Seafaring Sunday: A Tribute To Pirate Mothers

It's Mothers' Day in the U.S. and Canada and your humble hostess is celebrating with a strep throat and a bruised pelvis. No relation. But I know of two lovely mothers who had it far worse than yours truly. Far worse.

Anne Bonny and Mary Read went to jail for piracy in Kingston, Jamaica pregnant. Back in the day, a lady could not be hanged while she was with child so the pirates "plead their bellies" at trial and went back to what were no doubt pristine and comfortable accommodations in the Kingston jail to await delivery.

Mary died, of "fever", before giving birth. Anne, on the other hand, simply disappeared from history. It is thought that her wealthy father, then living in South Carolina, paid the Jamaican governor to extricate his daughter and his grandchild from the British and bring them home safe. But that is just speculation.

Happy Mothers' Day ladies (and gentlemen - I know a couple of you, too). Enjoy, celebrate and relax. Each and every one of you deserves it. I'm for a glass of champagne.