for their own political means.

I have not read Dr. Auwaerter's paper on the subject. In fact I am not sure if such has yet been published. I have, however, read the published lecture of Dr.Hector O. Ventura on the cause of Bolivar's death and it comes to a very different conclusion.

Ventura's lecture was given in 2005. At the time he was Director of Cardiovascular Training at the Ochsner Medical Institutions in Buenos Aires and Professor of Medicine at Tulane University Medical Center, New Orleans. Ventura's findings are based entirely on the pre-death notes and autopsy findings of Bolivar's physician at Santa Marta, the Frenchman Prosperous Alexander Reverend.

Reverend notes on Bolivar's arrival on December 1, 1830 that "Its Excellence" was "very skinny and debilitated [in] body... hoarse voice, a deep cough... and my first impression was that he had damaged lungs..." At the autopsy, performed by Reverend himself, the doctor repeatedly refers to tuberculous deformations, calcifications and wine coloring in and of the lungs. All of these are medical signs of pulmonary tuberculosis. At no point does Reverend refer to he or any of his assistants noticing the tell-tale bitter almond smell connected at autopsy with arsenic poisoning.

I am no clinician, it goes without saying, and I would never say that the above irrefutably confirms Bolivar's cause of death. However, it is worth pointing out certain facts before anyone decides what they believe:

Most historians agree that the level of arsenic contamination in 19th century water was probably no higher, or only slightly higher, than the level of arsenic in U.S. drinking water at the end of the 20th century.

Arsenic poisoning to the point of death is usually accompanied by symptoms of vomiting, seizure and hallucinations, none of which were reported by Reverend.

Bolivar, like so many men who have changed the course of history (Julius Caesar, Martin Luther, Napoleon Bonaparte) suffered from lifelong and intractable constipation. In the 19th century, arsenic was a prescribed antidote for that unfortunate symptom of straining at the stool: hemorrhoids. (Forgive me if that was more than you wanted to know about any of the gentlemen mentioned in that paragraph).

Pulmonary tuberculosis was a widespread and easily recognized disease at the time of Bolivar's death. Reverend is referred to as a shrewd and astute clinician by Ventura. There is no reason to believe that the doctor didn't know what he was looking at.

Tuberculosis tends to run in families. Both of Bolivar's parents died of pulmonary tuberculosis and it is well documented that the Liberator contracted the disease as a boy, probably after his mother became ill.

What's my point? I have several but there's no reason to elongate this post. And so, Brethren, I will leave it up to you. Death by arsenic poisoning? An unfortunate family propensity toward pulmonary disease? Murder? Or a life so full of movement from one battle to another, one goal to another, one woman to another that the body simply gave out? Something to ponder of a Thursday afternoon.

Home Ports: The Key To The West Indies

History is full of stories about people and places who, unlike the proverbial leopard, have changed their spots without blinking. Today's privateering hub, Cartagena, Columbia, is just such a one.

Known as The Heroic City, The Key to the West Indies and The Fort of the Kingdom, Cartagena was first claimed by Spanish explorer Pedro de Heredia in 1533. Set on a sheltered bay facing the Caribbean and surrounded by fertile land, the place was ideal for both seafaring and settling. In fact, various Caribbean natives had called it home for over 6,000 years. Heredia named his new outpost after the port city in Spain, allegedly because so many of the mariners on his ships hailed from there.

Almost immediately, Cartagena became a hub for transportation of Spanish wealth to and from the New World. Ores from the mines of Grand Granada and Peru made their way to Cartagena and from there went on to Havana and then Spain. By the 1700s, an enormous stipend or subsidy known as the Situado was being paid to Cartagena by Madrid for fortifications in particular. This amounted to millions of modern dollars in any given year. Where there is an abundance of gold and silver, and a handy port to sail into, there are sea raiders. Again almost immediately, Cartagena became a target for the enemies of Spain.

John Hawkins unsuccessfully attempted a sacking of the city in 1568. Twenty years later his nephew, Francis Drake, captured the city and sailed away with 110,000 in Spanish reales. French buccaneers Jean-Francois Roberval and Martin Cote had similar if less lucrative success. Both Francois L'Olonnais and Henry Morgan thought about raiding Cartagena, but chose Maricaibo instead.

By the late 1600s the now burgeoning city of close to 15,000 people was well fortified with thick walls (as shown in the picture above) and heavy guns. She saw her golden age under Spain in the 1700s when she became the capitol of the province of Grand Granada, the seat of the Spanish Inquisition and a center of Spanish art and culture.

As a curious aside, one of the last foreign raids on Cartagena occurred in 1741 and was lead by a British Colonial admiral, Edward Vernon. Along with Vernon was a young army officer named Lawrence Washington. If the names sound familiar here's why: Larry was George's older half-brother. Yes, that George Washington. And, despite the failure of the attempted conquest, he was so impressed by Admiral Edward that he named the Washington homestead in Virginia Mount Vernon.

But the hey day of Cartagena as a Spanish hub was brought to an abrupt end with the appearance of the Great Liberator:

Simon Bolivar in Plaza de Bolivar, Cartagena

As Simon Bolivar took the reigns of South American revolution from Miranda, Cartagena revolted and kicked Spanish troops, government and the Inquisition out. She was one of the first cities in Grand Granada to proclaim herself an independent state at war with Spain. To that end President and Governor Manuel Rodrigues Torices began handing out letters of marque to the privateers of the Gulf. Let the good times roll.

A couple of Captains who got in line for such commissions are no strangers here at Triple P. One was Dominique Youx and the other was my own Uncle Renato Beluche. Both sailed with Bolivarian commissions from 1810 on, but it was Beluche who became enamoured with not only the cause of South American freedom but Bolivar himself. Later in life Beluche would move from his native New Orleans to Venezuela and rise to the rank of Commodore in Bolivar's navy. During the days of the Laffites' Baratarian operations, however, he supplied the brothers with Cartagenan commissions.

The party ended when Spain came calling in October of 1815. A deplorable 106 day siege that starved out the inhabitants of the city followed. People were reduced to eating horse hides and even hooves. It was the so often maligned privateers led by Louis Aury and again including Youx and Beluche who came to the rescue, ferrying survivors to safety in Haiti under the guns of Spain.

With Spain's grip on South America severely challenged by Bolivar, Cartagena was ignored. She became a haven for run away and liberated African and Native slaves and she fell into disrepair. In 1821 Spain at last surrendered to Bolivar and the work of reconstructing not only cities like Cartagena but half the continent began.

Cartagena again became a welcoming port for privateers as Bolivar continued to issue commissions until the mid-1820s. It was from this port that Jean Laffite sailed as a legitimate privateer for Grand Columbia in the brig General Santander in 1823. He died aboard her and was buried at sea the same year.

Declared a place of significance to the heritage of the world by UNESCO in 1984, Cartagena is indeed impressive. So much history in one place is hard to argue with. It holds a blue pin on my travel map. One day, Cartagena, we will meet in person.

The Pirates Own Book: Another Bloody Career

It's been a while since we've visited the fun and frolic that is Charles Ellms' The Pirates' Own Book and, on a gloomy, icy, cold, dark day, nothing cheers like a good laugh - or at least a good debate. For that reason I give you Chapter 11: Bloody Career and Execution of Vincent Benavides.

According to Ellms the Benavides in question was born in Chile (which Ellms spells like the spicy stew) some time in the late 18th century. By 1816 he is a traitor to the Chilean revolution, having gone over to the side of the Spanish, and faces death for his crimes. He and others, including his brother, are shot in a public execution. Though "horribly wounded by the discharge", Benavides remains alive. Like Guy Pierce's character in the movie Ravenous, he plays dead and "lays in the heap of carcasses" until nightfall when he manages to crawl off and get help.

Recovered, he meets with a Spanish officer and is sent off to harass the Araucan Indians. Ellms doesn't address why the Spanish are so enamoured with Benavides that they would put him in charge of what appears to be a covert operation so I have to say that the whole thing sounds a little made up to me. Also, so far anyway, Benavides story is distinctly lacking in the piracy department.

Once among the Araucan tribe he persuade them and the Spanish in his command to form "a band of armed robbers who commit every cruelty and were guilty of every perfidy". Essential, Benavides has become a bandit chieftain at this point which is entirely possible given the unstable nature of governments throughout South America at the time. Benavides starts slaughtering people wholesale, leaving a trail of blood miles long behind him. At this point, Ellms tells us that Benavides "when he had rendered himself powerful by land... resolved to be equally powerful upon the sea."

Without going into any detail as to how, Ellms has Benavides obtain a ship and start taking prizes off the island of Santa Maria. He seems to focus on American ships, whalers in particular, and the prize Herculia is of particular note. Benavides forces the sailors aboard first into slavery and then into joining his pirate crew. He seems to make friends the Herculia's captain, who is never named, and Benavides trust gets him into trouble.

The Captain escapes with nine of his crew in unattended whale boats left on the beach. After a harrowing voyage they arrive in Valparaiso. There is at least one American ship in port and, upon hearing of the depredations of Vincent Benavides, Captain Hall sets out to find the pirate and bring him to justice.

Here, the story becomes jumbled and confusing. Benavides has been beset upon by Chilean forces at Biobio (I love that name!) and is on the lamb and on his own. The Arauca are now referred to as unwittingly connected to Benavides and when Hall stops in to talk to them they have been ousted from their village, which Benavides has put to the torch one assumes during the engagement with the rebels. Ellms blue prose comes out at last in this passage. The natives are drunk and their chief, a man named Peneleo who has not been mentioned earlier, is keeping a young native woman - possibly against her will. We knew we could count on you, Charles!

Hall seems unaffected by these goings on and continues in his search for Benavides who is still by land. The pirate sends word in December of 1821 that he is ready to give himself up. Meanwhile he takes a launch down the Lebo river in an attempt to join with Spanish forces. Such treachery is probably to be expected and, when he cannot find the Spanish, he apparently becomes abusive to what mates he still has. Eventually the launch puts ashore for water and Benavides is "... now arrested by some patriotic individuals."

Needless to say, Chile's government won't put up with any more of Vincent Benavides' nonsense. He is tried, and his judges decide to make an example of him. He is "... hanged in the great square; his head and hands were afterwards cut off, in order to their being placed upon high poles to point to the places of his horrid crimes..." So ends the profligate life of another brigand.

Ellms obvious distaste for Benavides stems not so much from his criminal behavior but from his disloyalty to a revolution. American Ellms is, of course, writing well after the fact in the 1830s, but he comes off as a typical man of his era. By that time the Spanish had been summarily ousted from power in most of South and Central America (only Mexico was still held by Spain while Brazil was ruled by a Portuguese prince) and Americans were big on cheering for revolutions against tyranny. The interesting point is that during the struggles led by Jose de San Martin in Argentina, Bernardo O'Higgins in Chile and the Great Liberator Simon Bolivar everywhere else, the U.S. government refused to recognize the independence of South American states for fear of pissing off Spain. Ellms righteous American disgust at one little loyalist brigand is pretty ingenuous.

Plus, Charles, I'm not getting a lot of piracy here. Try to address that next time.

Home Ports: Pearls of Wisdom

Because of my familial relationship to Renato Beluche, whose children lived most of their lives in Venezuela where they had families that are still living there today, I hold the country dear. Uncle Renato's remains are in the Pantheon National in Caracas and my fear is that I will never see his memorial or meet my family. Not because I can't find a way, but because the Government of Venezuela tightens its grip on its land and people more violently with each passing day. As my blogging hero CRwM once said over at his wonderful And Now The Screaming Starts: "...there are few pits of rabid prejudice, poisonous spite, and crippling ignorance deeper than the political-blogosphere." I could not agree with him more and I'm not about to go down that path. Suffice it to say, a little bit of my heart bleeds for Venezuela and her people.

In different - not to necessarily say better - times, there was a pirate port on the coast of Venezuela known as La Barburata. The name has changed a little, but the appeal of the lush beach and blue ocean sure haven't. Originally a Spanish holding, the port was part of the vast pearl fisheries that dotted the Atlantic Coast of South America. La Barburata became rich on the hard work of local shellfish (and native pearl divers).

The French, who at the time were in open conflict with the Spanish, had a bit of an inferiority complex over the whole "colonize the New World, enslave the locals and get rich quick" thing that Spain, Portugal and England seemed to be excelling at. So, in the mid-16th century, France decided that if you couldn't get your own ill-gotten land, you should just take it from someone else. The famous privateers of Saint-Malo and Dieppe crossed the Atlantic and began to raid Spanish ports in Central and South America for gold, silver, and jewels. The raids were surprisingly systematic and word spread down the coast that the privateers were on their way and they weren't inclined to bargain.

The people of La Barburata, used to being picked on by raiders looking for a quick buck in pearls, decided they weren't going to sit around and wait to see who got tortured or killed. In 1553 the entire population of the port city evacuated inland, leaving buildings and furnishings and supplies and native pearl divers behind. When the corsairs arrived they found the situation quite to their liking and they made La Barburata a quasi-French holding.

Word spread inland and up and down the coast that corsairs were now in charge and that they were willing to trade tax and tariff free with anyone who had goods to sell. Like the Laffite brothers in Barataria 250 years later, the French settlers in La Barburata established a thriving business in all types of goods. They traded with Spanish merchants who, in any other town, would have had nothing to do with the privateers, considering them criminals. Saving the merchants the middle man cost of Spanish taxes made the Frenchmen a little more palatable in La Barburata, though. Especially since the Spanish government had no say in the matter.

Local islands soon fell to the corsairs as the base on the coast of Venezuela became more powerful. Even noted sea dogs like Francis Drake came to La Barburata to trade his goods for the provisions and services available in the city. The Spanish got fed up with the whole thing eventually and took the city back by force in the early 17th century. The French people who remained were assimilated and life went on under Spanish rule until the great Liberator Simon Bolivar removed the yoke from his people's shoulders.

That's all I'll say about that. Fair winds until next time, Brethren.

Books: She Could Have Sucked the Excitement Out of a Rollercoaster

About six years ago, I started researching my family's background. Like most people who undertake the sometimes overwhelming task of trying to find

their ancestors, I went down a lot of rabbit holes and found a lot of dead ends. One thing did come across completely unexpectedly and it essentially put your humble hostess in the place she is now - trying to get a series of novels about privateers in Louisiana Territory in the early 1800s published and sharing my passion with all you all. That something was that my father's family was from New Orleans and my great-grandmother six times removed was the little sister of one of the most successful privateers to ever sail the Gulf. So let's talk about him, shall we, and about the only biography of him that I can find.

Jane Lucas de Grummond's clunkily titled and clunkily written Renato Beluche: Smuggler, Privateer and Patriot unfortunately reveals a lot more about its author than it does about my Uncle Renato.

De Grummond is clearly enamoured with Beluche but she spends one entire chapter telling us about her trips to Venezuela and Panama in search of the man, then spends her final chapter making sure we know that she was there when they dug up the poor guy's bones and put them in the Pantheon National in Caracas. I'm related to the man and I wouldn't have wanted to see that. Sandwiched in between these personal anticdotes - which tell us nothing about Beluche the man - are photos of De Grummond meeting Beluche's descendants in Venezuela and Panama in the '50s. Two pictures of the man himself - one the painting on the cover above and the other an undated (because that's how Jane rolls) photo - are included almost grudging. Why would I want to see pictures of the man and his family when I can look at Jane at a dinner party or in a ruined house in Panama? Exactly. But there are lots of maps, so you always know where you are!

De Grummond spends her first actual chapter about her subject exhaustively listing relations Bible-style in the desperate attempt to make Renato Beluche into Jean and Pierre Laffite's cousin. Jane buys the entire "Diary of Jean Lafitte", a bogus journal written by a crazy Iowa corn farmer who I do believe honestly thought he was Laffite, hook, line and sinker. She trots out the Jewish connection to Spain - a story the Laffite brothers made up purely to justify their predation on Spanish shipping to American listeners - and has Beluche's mother somehow related to that Spanish Jewess Laffite grandmother who allegedly escaped the Inquisition. For a fairytale, this book sure has bogus illustrations.

Here's how it went down, Jane's bizarre history not withstanding. Renato Beluche was born in 1780 in NOLA to Rene Beluche and his wife Dominique Rose or Rosalie. Both were Creole and Rene was in the smuggling business while running a hat shop on Rue Domaine. It looks like Renato was the oldest of nine children, with my Grandma Selina as the youngest. When Renato was eight, "Big Rene" Beluche died, leaving Rosalie and the kids in debt up to their eyeballs. Renato took the bull by the horns and signed aboard a merchant ship, eventually graduating to officer status aboard a series of French privateers and owning his own ship by the age of seventeen. He fed his family doing something he loved and that is the definition of success. I'm gonna say Rosalie was proud.

By 1807 the Laffite brothers had taken charge of Barataria Bay and turned a loosly knit configuration of privateers into a well run business. Men like Beluche brought in the prizes and the Laffites sold the goods and everybody got rich. Win, win, win. In 1810 the independent state of Cartagena was established and the junta run by Bolivar began to issue letters of marque. Beluche became the go-between for the Laffite brothers and procured letters of marque from Cartagena for the Baratarian privateers. How, you ask? Beats me. There's nothing specific in the book or in my research as to exactly when Beluche signed up for service with the Liberator. We do know, though, that by 1812 Beluche was a Lieutenant in the Cartagenan navy. By 1821 he held the rank of Commodore in the Venezuelan navy.

Meanwhile, the War of 1812 hit the homeland. The Laffites were kicked out of Barataria and the privateers were criminalized by the U.S. When Jackson showed up for the Battle of New Orleans, it took some convincing to get him to forget about what those "hellish banditi" had been up to in Barataria and allow himself to use their expertise with ships and cannon. Who convinced him? There's no clear answer to that question. The "Diary of Jean Lafitte" says Jean did... and then he challenged the General to a duel. Honestly. If you're buying that, I've got a piece of the moon you might like to purchase as well. Jackson finally relented and put Beluche and his fellow privateer and friend Dominique Youx to work on his line. Battery number 3 was where each of them captained a crew working a 24 pound cannon. This Battery devistated the British and had a huge impact on the outcome of the Battle of New Orleans. Beluche was now an American hero but he wasn't one to rest on his laurels.

Beluche continued to work with the Laffites' when they moved their operation to Galveston after the war but more and more of his time was spent helping the new state of Venezuela by sea. He distinguished himself at the Battle of Maracaibo, took his ships around the horn to Peru, Quito and Panama and was called by Bolivar "superior to all the others (naval officers) because of his rank, knowledge and ability, enthusiasms, etc."

Beluche, who married twice, took his second wife Marie Mezelle Beaudri and their two daughters Reneta and Columbia to Puerto Cabello on the coast of Venezuela where they became citizens of the new country. A son named Diego would be born there in 1828. Beluche was at sea a good deal and at one point Mezelle advertised their house for sale stating she planned to move back to the U.S. I imagine she thought Uncle Renato was dead.

In fact, he was hanky-pankying with a younger woman on the island of Taboga in the Bay of Panama. How old the young lady was I can't say (De Grummond just refers to her as "young and beautiful" because that's history for you!) but Candelaria Esquivel and Beluche set up housekeeping on the island for a while. At some point he left, probably with that "duty calls" excuse sailors are fond of. A while later she gave birth to a son she named Blas Beluche Esquivel. Interestingly, De Grummond has Blas' descendants on Taboga going by the name of Beluche as if Renato came back and made an honest woman of Candelaria at some point, which he didn't.

After Bolivar's death, Beluche became a little more caught up in politics than he should have. He was a sailor first and formost and eventually hanging his hat on the wrong political party got him exhiled from Venezuela for nine years. While he waited it out in NOLA, Mezelle passed away in Puerto Cabello. When he returned to Venezuela, Beluche retired. He died in 1860 with his kids at his side. He was buried next to Mezelle in Rancho Grande Cemetery in Puerto Cabello under the monument he erected to her. It read: Who will dare disturb, friend, your repose? The tomb of the virtuous is not a tomb but an altar. R.B. How romantic is that?

Finally, the book is flawed most of all because it is so dry. The life between the pages was full of excitement, daring, heroism, love and fun. A simple smuggler's son becomes a hero in two nations and gets to do what most of us only dream of - sail in your own ship for a living. Too bad Jane could suck the excitement out of a rollercoaster because Uncle Renato, your life sure was one!

Tools of the Trade: Do You Have Your Hall Pass, Mister?

"Letter of marque" is one of those terms that gets bonked around the piratosphere without anyone really thinking about it. I hear it referred to in

all kinds of goofy ways and kind of wonder if the people spouting the words really know what they're talking about. Now that's not to say that your humble Pauline is all knowing - far from it actually. All the same, Triple P is here to set the record straight and the reality is that a letter of marque is what separates the pirates from the privateers. Let's begin with a little history because oh! how I do adore the history.

First off the name. Marque is a word which in the Norman French spoken in England at the creation of letters of marque meant "seizure of merchandise". Now the story.

In the thirteenth century, King Henry III of England (that's him up there in all his entombed glory) had a cash flow problem. Engaged in never ending wars with both France and Spain, his treasury was getting down to that last layer of gold and England's citizens were shouldering a tax burden the would have made Atlas shrug. Then Henry, or one of his advisers perhaps, got a brainstorm. Why not give private ship's captains the right to raid enemy shipping as long as they share a portion (in this instance a staggering half) of their gains with the crown? Why the hell not! Private Captains quickly pledged their service to a handy piece of paper (vellum actually but who is keeping track, really) that allowed them to get rich and helped their King to not only swell the ranks of his navy but lift some of that clunky tax burden from the folks at home.

When the wars temporarily ceased, Henry saw nothing wrong with issuing a charming and I must say underused form of the wartime letters of marque. Known as letters of reprisal or special reprisal letters of marque, these little gems allowed a merchant captain who had goods stolen by pirates to plunder any ship from the original pirates' country of origin to recoup his losses (and then some, one has to imagine). Brilliant!

Letters of marque were a wonderful way for a cagey King with a need for cash and a few ports at hand to fill out, or even create, his naval presence. Henry VIII essentially created a privateer navy for England with letters of marque (the Henry number 3's navy having gone by the board some time before). His daughter, the clever Elizabeth, made her country rich and heroes of slavers like John Hawkins and adventurers like his cousin Francis Drake by buying into their enterprises and handing out letters of marque.

The French and Spanish were quick to sign on and European waters in the 16th and 17th century were jam packed with legal pirates taking each others' goods and chuckling as they sailed away. The gold and silver found in Central and South America by the Spanish conquistadors upped the ante by ten and it was off to the Spanish Main, papers in hand and high hopes billowing like full sails.

Here's where things got really gray really fast. By this time letters of marque had become like Butterball turkeys. They had a timer - usually set for one calendar year but there were exceptions - and when it popped up you became a pirate if you took further prizes without going back home and renewing your papers. But who has time to run back to England when you are gleefully pillaging Spanish galleons off Panama? You don't, do you? Sometimes even a trip to the nearest friendly port to find the local governor is too much and then a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. So yeah; more gold meant more pirates.

The last great purveyor of letters of marque was the Liberator of Half a Continent, Simon Bolivar. From approximately 1809 to 1820, Bolivar amassed a decidedly rag-tag navy of privateers from all over the Gulf and Caribbean states (including the U.S.). These men harassed Spanish shipping with Bolivar's Cartagenan letters of marque while he fought the war on land and then on paper to liberate Grand Columbia from Spain. Letters of marque were also issued by rebels in Argentina and Chile but on nowhere near the scale that Bolivar achieved. When his struggle, and his life, were finally fading away, Bolivar grew sickened by the majority of the men who claimed him as their benefactor. He withdrew all his letters of marque across the board and ended the last stand of the truly great privateers.

Sure, just because you could obtain a letter of marque didn't mean you were legit. There were forgeries, of course, and that "I left my license at home, officer" excuse came up now and then. For the most part, though, a bona fide letter of marque put you on track for society's smile when you came home rich and ready to settle down (maybe I should say if you came home at all).

Oh yeah, but don't think it will necessarily save you from hanging. One man's privateer is another man's pirate.