Subject: (urth) PF - Lesage & Ignacio

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 03:57:54 +0000

Start with Lesage. 

Burt gives him command of the little sloop Windward after 
depositing Chris on Hispaniola. He's still in command of it when 
Chris puts into Port Royal after taking the Castillo Blanco. (Both 
pieces of info come to Chris from two former Windward shipmates, 
who left the Windward a week before.)

Shortly after this, Lesage is captain of the "three-master" 
Bretagne. (This piece of info comes from buccaneers on Hispaniola, 
when Chris drops by there to look for Valentin.)

The narrative doesn't make much of it, but as a "three-master" the 
Bretagne is surely the largest of the pirate ships. For example, 
the Weald is the largest of the flotilla Burt leads around the 
Horn, and she is a two-masted brig. Anybody who knows something 
about nautical history can correct me here, but I think the 
Bretagne must actually be a galleon.

How does Lesage in a tiny sloop with a handful of men take a 
galleon in the short time available to him? 

We have a galleon candidate: the Santa Lucia, which Chris fights on 
his way from Port Royal to Hispaniola. He leaves her crippled; 
still too big & dangerous for the Windward by itself, surely, but 
in conjunction with some other larger ship or flotilla which 
somehow knows of her plight & position ....

Fast forward to Rio Hato, the site of Lesage's treachery. Recall 
that Lesage turns up there in the Bretagne with four other ships in 
company. 

Question: how plausible is the picture of Lesage leading a flotilla 
around the Horn, given his apparent inability to keep a crew 
together and his unpleasant reputation? 

He tells Burt and Chris that he missed them at Portobello, but 
knowing Burt's ultimate goal, he sailed as fast as could from 
there, finding them at Rio Hato. Chris says he should have spotted 
a "big hole" in this story. 

I'm not exactly sure what the hole is - we know that Lesage had 
been told about Portobello and the Pacific plan, so no hole up to 
that point. But I assume it must have to do with the timing. That 
is, under reasonable assumptions, if Lesage had sailed swiftly from 
Portobello, he should have arrived on the Pacific side of Panama 
long before Burt's flotilla. Between Portobello and Rio Hato, Burt 
et al had recruited amongst the Cameroons, taken Maracaibo, 
refitted at Port Royal, spent a long time finding a wind through 
the passage, spent a few weeks recuperating, waited 10 days off 
Callao for the treasure fleet to sail, and then chased it north to 
Panama.

Next question: How does Lesage appear at Rio hato at just the right 
time to work his treachery?

Obviously, I'm pointing the finger at Ignacio with all of these 
questions. I think we have the answer here to what he was actually 
doing since "losing sight" of Chris in Veracruz.

First up - motivation. Burt's stash is far less than the value of 
the Spanish mule train. To the extent that Ignacio is driven by 
desire for $$$, he will want to get his hands on the bigger pile. 
IMO, this is in fact a *primary* motivation for him. He might want 
to go sailing around the world with Novia and his kid, but he wants 
to do it with lots & lots & lots of money - as he imagiens to 
himself on the night of the treachery. When Fr Chris writes of 
having "planned every detail", what he means is the plan 
culminating in this treachery.

(Burt speaks of being able to go back to Surrey and buy a tidy 
estate when he's added some more to his stash. One tenth of a 
commander's share of the mule train is enough for that purpose. On 
the figures Burt gives when he describes the train to Chris, say 
around $500K for his stash, and $50M-$200M for a mule train, in 
modern dollars, and acknowledging that such comparisons are always 
very rough.)

Second - execution. As I wrote before, I think that Ignacio in 
2010's-era Cuba has already recovered Burt's stash. He uses 
proceeds from this to finance the venture, once he's back in the 
17th century. Buys a ship, recruits a crew. He knows where & when 
to find Lesage: at Port Royal, a week before Chris sails for 
Tortuga, if not before. Meets him, recruits him to the plan (Lesage 
is also a money-driven kind of guy), gets him to chuck people who 
already know the young Chris off the Windward. 

Go find the crippled Sana Lucia, take it, install Lesage as captain 
(renamed the Bretagne presumably in honor of Lesage's birth-place) 
and cats-power flotilla leader. Quite possibly stop off at 
Hispaniola to get rid of Valentin (though I'm not clear exactly why 
- maybe it's a device for getting a better hold on Lesage, who 
would be prime suspect in any murder investigation ... dunno).

Possibly the two ships are then positioned as a *Spanish* pirate 
force, perhaps with a base at Veracruz (Fr Chris explains how 
Spanish and Franco-British pirates rarely have much to do with each 
other). Ignacio is the real commander but Lesage fronts - obviously 
he doesn't want it widely known in Veracruz that he's in charge; 
this could get him "in the soup" with Novia later on, after Chris 
has gone back to the future.

Ignacio engineers the Portobello incident by writing the letter 
which Gosling intercepts, giving time to assemble his own larger 
flotilla on the one hand, and reducing Burt's manpower on the 
other. 

Follows Burt around the Horn, arrives at Rio Hato at just the right 
time, do the dirty deed, grab the gold, take the biggest share, 
meet Chris & Novia in Veracruz with a big grin on his face ...

Although he probably regrets Burt at al's death a little, it's 
*already happened* and God isn't going to punish him for something 
which happened in his past where he was a victim too (or some such 
casuistry). He would have given strict instructions that Novia was 
not to be hurt or raped, but there had to be enough rough-house to 
avoid suspicion.

---

From: paul witcover <gdeonn at yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:46:17 +0000

thalassocrat at nym.hush.com wrote:    Start with Lesage. (etc.)

###
   
  Some fascinating speculation, and I think you may be on to something re: Ignacio's role in Lesage's betrayal.  But Chris is almost killed in that betrayal; would Iganacio really have launched an action that could very easily have wound up in the death of his earlier self, with highly unclear implications for the causality of his own present (or future) existence?
   
  Another thought that's been nibbling at my brain is about the moment that Chris first encounters the Native American slave he purchases and then frees (Hoodas, who seems to be the real-life model for Friday in Crusoe).  At that moment, Chris says:  "And I fet as though He were standing right behind me, laying His pierced hand on my shoulder. This is it, Chris. This is the moment. What are you going to do?"
   
  I wonder, only partially seriously, if Chris was brought back just for this moment, as the answer to Friday's prayers, and everything else is incidental to that.  I also wonder if "Hoodas" could be a Judas-like character, and that he, rather than Ignacio, is responsible for Lesage's betrayal.  Do we know what becomes of Hoodas?

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From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 00:09:54 +0000

On Sat, 15 Dec 2007 01:46:17 +1100 paul witcover <gdeonn at yahoo.com> 
wrote:
>   
>  Some fascinating speculation, and I think you may be on to 
>something re: Ignacio's role in Lesage's betrayal.  But Chris is 
>almost killed in that betrayal; would Iganacio really have 
>launched an action that could very easily have wound up in the 
>death of his earlier self, with highly unclear implications for 
>the causality of his own present (or future) existence?

Yep, that's certainly a soggy spot in the theory. I guess Fr Chris 
could be lying about the events of the night - eg maybe what 
actually happened was that he was tied up while asleep & left 
alone, or something. But I'd hate to think that he explicitly lies 
in the narrative - if there, why not everywhere? 

It might be worth having another look at yr Lesage-as-dad theory - 
something around that could also let Lesage know about times & 
places. Eg: Dad also follows Chris1 back in time, to become Lesage 
... But Lesage would have to be old enough for that to fit - around 
about 40, I think - and I don't know if we have anything suggesting 
that.

Also, I'm convinced that Ignacio is involved somehow - but then 
again I'm biased against the guy :)

>  Another thought that's been nibbling at my brain is about the 
>moment that Chris first encounters the Native American slave he 
>purchases and then frees (Hoodas, who seems to be the real-life 
>model for Friday in Crusoe).  At that moment, Chris says:  "And I 
>fet as though He were standing right behind me, laying His pierced 

>hand on my shoulder. This is it, Chris. This is the moment. What 
>are you going to do?"
>   
>  I wonder, only partially seriously, if Chris was brought back 
>just for this moment, as the answer to Friday's prayers, and 
>everything else is incidental to that. 

I thought about that too, but I couldn't do anything much with it. 
It seems that Hoodas brutally murders the innkeeper & his son at 
the sack of Maracaibo, which doesn't seem like the kind of thing 
you'd expect if Jesus had intervened here :) 

>I also wonder if "Hoodas" 
>could be a Judas-like character, and that he, rather than Ignacio, 

>is responsible for Lesage's betrayal.  Do we know what becomes of 
>Hoodas?

I assumed that he was one of the many who died in the sea battle 
with the treasure fleet, but that doesn't have to be so. It is a 
little odd that he has an (old?) friend on Chris' ship (Red Jack? 
can't remember) - what's with that?