Dog Training

This is a light-hearted rhyme about the way that a good dog can train his man to lead a better life, dragging him from his desk and away into the great outdoors. 

Bobbi.  (Austin Hackney, author)

Here is the video version, starring me and Bobbi, my dog.

The text is given below.

It was inspired by one of Terri Windling's posts in her The Dog's Tale series on her marvelous blog, Myth & Moor.

Bobbi and I both hope you enjoy it!

Dog Training

His back to the window, intent on the screen -

The most marvelous wildlife program he’s seen:

Lions and elephants, eagles and more;

Doesn’t  notice the fox who steals by his door.

His back to the window, lost in his book –

He reads of his hero, the journeys he took:

Katmandu, Rajasthan, the Fjords and Svalbard;

Yet he never steps foot in his own backyard.

His back to the window, writing a letter –

Doing his bit to make the world better:

Petitions, campaigns, he makes his voice heard;

Deaf to the song of the garden bird.

His back to the window, his mind on the job –

He’s annoyed by a sudden yelp from his dog:

Scratching, fawning, eyes full of hope;

He heaves a sigh and grabs the dog’s rope.

The computer’s on standby; the book on the floor –

As the dog drags his man out through the door:

To the sights and the smells of the wood and the meadow;

To the sunlit glade and riverbank’s shadow.

So they ramble and roam, then rest on a rock –

And it comes to him then as a kind of a shock:

“I thought I should train you,” he pats the dog’s head;

“But I see that it’s you who should train me instead!”

The Gilded Cage

Credit: Tanakawho Permission: CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr

"There was once a bright yellow canary preening herself before the mirror that dangled from a pretty chain in her gilded cage.

There came a little brown sparrow and perched on a branch outside the open window where the cage hung. "I am sorry to see you caged," said the sparrow. "I wish you could be free."

"Oh but I am free," said the canary.

"You are?" said the sparrow, eyeing the cage door suspiciously. "Then why do you stay?"

"Poor, ignorant sparrow!" said the canary, her feathers a little ruffled. "Don't you know they feed me and tell me how beautiful I am and praise me when I sing for them?"

Much saddened to hear this, the little sparrow flew away."

Naomi Wolfe on The Beauty Myth

"Beauty is no longer an aesthetic issue, it is a political issue."


"Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison...Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority."

- Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759 - 1797.

How long before we get this?

Amy Macdonald with one of her most popular songs ever, "This Pretty Face" live from The Royal Albert Hall

We are Stardust But Not Stars Alone

We are stardust.

Let's go back to the beginning, to the Big Bang.

The Universe, matter, energy and time, began at the Big Bang.
Credit: garlandcannon CC-BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr

Most of the atoms that exploded into existence at the Big Bang were hydrogen and helium which are the earliest and simplest of all the elements.

Hydrogen and helium form fast in intense heat. The Universe started cooling down quickly and pretty much that's all there was time for in those first moments of existence.

So the very first stars were composed of about 75 % hydrogen and about 25 % helium.

EVERYTHING else was made within the stars themselves by the processes associated with nuclear fusion. The stars are the Great Mothers of the Universe. And they died giving birth.

When the stars died, their elements diffused through the Universe, tiny seeds of complex matter, that eventually combined and recombined to make everything there is and has ever been: more stars, planets, us.

We are stardust.

We are stardust. Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

But There is Something Missing...

Yes, we are stardust. But there is something more going on. And it's something pretty damn mysterious.

You see, the Big Bang can't account for most of the material that we know must exist in the Universe as it is today. In fact the Universe exists simultaneously at all time points it has ever existed at but let's not make things even more complicated than they are.

We've measured how fast the galaxies are travelling within cosmic clusters. It is fairly simple math to figure out how much matter there has to be in there to give enough gravitational energy to keep them all together. But the problem is...

...there isn't enough. Nope. No matter how many times you check and re-check the calculations (and the method of calculation is so simple we know the error doesn't lie there) there just isn't enough matter to give that much gravity.

The center of the Milky Way. Credit: Stefan Gillessen via Wikimedia Commons

The Universe is Impossible

Okay, clearly the Universe isn't impossible because...well, here we are.

So that can only mean that there is a gap in our knowledge.

Something we don't know. Something we don't understand. This is the thing that gives scientists the biggest buzz of all - ignorance. Scientists soon tire of what we know. Scientists are adventurers, lusting for the horizon and what lies beyond, courageously venturing into the uncharted waters of the impossible.

So if the Universe isn't impossible - what is going on? What are we missing?

Mysterious Matter - More Than Stars Alone.

Everything is energy. Matter is energy. The matter/energy model of reality (the scientific model) encompasses what are fundamentally two ways of looking at the same thing.

Supernova, a dying star explodes and dissipates into the Universe.
Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

One of the most useful forms of energy is light.

Light is great because (at least for our purposes) it is a Universal Constant which makes it super useful for measuring big, cosmic things.

We can measure the brightness of galaxies of distant stars and (because energy is matter) we can figure out how much stuff there is in the stars the light is coming from.

When you add it all up you get only half of the stuff that math tells us we need to account for the formation and movement of the matter we are observing.

We need 50 % more stuff.

What stuff? And where is it?

Dark Matter

It's about to get a bit freaky. Are you ready?

The only reasonable conclusion is that there is something else out there. Actually, it isn't just out there. It is everywhere. 

It's in you, too.

Simulation of mathematically calculated Dark Matter clustering around our galaxy.
The blue stuff represents the CDM as if it was visible. Credit: ESO via Wikimedia Commons

Allowing for empty space and a very good estimate of how many atoms there are in the Expanding Universe, we can come up with a pretty good figure that of all the material in the Universe about 95 % of it is made up of this other stuff.

Not only that. The other stuff is weird.

The Other Side of Everything

Why is the other stuff weird?

Well, we know mathematically that it has to be there. 

But we also know mathematically and from careful observations that this stuff is not made of atoms. And it doesn't give light.

So it's invisible and has no mass.

Which in other circumstances would make us think that it didn't exist. Except that it does. It has to for everything else to exist.

So what is it? 

This three-dimensional map offers a first look at the web-like large-scale
 distribution of dark matter, an invisible form of matter that accounts
 for most of the Universe's mass. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Anti-matter.

Welcome to the point where science fiction and reality jump into bed together and start really getting intimate.

This stuff is antimatter. Yep, that's what it is. Well, that's what we call it. Or to be more precise, CDM. Cold Dark Matter.

There are about 50 particles of anti-matter in every pint and a bit of everything.

That's assuming that the stuff is spread evenly through the Universe. It might not be but it's a reasonable hypothesis until we know better.

So this mysterious stuff, this dark matter, is infusing everything that exists. Including you. And me.

And this Cold Dark Matter is what accounts for the missing stuff that gives us enough gravity for things to hold together.

And it forms anti-partlces. And these 'drift' through the Universe, effecting and effected by gravitational forces. They're sticky. They can accumulate.

A planet such as ours is big enough to have enough gravitational energy to draw more antimatter particles to it. To us.

What does it all mean?

You know what?

We have no idea. Yet.

One thing we do know, however, is that it gives us an explanation for how the Universe came to exist out of nothing.

But that, as they say, is another story.

If you want to know more about that story, try reading some of the books below:

When I Am Dead

Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
 The Death card from the Visconti-Sforza Tarot deck.

When I am dead
My body will be made of glass.

My transparent skin will be smooth,
brittle and cold to your touch.

I will no longer blush when you smile
because my body will no longer have color;
It will reflect the world's colors, nothing more.

It will no longer breathe,
But if you come close enough 
to kiss
it will condense your breath
into tiny diamonds and pearls.

The strong arms that held you
will be fragile, delicate, no longer safe.

When I am dead
My body will be made of glass.

If you try to hold me
It will shatter
And my shards will puncture your flesh
and your red blood will spill out
and you will cry.

When I am dead
My body will be made of glass.

You must not come close, when I am dead.
You must throw a silken sheet over my body
and walk away.

For I will have no heart.

Biography of Pirate Captain John Phillips

A Pirate's Life and Times

"Ha ha, me hearties! Good to have you aboard. Hoist the main sail, swash yer buckles and let's to the oceans for adventures and ill-gotten swag on the High Seas!"

The odd thing is, that it seems quite a number of pirates really did talk something like that.

And there really was a Pirate Code and buried treasure and walking the plank, marooning, patches, peg-legs, hooks and all.

Pirate Captain

A typical image of a Pirate Captain. While the romantic notion of the pirate life is based on the evidence of many facts, the truth remains that a pirates life was generally dangerous, brutish and short.

Source: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Even so, the true lives of real pirates were often bloodthirsty, dangerous and short. Most, if not ending their days in 'Davy Jones' Locker' would breathe their last as the hempen noose tightened around their necks, victims of a public hanging.


It was a very risky life and, as we have said, often a brutish and short one.

The Pirate Captain John Phillips, for example, had a career as a pirate that lasted only a matter of months before his his final doom befell him.

The interesting thing about him is that, unlike his much mythologized colleagues in crime, Blackbeard,Dread Roberts and the others - whose stories have become so mingled with legend that it is hard to discern where the fiction ends and the facts lie concealed - the life of Captain John Phillips is comparatively well documented.

Indeed, it is his famous drawing up of the 'code' and several other references to the management of his ship, The Revenge and its crew, that give us much of the history of the pirate life as we now know it.

Despite the brutish realities, there has always been something appealing to the popular imagination about the life and times of the pirates of the eighteenth century. So many famous pirates have gone down in the annals of history and indeed in the storytelling of the folkloric traditions, that even those with no or little knowledge of history are familiar with their names: Blackbeard, Capt. Roberts and now, thanks to Hollywood, the entirely fictional, Capt. Jack Sparrow.

What many people don't realize is that, in fact, the true history of the pirates of the Caribbean, whilst a little more sordid in its details, is no less exciting and interesting than the fancies of storytellers and film makers.

Captain John Phillips - A Pirate of the Caribbean

Pirate Captain John Phillips was renowned for forcing his prisoners to inebriate themselves with strong drink. It was more a means of keeping them compliant than any sign of hospitality. The Pirate Captain holds a man at gunpoint to drink the liquor
Source: Public Domain (US:PD) via Wikimedia Commons

Pirate Captain John Phillips

So in this examination of the life and times of the lesser known and perhaps less celebrated story of the infamous Captain John Phillips, be not surprised if you find that you come across facts more surprising than fiction, deeds more daring than any committed to celluloid by the likes of Errol Flynn or Johnny Depp and mysteries still to be discovered as the fog of unknowing sometimes clouds the uncharted waters of history.

So, if you've a little time on your hands and would seek to hear of fame and infamy and add to your secret store of wonder, sail with me as we venture out to learn the biography of the Pirate Captain John Phillips. But remember this, before we leave the harbor...no matter what marvels and mysteries now unfold, every word is true...

The Buccaneers: The Romantic View of The Pirate Life

The Early Life Of Captain John Phillips

Very little indeed is known of the life of John Phillips before he flashed briefly across the pages of history, known as a ruthless and much feared pirate captain.

There are, however, some indications that he may have branches of his family lineage alive today in New England and New Zealand.

Bristol, The Birth Place of Pirate Captain John Phillips

Bristol was one of the busiest ports in the world in the 18th century and was the birth place of the infamous Pirate Captain, John Phillips.

What we do know of his life before becoming a pirate, is that he was born and raised in Bristol, England.

By the 18th Century the City of Bristol had become the second largest city in England. Bristol harbor was the busiest in the country and famed throughout the world. Every day, consignments of tobacco, sugar cane, exotic animals, cocoa, rum and slaves were imported onto the stone port. The streets around about were a mess of new town houses erected by wealthy merchants and steaming hostelries and perhaps steamier brothels.

Bristol was the busiest and most famous port of the day and the young John would have been raised around seafaring folk and heard their colorful tales and salty songs in the taverns and bawdy houses of his youth.

He was apprenticed to a trade, becoming a working carpenter. This fact is interesting in the historical context and enables us to deduce something about his background and also his motives for going to sea. Let me explain.

An 18th Century Carpenter's Work

"The carpenter is employed in the wooden-work from the foundation to the top.... In brick-works he places bearers, where the chief weight of the building lies. He lays the joists, girders, and rafters in flooring, and when the outward case is built, he puts on the roof and prepares it for the slater... Strength is the chief of his study, and to dispose his work in such a manner as that what is designed for the support of a building may not, by its weight, overturn it. He is employed in making doors, laying floors, preparing the ceiling for the plaisterer to nail his laths on; in dividing the house with partitions, and wainscoting the several apartments. As a joiner's work requires a nicer hand, and a greater taste in ornament, his business requries that he should be acquainted with geometry and mensuration."

                                                                         R. Campbell 1747

In the 17th Century, skilled carpenters had done very well for themselves, especially in London after the Great Fire, when the restoration and rebuilding of the capital city was taking place. At the same time the social status of carpentry as a trade took a hammer blow. The reason for this was that the new anti-fire regulations stipulated that all new buildings be constructed from bricks. While there was still a huge amount of woodwork and joinery involved, the bricklayer and the stone mason now took first position in the hierarchy and carpenters and joiners were relegated to a lower order.

By the 18th Century - which was a British society more preoccupied with class and social status even than today - the role of the carpenter had been reduced to little more than that of a manual laborer.

Nevertheless, there remained one place in which the role of carpenter was still highly regarded, commanding both respect and a good wage. That place was aboard ship. The importance of a carpenter and joiner aboard a wooden sailing vessel undertaking perilous and long voyages, often through uncharted seas, cannot be over-estimated.

As, in those times, the son would follow in the trade of the father, we can safely assume that John Phillips family had been carpenters for generations and so would have seen a decline in their fortunes during his father's lifetime.

A decline in the family's fortunes and the possibility to achieve higher social status (and better pay) aboard ship, may well have proved sufficient motivation for the young John Phillips to pack up the tools of his trade and head to the harbor to seek employment on an ocean-going vessel.

And that is precisely what he did.

An 18th Century Ship's Carpenter's Workshop

A typical 18th Century ship's carpenter's workshop such as the one that John Phillips would have worked in when he set sail from his native Bristol.

Source: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

John Phillips Captured By Pirate Captain Thomas Anstis

As a skilled and experienced carpenter, the young John Phillips would have had but little difficulty finding work and wage on board a worthy vessel and so it was that he set sail from Bristol in 1720 at the start of a new century and a new life for the young man.

A Brigantine

A typical Brigantine, much smaller and lighter than the Spanish Galleon and an ideal raiding ship for many pirates.

Source: Public Domain via Wikipedia Commons

Who can know what dreams he held in his heart as he watched the coast of his native land diminishing from view behind him and the vastness of the open seas, already bucking the ship on the tussling waves, open up before.

If he took pride in his trade then he will have been proud and pleased indeed with his fine workshop. Quite probably he would have been used to working from his leathern tool bag where and how he may. As ship's carpenter, he would have been graced with a spacious and fully equipped workshop.

Whatever his hopes and fears at that time, little in his past experience could have prepared him for the adventures soon to come. For the ship that he sailed with had been barely two years at sea before that one disaster befell them that all seafaring men of honest heart and proper loyalty feared in those days - now dubbed The Golden Age of Piracy. It was an event that would change and foreshorten his life beyond his own imagining...

A Pirate Ship

The brigantine was a popular vessel among pirates, prized for its speed and agility. It was ideal for coastal raids or moving between the islands of the Caribbean but did not fare so well on open and stormy seas.

Source: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Pirate Captain Thomas Anstis

Pirate Captain Thomas Anstis was the commander of the brigantine, Good Fortune and one of the confederates of the fearsome and feared pirate, Dread Bartholomew Roberts.

Anstis was a heartless cut-throat and no stranger to ordering rape and murder as he pillaged and plundered any vessel he could take.

Tiring of being under the command of the equally gruesome Captain Roberts and wanting all gain for himself, Anstis made up his mind to take leave of his pirate lord and strike out on his own.

It was thus, one April night in 1721, under cover of darkness, that he turned course with his swift ship and crew and leaving Roberts heading for Africa, set his own course for the Caribbean.

The belabored cargo vessel aboard which John Phillips served was en route between England and Newfoundland when it was chased and captured by the swift brigantine of Pirate Captain Thomas Anstis.

By all accounts, Thomas Anstis was a ruthless villain and it was to John's good fortune that the crew had latterly lost its carpenter in a skirmish. He was offered the post and quickly and wisely acquiesced to the captain's wishes.

Little doubt that he had not planned to take up a career of piracy but equally, he was sufficiently cognizant of the kind of men these were not to risk his own life for the sake of an honor that no-one else would witness or acknowledge.

All the other crew members and his first former captain were killed, sold on as slaves or, if fit and willing, made pirates and taken on as crew.

Aboard SV Florette - The Last Wooden Brigantine In The World

Pirate John Phillips High Seas Adventures

Some sources say that John Phillips was "soon reconciled to life as a pirate" and, as we will see in his later life, may even have come to relish aspects of the piratical life.

In any case, he served aboard The Good Fortune for a year before suffering another change in his own fortunes.

Pirates Of The Caribbean

The Caribbean islands were the main haunts and hiding places, the center of operations, for many 18th century pirate gangs

During that year as a pirate under the command of Captain Thomas Anstis, John Phillips was involved in and witnessed many skirmishes, raids and looting. Some of this he must have found exciting and brought fire to his blood but some of his captain's more brutal acts, we know from the pirate code he drew up for his own crew, appalled and disgusted him.

When Anstis's gang took The Irwin off the coast of Jamaica, the captain ordered the crew to gang rape and then brutally murder a woman that they had found aboard. Whether John Phillips was forced to participate in such acts or only witnessed them we do not know. What we do know is that he loathed that side of his life and determined to escape when opportunity arose.

In 1722, King George of England made a determined effort to eradicate piracy from the spice routes and sent Admiral Sir John Flowers, in charge of two warships, the HMS Hector and the HMS Adventure, to round up the pirate ships and capture the captains and their crews. He was given orders to focus his efforts on Roberts and Anstis among others of the most notorious pirates of the day.

The HMS Hector: Sent To Pursue the Pirates

A contemporary caricature of the 18th Century Warship, The Hector, sent to pursue Pirate Roberts and Pirate Anstis.

Source: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Meanwhile, The Good Fortune and The Morning Star, which were sailing together, had set a southward course towards the Cayman Islands. It was near Grand Cayman that The Morning Star ran aground on one of the many concealed sandbanks that litter the archipelago. It was as the one ship was grounded and the other was attempting to rescue it by dragging it free, that the pirates were sighted by Admiral Sir John Flowers and the HMS Hector and Adventure raced upon them.

On of Anstis's crew who had been looking out from the 'crow's nest' yelled the alarm as he sighted the warships cutting through the waves towards them. For a moment it seemed that his time had come, for his own vessel was tied by towing ropes to The Morning Star and had yet to give up the anchor. His second in command, seeing what his captain was likely now to do, managed to sling a grappling rope across into the rigging of The Good Fortune and swing across. As he did so, Anstis shouted the order to his men to cut the ropes and let the anchor chain run loose.

So it was, that he and those that remained aboard his vessel, were able, under a strong wind to turn the ship about and make good their escape just in the nick of time. The Admiral knew there would be no advantage gained in sending a heavy warship after a swift brigantine under a good wind and so all his efforts were turned upon the stranded Morning Star.

Forty pirates were taken that day in the Cayman Islands and, after due trial, danced their final jig dangling from the hangman's rope.

Pirates Awaiting Trial

Pirates awaiting summary trial before execution.

Source: Howard Pyle. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Pirate John Phillips Escapes Back To England

Anstis and his second in command, Fenn sailed with the wind as far as they could towards the Bay of Honduras. The wind dropped after they lost sight of the warships they still feared might have pursued them. Taking no chances, they went to oar with the remaining men they had aboard.

Even so depleted in crew, supplies and morale - or perhaps spurred on by that - they captured several vessels on their way, boosting the larder and the stock of treasures in the hold, not to mention man-power on deck.

Throughout all this, John Phillips continued to watch and learn and serve as quietly as he was able as the ship's carpenter.

John soon had has work cut out for him. On arriving in Tobago, the captain ordered that they put ashore on a small and uninhabited island just off the main island in order that they might careen the ship.

'Careening' meant taking the vessel at least half out of the water - usually anchoring her against the tide, so that she could easily be put afloat once more - and attending to any repairs that may have been required. The ships being made largely of wood - even employing wooden pegs rather than nails - the larger part of this task fell to the ship's carpenter.

This was in April 1723. But it had been a grave error of judgement on the part of Captain Anstis, as they had indeed, all be it at a slower pace, been pursued by the Admiral Sir John Flowers, now aboard the British warship, HMS Winchelsea.

Anstis ordered his crew to burn one of the ships, soaking brands in pitch and setting light to the boards and sails.

As the ship, a sloop captured on their recent travels, shot up in flames, he and his closest crew, stole back to The Good Fortune and set sail to flee.

The crew who remained on the Island, seeing themselves so cruelly abandoned had no choice but to attempt to flee themselves, albeit on foot. The only place of hiding available to them was the deep. forested interior of the island.

Most of them were easily found and captured by the HMS Winchelsea's marines, but Phillips and a few others remained in hiding until the warships had departed.

Tobago: Pirate John Phillips' Hiding Place

In the deep forested interior of Tobago, John Phillips hid from the Royal Navy until he was able to board a ship and work his passage back to England.

While Anstis had escaped once more with his swift brigantine The Good Fortune, his ill treatment of his crew and his wicked nature finally bore their just fruit. His crew, discouraged not only by their losses but by their punishments for his failures of judgement, murdered him one night while he slept in his hammock.

The mutineers then surrendered themselves to the authorities and were finally granted amnesty and permitted to return to civilian life.

The Burning Ship

Captain Thomas Anstis ordered the burning of the ship and then fled from the Navy in his brigantine.
Source: Howard Pyle: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

John Phillips remained in hiding with his shipmates, finally making it to the main island and thence working their passage back to Bristol.

It may well be that at first Phillips had hopes of gaining an amnesty himself and turning back to his old life on land. However, in this case the King was not inclined to mercy. Having witnessed many of his fellows captured by the naval militia and imprisoned - and fearing that someone might squeal in order to gain clemency from the authorities - he resigned himself to his fate.

From that point on he dedicated himself anew to the life of the pirate, But this time things would be different. This time he would be the Captain of his own ship and he would run things as he saw fit.

Pirate John Phillips Sails Back To Newfoundland

No longer wishing to live a life of secrecy and hiding in his home town, pirate John Phillips took passage back to Newfoundland with four of his closest mates.

Petty Harbour

Looking down over Petty Harbour as it is today. It has not changed significantly since Pirate John Phillips stole his schooner from the harbour.
Source: BihnX CC-BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

They settled in the tiny port town of Petty Harbour. They had a single purpose in mind. That purpose was to steal a ship.

Petty Harbour, which nestles deep in the heart of Motion Bay on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula,is still a tiny place today and the focus of tourism - but back then there were fewer than fifty inhabitants and all of them fishermen. A more remote and secluded place it would have been hard to find.

Nevertheless, John Phillips must have known that from time to time, larger ships would use the port to rest, careen and restock on long northern voyages.

John Phillips Becomes A Pirate Captain

After a long wait, Phillips and his gang finally saw their chance, when a reasonably sizeable schooner came in to harbour. She was not a very large vessel but was in good condition and could be handled by the tiny crew of just five men.

A Schooner

A typical schooner moored at harbour for loading. While clearly a recent image, the design of the schooner has not changed since Phillips' day.

Source: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

While the owner, a certain William Minott, and crew were all onshore one evening - August 29th 1723 - Phillips and his associates smuggled themselves aboard the ship, raised the anchor, loosed the ropes and sailed away into the night.

She was not a large vessel but she was fast and agile and had a deep hold that could be used to store a considerable swag.

Phillips renamed her The Revenge and announced himself to be her Captain.

Under him he had four crew. These men were John Nutt - the sailing master, James Sparks - the gunner, Thomas Fern - the ship's carpenter and William White - tailor and private crewman.

John Phillips' first act as Captain of his ship and crew, was to draw up a Pirate Code, to which each man had to swear fealty on pain of death. Typically, the oath would have been made on a copy of The Bible but as none of them possessed such a book, they swore to honor the Code on the head of an axe.

John Phillips Pirate Articles

I Every Man Shall obey civil Command ; the Captain shall have one full Share and a half of all Prizes ; the Master, Carpenter, Boatswain and Gunner shall have one Share and quarter.

II If any Man shall offer to run away, or keep any Secret from the Company, he shall be marroon’d with one Bottle of Powder, one Bottle of Water, one small Arm, and Shot.

III If any Man shall steal any Thing in the Company, or game, to the Value of a Piece of Eight, he shall be marroon’d or shot.

IV If any time we shall meet another Marroner that Man shall sign his Articles without the Consent of our Company, shall suffer such Punishment as the Captain and Company shall think fit.

V That Man that shall strike another whilst these Articles are in force, shall receive Moses’s Law (that is, 40 Stripes lacking one) on the bare Back.

VI That Man that shall snap his Arms, or smoak Tobacco in the Hold, without a Cap to his Pipe, or carry a Candle lighted without a Lanthorn, shall suffer the same Punishment as in the former Article.

VII That Man shall not keep his Arms clean, fit for an Engagement, or neglect his Business, shall be cut off from his Share, and suffer such other Punishment as the Captain and the Company shall think fit.

VIII If any Man shall lose a Joint in time of an Engagement, shall have 400 Pieces of Eight ; if a Limb, 800.

IX If at any time you meet with a prudent Woman, that Man that offers to meddle with her, without her Consent, shall suffer present Death.

The Pirate Code

The articles described division of loot, punishments for transgressions and compensation for those who lost a limb while in service.

It is worth noting that John Phillips articles, or pirate code, expressly forbade rape on pain of death.

The pirate code of John Phillips is of considerable scholarly importance as they are the only complete set of piratical articles that survive from the period.

They were preserved by being reprinted in Charles Johnson's General History of the Pyrates.

Other than these there are only three other extant sets of articles referred to in secondary literature.

It is John Phillips' Pirate Code that gives us much of the insight that we have into life aboard a pirate ship in the so called Golden Age.

The Articles, or the Pirate Code, constituted a very important agreement made between the captain and the crew of any pirate ship.

They stated the several terms and conditions under which the crew were permitted to sail with the pirate captain. Aside from the code, most pirate vessels were run on fairly democratic grounds and the division of spoils was undertaken with great fairness.

The other great primary source of historical information is an invaluable document.

It is a hand written account by John Fillmore, who was captured by Phillips and forced to join his crew.

The document gives considerable detail about life aboard Phillips' schooner, The Revenge and also an insight into the fearsome nature of the man that Pirate Captain John Phillips had by then become.

The Spoils of Piracy

According to the Pirate Code, all spoils and loot had to be fairly divided to each man according to his station.
Source: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

John Fillmore's Account of Life Aboard The Revenge

John Fillmore's account of life aboard Pirate Captain John Phillips' schooner, The Revenge, is the source not only of much that we know about John Phillips but also about pirate life generally in the 18th century.

The front page of the 1837 edition of John Filmore's original account, written by hand in the late 1700s.
Source: Public Domain via Internet Archive

Prisoner Of The Pirates

In the spring of 1723, John Fillmore, an orphan who has himself been apprenticed as a ship's carpenter, was taken on as crew on a fishing voyage under a certain Captain Haskell.

All went peaceably until the following August, when their fishing vessel was attacked by Pirate Captain John Phillips' schooner, which according to Fillmore's account, seemed to appear out of nowhere and was upon them before they had any chance of escape.

Bloodthirsty Pirates

The Pirates board and capture a ship.
Source: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

It so happened that one of Fillmore's former acquaintances by the name of White, whom he had known to be a tailor's apprentice, was among the pirates who boarded the fishing vessel.

This fellow, White, put in a word for Fillmore with Pirate Captain John Phillips, saying that he would make a worthy addition to the crew on account of his fine personal qualities and his manual and technical skills.

The pirate Captain Phillips then sent out a boat to the captured ship, with a message to Captain Haskell that if he would hand over Fillmore and Fillmore would be wiling to join the pirates, everyone else aboard would be spared and the ship go free.

Fillmore bluntly refused to comply with this request.

Phillips flew into a rage and sent some of his crew to bring Fillmore back by force. He then constrained Fillmore to serve him as a pirate for two months and promised him his liberty at the end of that time if he served well.

The pirate crew by now consisted of ten stout and fearless rogues against whom Fillmore knew he would make no match. He was also aware of the danger his resistance posed to his comrades aboard Captain Haskell's vessel. Thus persuaded, he gave himself over to the pirates.

However, he refused to sign the articles and so actually become a pirate himself. He was consigned to the helm of the schooner. The two months stipulated in the verbal agreement passed uneventfully and Filmore demanded his freedom.

Signing The Pirate Code

Pirate's prisoners were often forced to sign the articles of the pirate code, thus becoming pirates themselves.

Source: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

But Phillips had other ideas. He said that as nothing had occurred of any note and in consequence Filmore had not provided service, the agreement was void. rather than grant him liberty, the Pirate captain constrained the poor fellow to a further three months in his service, swearing on his honor that after the allotted span of time had passed, he would most certainly set him free. It was not, however, to be.

The months that followed were not without event and a number of ships were captured and plundered and additional crew members added to the number of pirates aboard The Revenge.

Again the time passed and this time none could claim that Fillmore had not fulfilled his part of the bargain. Yet when he asked once more for his freedom, Pirate captain John Phillips, according to Fillmore's account, flew into a demonic rage and swore "That he should have his liberty when he himself was damned, and not before."

Fillmore tells us that at that point he realized that he had been enslaved aboard the ship. Secretly, he determined to look for the earliest opportunity to escape, even if he should risk his life in doing so, as he found the pirate life a loathsome one.

The psychology of a Pirate

It is interesting to speculate at this point about the psychology of Captain John Phillips.

From Fillmore's account we understand that there is a gradual degeneration of Philips' character as he becomes ever more quick to anger and more unpredictably dangerous in his moods and actions.

Fillmore also points out that the Captain begins to drink alcohol more. Drunkenness was common enough in 18th century society and well-known among pirates but it is also true that mood changes can be a consequence of physical alcohol addiction.
We must also remember that he had never intended, when he first set to sea, to live the dangerous life of a pirate. He was originally coerced into it and later, when he wanted to return to civilian life, the Crown had not granted him amnesty. There must have been a strong sense of resentment in his mind and possibly a deal of anger at his powerlessness to control his own fate.

Despite his increasing cruelty, he remained steadfast on one issue. That was conduct towards women. His Pirate Code forbade any man to so much as touch a woman without her consent or to suffer the penalty of execution.

He had, of course, witnessed the horrific gang rapes ordered by his former master, Thomas Anstis and may even have been forced to participate against his will. This section of the Code suggests a deep revulsion to what he had seen and done.

It is also interesting to recall that he was an orphan and so never knew his mother and as a seafarer, and especially an outlaw, he would have had no chance of romance in his own life. It is, perhaps, not uncommon in such circumstances, for a man to idolize womankind, elevating her to the status almost of a goddess. This would certainly account for his strict moral prohibition in the midst of a culture in which knavery and lustfulness of every kind were commonplace.

One final point to consider is that he was yet a very young man when he took the post as ship's carpenter. perhaps still very impressionable and, as an orphan, in need of role models for his future manhood.
What he actually got was a twisted parody of fatherhood in the cruel captaincy of the wicked pirates, Anstis and Roberts.

One of the crew's next conquests was a sloop with the curious name ofSquirrel of Cape Ann. She was captured by Phillips n April of 1724 and the ships master, Andrew Harridon, was imprisoned. he also refused to sign the Code.

At that point, notes Fillmore in his memoir, every man aboard had signed up apart from himself, Harridon, a fellow called Cheeseman who was also a ship's carpenter by trade, a Spanish Indian and a young American gentleman. Having refused obstinately to sign the Code, they remained non-pirate prisoners aboard the ship.

Fillmore relates how much Pirate Captain John Phillips drank and how he would force others to drink at gun point. he tells of how the Captain became increasingly feared by the crew - even those closest to him - and of his sudden swings in mood and savage acts of barbarity. And yet, he forbade the ill-treatment of any woman and never took a female as a captive on his ship.

It was one of these men that had been ordered aboard the sloop taken from Harridon. It seems that as the crew's disliking for Phillips grew, so did his own fear and paranoia. He got it into his head that others were conspiring against him and once, in a sudden and unaccountable rage, accosted this man, accusing him of falling in league with Fillmore to organize a mutiny.

The man begged for mercy, vehemently denying the charge but Phillips swore he would send the man to hell and promptly ran him through with his sword, so hard that the tip of the blade broke off in his spine.

He then shot the dead man through the head and shouted, "I have sent one of the devils to hell; and where is Fillmore? He shall go next."

Fillmore recounts how he was then brought before the captain. Death seemed inevitable. What followed was a bizarre encounter that further exemplifies the growing madness of Pirate Captain John Phillips.

Phillips charged Fillmore with conspiracy to mutiny and promptly pulled his pistol on him, pressing the barrel to the man's breast. he pulled the trigger but the gunpowder had become damp and the pistol did not fire. Phillips stepped back, drew his broken blade and took a swipe at Fillmore, who dodged the attack.

Captain Phillips then laughed, sheathed his sword and ordered Fillmore back to his duties, proclaiming that all was well with him and he had only wanted to test his mettle.

Mutiny & Escape

Fillmore recounts many further startling and disturbing adventures amongst the pirates that are too numerous to relate here. the story of his eventual escape is one that would be worthy of any novelist, were it not for the fact that it is true.

After nine months of servitude aboard The Revenge, Fillmore and his non-pirate confederates did indeed conspire to make good their escape from the slavery that they had so long endured.

At last, the opportunity presented itself. Pirate captain John Phillips was in one of his uncommonly genial moods and one night ordered that they should weigh anchor and spend the night in jollity and carousal. Food and rum aplenty was brought on deck and the festivities began.

Cheeseman, Fillmore, and the Indian set out their plan. By all accounts,Captain Harridon was too much in fear of Phillips to take an active role.

Cheeseman, as the ship's carpenter and under pretence of making preparations for some work he intended to fulfil the following day, brought tools up on deck, including and axe and a large hammer. These tools were destined to be used as weapons.

The conspirators were careful to only feign their part in the orgy of drunkenness which ensued. And so they bid their time until the pirates all retired in an inebriated stupor.

Pirate Fight

The time for action had come.

Source: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Realizing that they were but three men against a whole crew, they sought first to disable some of the pirates during the night.

White and Archer had fallen asleep by the fire in the ship's galley. Fillmore crept by them and, seeing they would not easily be roused, tipped hot coals onto their naked feet causing them serious burns. So drunk with rum were the two men that they barely stirred even as their feet burned.

Others were bound as they slept but the captain and his main crew could not be accessed as the door to the cabin in which they all slept had been firmly locked and bolted.

The pirates slept late the next morning and at last Fillmore went and hammered on the cabin door, calling to the inmates that the sun was nigh at noon. Swearing and cursing, the captain and his henchmen soon emerged on deck.

The moment for action had come.

Three desperate men against a crew of ruthless pirates. They made their attack at midday.

Cheeseman took up the hammer as if he was to busy himself about some work. Fillmore stood not far off, and a little behind the captain and boatswain, who were in conversation standing just by the main mast. he had concealed under his jerking the sharpened axe.

The Indian stood by the cabin door. The quartermaster was busy within the cabin.

The time had come.

Cheeseman seized the master and in that moment of sudden confusion, Fillmore swung out with the axe and split the boatswain's head in two. Before Pirate Captain John Phillips could make a move in his own defence, both Cheeseman and Fillmore were upon him and dealt him such a round of blows with hammer and axe, that he crumpled immediately and died on the deck in a pool of his own spilled blood.

The master was thrown overboard. The quarter-master, having heard the commotion, came running out from the cabin wielding a hammer above his head but the Indian caught hold of him as he emerged. Fillmore took the man's own sword and severed his head from his body with a single, clean blow to the back of the neck.

Source: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Having slaughtered all the pirates except those that they had disabled during the night, Filmore and his companions took command of the ship and sailed her to Boston.

She put in to Boston on a bright spring morning, May 3d, 1724.

On the 12th day of the same month at a Court of Admiralty, with Lieutenant Governor Dummer presiding the pirates William White, William Phillips, and John Rose Archer were proclaimed guilty and on 2nd June were executed at Bird Island.

The three other pirates, also condemned by the same court, were dispatched to England in the schooner and hanged by the neck at Execution Dock. Edward Cheeseman and the Indian accompanied them and were subsequently honored by the British Government for their services.

The Court of The Admiralty later presented John Fillmore with the
pistol, the silver-hilted sword and a curiously carved tobacco box which had belonged
to Pirate Captain John Phillips along with the silver shoe buckles and two
gold rings that the infamous Pirate Captain used to wear.

Great Pirate Ships Documentary

The Historical Significance Of Pirate Captain John Phillips

When compared to pirates such as his first master, Bartholomew Roberts, Pirate captain John Phillips was clearly little more than a small-time bandit on the water. he never graduated from the fishing schooner that he stole form Petty Harbour and at the end of his brief captaincy had a crew of only eleven men at his commend.

As we have seen, John Phillips made a habit of coercing prisoners into service and reneged on his promises of release to captives such as John Fillmore. he also became known for his savagery and brutal treatment of anyone attempting to leave his service.

Captain John Phillips was also last in a lineage of pirates that had been captured and coerced at first into piracy, then finding themselves outside the law, taken their own ships and made pirate captains of themselves.

Phillips' first master,Thomas Anstis, had been captured by Dread Pirate, Bartholomew Roberts. Roberts by Captain Howell Davis. Davis by Edward and so on. This lineage of piracy originated in the pirate den of the Bahamas.

But John Phillips' death signalled the end of the line and the drawing to a close of the Golden Age of Piracy.

The biography of Pirate Captain John Phillips is largely a tragic one but leaves us with a legacy of documentation without which our knowledge of the life and times of the pirates of the 18th century would be greatly impoverished.

The Jolly Roger - A Pirate Flag

The pirate flag was commonly known as The Jolly Roger.
Source: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

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