"Goodbye Old Buddy" -- Pirate Freedom murder mystery, take two

Dave Tallman · 02 Dec 2008, 22:42 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: davetallman at msn.com (Dave Tallman)
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 15:42:56 -0700
Subject: (urth) "Goodbye Old Buddy" -- Pirate Freedom murder mystery,
	take two
Message-ID: <1bf4dd40812021442o4029a09eib710f218710b0704 at mail.gmail.com>

The more I check out Burt, the more bogus he looks. Here's more...

Burt's story of being a midshipman on half-pay (p. 55) is a lie. Midshipmen
were in training to be officers, but were not yet officers. The lowest rank
to get half-pay <http://www.napoleonguide.com/navy_rnhalfpay.htm> when a
ship is "laid up" in reserve was a lieutenant.
The HMS Lion <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Lion_%281557%29>, Burt's
supposed ship (p. 39) was a ship of the line from 1658 to 1677, and during
that time its guns were increased from 48 to 60. It does not appear to have
been "laid up" during the time Burt could have been in the Royal Navy.
Burt's knife was supposed to be very good because it was made of Sheffield
steel (p. 55). Steel was made in
Sheffield<http://www.northeastengland.talktalk.net/SouthYorkshire.htm#SHEFFIELD%20STEEL>from
Chaucer's time, but it was not especially good until 1750.
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