Alternative History

Same strange universe you come from.

My style of teaching requires some effort from students. I dont ask a question nd then give an answer by posting a"link" whats the good in that? They will forget that theyve ever red anything two minutes later.
ANYWAY, you made an assertion that NO DNA evidence was found to support the fact that the Polynesians did not cross the PACIFIC. I said you were wrong and kindly gave you a name of a researcher whose published extensively on the DNA archeoevidence that counters what youve said.

1Either you dont know how to do a search or

2You dont want to hear the evidence.

In either case, I gave you a name of a researcher, and thats what I consider teaching. No you, should try to best me by finding the shortcomings of that evience (if there is any).


NYWAY, my dissertation was completed in 1977 and they didnt have an internet at that time9At least one with such a massive resource). We were doing SCI searches using subscription services of the universities

You had given me a lot of claims that have not been back up so your lost the faith I will give to anyone to start with.

Do you wish me to go over the claims you had posted on other threads that have large question smarks on them once more?

You tell me, you were the clown who brought it up.

Jesus, you are such a fuckin' idiot. Yeah, members of pirate crews had the right to die within a year or two of shipping out. The point i made in the thread in which you came up with the Dana bullshit was that pirates were, by and large, men without saleable skills--and i further made the point that men on land who lacked skills suffered from conditions as bad, or simply suffered unemployment. I also pointed out that a standard defense for men captured on pirate vessels who had skills was that they were forced men, and this defense was commonly accepted in Admiralty courts, because those courts and anyone who got their living at sea knew that skilled men didn't have to turn to piracy to make a living, and weren't stupid enough to risk their own lives and their families futures by doing so.

You claim you have such broad historical knowledge, read A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates by Captain Charles Johnson sometime. He used not only first-hand accounts, but the records of Admiralty courts. Men with skills, such as riggers, carpenters, coopers, topmen, coxswains, boatswains, quartermasters--had no reason to ship with pirates, and every good reason not to. Courts commonly accepted a plea that they had been "forced men," obliged to sail with pirates on threat of their lives for the skills they possessed, because no one with such skills would willingly sail on a pirate vessel otherwise.

While you're at it, check to see just how long this idyllic life on Fiddler's Green lasted for pirates. Then come back and tell me how long Edward Teach (a.k.a. Blackbeard), and Bartholomew "Black Bart" Robers, John "Calico Jack" Rackham, Ann Bonny and Mary Read, or any of the rest of them lasted in their professions.

You're so full of **** your eyes must be brown. No petty officer of a naval vessel or of a merchantman could be flogged out of hand, and in the Royal Navy and the United States Navy a petty officer would have to be tried by a court of at least five post captains. Only ordinary seamen (i.e., unskilled sailors) could be flogged out of hand--then go inform yourself on the lives that apprentices lived in the 18th and 19th centuries by land.

And by the way, dipshit, piracy has always been with us, and likely always will be. Just because you don't happen to be well-informed on the subject is not evidence that it ever went away.

You tell me, you were the clown who brought it up.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I am sure that I had already done so as it took a moment to remember what the hell you might had been refering to.

Treatment allow by even a merchant captain toward his crew on a cargo ship of that time period. He have the right to have a crew member whip for example and even hung.

In the case of hanging in theory there would be a hearing when the ship reach it home port in a year or two.

The strange thing was that the author of "My Two Years before the Mast" defended allowing this power to captains as a needed power given the make up of crews on most such ships.

Second as this book is what is refer to as a primary reference source as the author was a crew member of that time period why the contempt you was willing o show for my using it?

Kind of like showing contempt for using the words of the soldiers who fought in the civil war.

No merchant captain could have any man hung. No merchant captain could have had a petty officer flogged. If you are going to make outrageous claims like that, you need to back them up, and so far all we have is your ipse dixit. Even in the navies, no man could be hung who had not been tried by a court, and as i've already pointed out, in the Royal Navy or the United States Navy, it would require five post captains to form such a court. And that applied to ordinary seaman only--no one could flog a petty officer or a warrant officer, and any punishment of a petty officer or a warrant officer could only come from the verdict of a court--once again, comprised of at least five post captains.

I have contempt for you using as a source something you don't understand and are obviously completely unable to put into context. Dana sailed on a merchant brig trading for hides on the coast of California--the early 19th century equivalent of a tramp steamer. He was a completely unskilled man serving of the lowest of the low among merchant vessels. Not only could a merchant captain not have a petty officer flogged, he'd be out of his mind to do it. Petty officers--coopers, gunners, riggers, sailmakers, boatswains, carpenters--commanded high wages and could pick and choose their vessels. Let a merchant captain once flog a petty officer, and not only would he be subject to a lawsuit, but he'd never get another skilled hand to sign on with him, he'd become a liability to the owners of the ship. Any merchant captain who hung a man, of any rating, would be subject to a charge of murder.

The attempt at an analogy with those who served in the American Civil War fails completely. But even if that were the case, it is contempt for you and your inability to put what you read and little understand into a meaningful context.

Feel Free . You have not id'd anything with question marks. Ive pretty much backed up anything Ive said from experience or firsthand knowledge.

You know, the title of this thread is quite appropriate. QWe have BillRM posting an ALTERNATIVE HISTORY based on some really childish ignorance.

Seamen are unskill labor in any sailing ship let alone a warship!!!!!!

You do need to pick up a book on the subject of sailing ships and the highly skill jobs of almost everyone on board.

The word fool keep coming to mind here.

Second note one of the reason that the British naval rule the waves is that they train their crews more then other powers.

Only the very small American naval training came up to their and that is one of the two reasons that we won a number of single ship to ship actions very earily on.

The second reason was some improvements in ship design that allow us to carry heavy weapons in our smaller ships.

what's a "smark"? is it like a smore?

The thing I really hate about reading Setanta's or Farmerman's posts is that I never learn anything. That's probably because I already know everything there is to know.

The thing I really hate about reading Setanta's or Farmerman's posts is that I never learn anything. That's probably because I already know everything there is to know.
--------------------------------------------------------------
If that was the case you would be agreeing with me 100 percent.

Which means that you know too much, right?

Don't tell, ok?

yeah, I've seen Francis' nose.

Seamen were rated according to their skills, as judged by petty officers and commissioned officers. An ordinary seaman means just about anybody, including the lame, the halt and the blind. An able seaman would be someone who was considered to know in advance of shipping out how to hand, reef, splice and pull. All of those are terms specific to the operation of wooden sailing ships. I've been reading the history of sailing ships, and wooden navies since the mid-1950s, clown.

The Royal Navy's record for training their crews, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, was abysmal. For example, you might read the memoirs of David Farragut, the officer famous as an admiral in the American Civil War, but who first went to sea as a ship's boy in 1813 aboard USS Essex, 32, which then sailed to the southeast Pacific to prey upon the English whalers. Both the log of Essex, and Farragut's memoirs record that they exercised small arms and "the great guns" on a daily basis. By contrast, in the first six months of the commission of any Royal Navy vessel, the captain was not authorized to fire more than a number of guns equal to a third of her rating per month--after six months, this would go up to one half. That meant, for example, with a 36-gun frigate, he could fire 12 guns per month, and six months after taking command (each time a captain took command of a ship, that was a new commission) he could raise that to 18 guns, per month. Only Royal Navy officers with private fortunes who could afford to buy powder and shot out of their own pockets could afford to do what United States Navy warships did as a matter of course--engage in small arms or long gun practice, or both, every day.

Read The Naval War of 1812, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., New York, 1881 sometime. Roosevelt makes the point that the initial successes of the American Navy against the world's largest navy were a result of the high quality of training aboard their ships as compared to the Royal Navy frigates. He contrasts that with Captain Broke of HMS Shannon, the only Royal Navy officer consistently successful against the Americans, who paid for powder and shot out of his own pocket (he was a wealthy man) to keep his crew well training in the killing profession.

Roosevelt's history of that naval war was highly enough regarded that when the Royal Navy wrote an official history in the 1890s, they commissioned Roosevelt to write the article on what they call the American War.

Our ships were not, as comparing one class to another, smaller than the Royal Navy's vessels. You don't know a goddamned thing about this subject, and the only conclusion i can come to is that you're making this **** up as you go along. Constitution took Guerriere, 38, burned her, and then took Java, 38, and burned her. Constitution had been originally built as a 38-gun frigate, but was modified and re-rated as a 44. That meant that Guerriere and Jave each mounted 38, 18 pound long guns, as compared to Constitution's 44, 24 pound long guns. American naval vessels were, class for class, heavier and threw a heavier weight of metal in their broadside than their Royal Navy counterparts.

Instead of just making this **** up as you go along, Bill, why don't you actually make an effort to educate yourself.

de gall

This statement is 100% correct.
I think that saying the Sea Peoples of the Pacific contributed to European ship building technology is somewhat stretched...whilst it might be correct, it seems on the surface very difficult to prove. Their contribution to navigation in the Pacific by the early European sailors is reasonable. They had a tremendous store of knowledge of where islands were and were gutsy enough to sail long distances, even when there was no longer an obvious need to do so.

I watched the second half of a really interesting show, Ancient Discoveries, last night on the History Channel. http://tv.msn.com/tv/episode/ancient-discoveries/ancient-chinese-super-ships/
The show was about the estimated 1000 ancient Chinese Junks, some as large as football fields that made their way to the N. American coast in 1421, 71 years before Columbus, under the direction of General Zueng He. This theory is based on the work of Gavin Menzies who deciphered ancient Chinese texts. http://www.1421.tv/

There are replicas and archeological finds of these massive ships in Nanjing china. They showed why the rigging systems, sails and the design of the ships were superior to anything built in Europe at that time. The hulls were reinforced with concrete made of volcanic ash glued into place with rice resin.
They believe there are remnants of these junks as far north as Oregon, buried in the dunes by a massive tsunami. Apparently there was a meteor strike off the coast of New Zealand that caused a wake, estimated 400 ft waves, to batter the N. American coast in 1421.

Farmerman, I thought you might be interested in this as well. A gold rush ghost ship recently found in the Yukon.

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/researchers+discover+gold+rush+ghost+ship/2257137/story.html