If you’ve ever expressed an interest in old school pirates ( and who hasn’t?) I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how much we owe a debt to Robert Newton. I’ve mentioned Mr. Newton before on this blog but just to make sure we’re all on the same page let’s do a quick recap: Robert Newton was cast as Long John Silver in Disney’s 1950 film adaptation of Treasure Island in which he single handedly (unipededly too!) created the way we moderns universally understand pirates to sound like. With one eye-a-bulging and the other a-squinting and a well-placed “Arrr!” he defines pirate talk for everyone who has come after him. Sadly, Mr. Newton lost the battle with the bottle at the young age of 50 so he was never able to fully enjoy his legacy (Surely there would not be Talk Like a Pirate Day without him) 
So when flying the Jolly Roger, Captain Fergus attacks Esther and The Santa Maria it shouldn’t be surprising that I imagined him as a Robert Newton look-alike pillaging whatever wasn’t nailed down.
Being so fond of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and living when she did, Esther would likely be passingly familiar with pirates and their unsavory and rambunctious lifestyle. Like Esther, Crusoe found himself facing the business end of a pirate’s cutlass suffering a two year imprisonment for his troubles. It’s enough to make you want to splice the mainbrace – especially given that this happened before his maroonment on the island that would be his home for 28 years.
Fortunately for the inhabitants of New France they were not the go to colony for sea faring corsairs with stolen booty on their minds. It may just be me but the cold and pirates (both real and fictional) don’t seem to make great shipmates. It’s just as well since Esther/Jacques’s voyage over was pretty much fraught with commonplace peril like disease and malnutrition which were to be expected among the lower classes of the day.
Captain Fergus while being a peripheral character joins the ranks of such scourges of the sea (both real and literary) that have captured the public’s imagination for lo these many years. Of course there was Edward Teach better known as Blackbeard who was said to have tucked lit candles under his hat to insight fear and loathing in his adversaries. Unfortunately for Teach, his love of combustibles did not prevent him from being killed for a reward. His body did not make the return trip home…however his head was present when the bounty was handed out. 
In some ways pirates are just like us, looking for their big break and Blackbeard was no exception. Before striking out on his own, he joined Benjamin Hornigold’s crew as his second in command. I find Hornigold interesting for a couple reasons 1) he later turned pirate hunter sailing about trying to capture his former colleagues and 2) he reportedly once attacked a ship apparently for the purpose of commandeering the crew’s hats “they did us no further injury than the taking most of our hats from us, having got drunk the night before, as they told us, and toss’d theirs overboard” reported a (bare headed) eye witness.
Described as a boatswain of Blackbeard is the fictitious Captain Hook – Peter Pan’s arch nemesis. Ultimately, he doesn’t end up any better than his boss. Crocodiles do little to endear themselves to Hook as first they take his hand (on the bright side, his metallic replacement appendage lent itself to a pretty awesome assumed last name) and then they finish him off when that milquetoast Peter Pan kicks him overboard into their yapping maws.
Rounding out the list: the colourfully named and attired Calico Jack Rackham who lives large in popular culture as well as being the man who brought us the Jolly Roger flag. If copyright were around back then, he could have retired early, avoided swinging from a rope and lived comfortably off the royalties the skull and cross bones flag would no doubt ring in. Also, as mentioned in yesterday’s post..he had two lady pirates in his crew: Ann Bonny who he was romantically involved with and Mary Read, who like Esther dressed like a man for a time while sailing the seas.
On a personal note, a few years I visited New Orleans making a point of visiting well known latter day pirate Jean Lafitte’s home. Each year Louisiana holds a two week celebration called simply Contraband Days (no dressing it up I guess…) where there is much talk of Lafitte’s supposed hidden treasure. Speaking of rumoured buried treasures…in my home province of Nova Scotia there are still some fortune hunters who maintain that Oak Island contains treasure put there possibly by Captain Kidd or perhaps Blackbeard. Over the years, no shortage of ink has been employed exploring the mysteries of the Oak Island Money Pit.
And no discussion of pirates would be complete with at least a mention of my all-time favourite pirate real or fictitious: Space Pirate Han Solo.
I’m referring to the original shoot first Han Solo…let’s face it..he’d never allow Greedo to get the drop on him in the pirate city Mos Eisley’s cantina..but that is a conversation for another day.
