"1655...rum was first issued to the [Navy] ranks"

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Capn Jimbo
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Post by Capn Jimbo »

Update: a look at James Pack's "Nelson's Blood"
"In my research of historical rum in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, I've come across several books and sites online that say the English Navy first issued rum to sailors in the year 1655 when the English took Jamaica. Captain James Pack's "Nelson's Blood" and Wayne Curtis's "And a Bottle of Rum" are just two examples of publications that state this as a fact.

The problem is, I cannot find anyone who references any period source that state that this occurred."
As promised earlier I took the time to order James Pack's wonderful period book which focused on the British Royal Navy and rum from 1655. It is truly a wonderful resource. "Nelson's Blood, The Story of Naval Rum" is probably the most accurate source I believe is currently and easily available.

It is published by the Naval Institute Press of Annapolis, Maryland. The book is a quasi-official work by a trusted resource, Captain James Pack, OBE RN. It was published by Bluejacket Books who provides "paperback editions of exceptional works on naval and military subjects. The paperback is extremely well made, heavy, full of color etching and reproductions of hard to find lithographs, old photos and the like.

This is unlike any of the commercial books like those by Dave Broom, Ian William and others. It's focus on naval rum makes it special and worthy. Having received it, I'm a bit surprised that our CSP so handily rejected it, apparently for what he believes is an absence of reference sources from the period.


Is this true, and if so, does it matter?

To the first, I say no. While this impressive book does not make citations within the text, when I took the time to check I found that Captain Pack clearly did an exceptionally thorough job, with a cited bibliography of 28 books and/or sets of books, plus consulted about 18 more competent special resources and publications including Admiralty Circulars, Records of Court Martials, Military and Naval records, the Naval Records Society et al. Unless CSP has viewed all of these, I would say that he is not in the best position to state there were no period sources.

This is - by far - the most complete, on point set of references I have seen for any book on this specific subject. Pack was an active member of the BRN throughout his life. He helped develop the Royal Navy Museum and was highly respected as an intelligent and thorough navy historian. His book was honored by the Admiral of the Fleet in the preface. The book is closely identified with the aforementioned Royal Navy Museum.

To the second, does it matter, I found the book to contain immense detail, obviously gathered from copious resources, from which Pack obviously made his notes and then published his findings. While it lacks individual and specific citations in the text, it is clear that he consulted all possible resources that addressed the facts and subjected covered.

Pack is the sort of writer who seems to differentiate what he has learned and trusts from what he doesn't know. He clearly spent many hours researching all possible resources, and then brought them together in a reliable history.

Regarding 1655, he seems quite clear:
"...it was at Jamaica in 1655 that rum was first issued on the ships of the Royal Navy, and as it happened quite unofficially. Details of rum issues in 1655 are obscure and remained so until well into the eighteenth century. This is not really surprising for before 1731 there were no standard regulations or codes of instructions for the Royal Navy."
Ergo CSP may or may not be quite right insofar as the lack of sources from the period - but - this does not mean Pack's work should be rejected out of hand. It means that we must rely on this writer as resource that is (a) trusted and respected, (b) has/had the largest and broadest access to the most possible legitimate resources and (c) spent a lifetime dedicated to the Navy.

When queried, CSP admitted he simply couldn't afford or didn't have such access. Pack did. Therefore and with all due respect we must choose where to put our trust. even absent such period sources. I believe that would best be Captain Pack for the time being.

What I don't like is a rejection on the basis of assumed lack of records, plus a vague reliance on obscure rum export records as somehow proving there was no rum to be provisioned by the Navy. When it was pointed out that most rum was not exported, but likely imported or smuggled in, there was no counter. OTOH Pack does not say details were "absent" (as CSP claims), but rather that they were simply "obscure".

We should remember that Pack's book of 190 pages of fine print is solely focused on the great history and tradition of Naval rum. Pack lived and died a patriot and scholar and I for one trust that he would be the last person to misrepresent, misreport or guess at a subject so near and dear to him. The amount of detail in this book is simply staggering with all manner of reports on victualing, use, tradition, methods and more.

This book is simply amazing and I urge all of you to find one (mine was about $8 delivered). In sum I believe Pack has made as good as case as humanly possible, and that if CSP wishes to reject his work, it might rather be CSP who is properly obligated to find the period resources adequate to do so.

I have honestly done my best to create a dialogue, and to raise issues based on all the evidence and information we have. With that in mind, while CSP has cited what he believes were "puny" exports of rum, he has not proven that there wasn't plenty of domestic rum or rums imported or smuggled into especially Port Royal (the Navy port) from Barbados or other rum producing islands.

It is my contention that rum appeared in the early 1600's (if not earlier) and surely by 1630 and further, if there was any signficant rum anywhere in the Carib (and there was), plenty of it was smuggled into Jamaica, and available for any ship victualizing there.

CSP, the floor is yours...
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Capn Jimbo
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Post by Capn Jimbo »

For CSP....


Your absence is noted, but we know you're a busy man. When you do return, I'm sure you'll review and provide a needed counterpoint. As for moi, I've taken the time to continue to find data in re the presence of rum, the activities of buccaneers, privateer and early English Navy ships, particularly insofar as the development of what we now call Port Royal and its huge port, wild lifestyle and port of call for smugglers, pirates and sailors of all kinds.

A source that you may consider is Alexandre Exquemelin, who published a number of books detailing the lives of the buccaneers. These were published around 1680 or so, and some of which are available free online:

Link

Interestingly Exquemelin was both a buccaneer himself, as well as a writer and historian. Talk about embedded. BTW, a number of these have been translated to English and digitized into a text file, so you can search on terms. Do note that our modern "s" was more of an "f" then. Still you can copy and paste your search terms.






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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Ag ... .80.931680
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Post by CSPHistorical »

WOW, I take a break from my research for the time around the U.S. holiday of the 4th of July (I'm assuming not everyone here is an American) and I find all this text. It's going to take some time to sort through this. Hopefully there are some new sources in there, which I was hoping for when discussion began (as in, a period source for where the claim came from in the first place).
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Post by CSPHistorical »

Okay, not as bad as I thought it was going to be in terms of time to read through all of this:

"A Short History of Slavery and Sugar in Jamaica"

Could you provide an author for this book or source (is it from a magazine or academic journal)? I did a direct search for this title online and nothing came up. Maybe you misspelled the title.

“On this evidence, it's my strong opinion that the unofficial rationing of English navy ships [with rum] was occurring BEFORE 1655, not after. CSP and I will disagree about this as noted earlier. However, I now also believe that Secy of the English Navy Pepys codification of the official directive to purchase and to evaluate rum as a ration was NOT the beginning of the official daily BRN ration of which we all are so fond.”

I think we agree on more than you think in this. I will have to look through all the other stuff I typed, but I thought I was concentrating on this one 1655 case. In any case, here are my thoughts now on when the Navy first rationed out rum. You’ll probably never be able to nail down exactly when the Navy first issued it, but based on period evidence, it probably occurred before 1655 and at somewhere else other than Jamaica. The only way you would even get close to an idea of when the Navy first issued Caribbean rum is to run through the Navy records to see when the English sent warships to the Caribbean for the first time.

“...we must choose where to put our trust...” “...it might rather be CSP who is properly obligated to find the period resources adequate to do so.”

I was trained as an academic historian. Historians argue with clearly stated arguments and note with significant detail what their sources are for the conclusions they make. The notes should be clear enough that anyone could look at the text and go dig up the sources themselves if they wish to look at the same evidence the historian used to make their conclusions. “Trust” does not enter into this; it is a simple matter of a proper discussion of history, which doesn’t (and shouldn’t) need to rely on the character of the author, but the soundness of their arguments themselves. James Pack does not state in his text surrounding the 1655 claim what sources he used to inform his conclusion, let alone period sources (what is usually called “primary sources” in academic studies of history). One does not just make a claim or conclusion without stating the specific evidence used to back it up and then turn around and say, “this claim is right until you prove it wrong.” The burden of proof is on the person making the argument/conclusion in the first place, especially when they’ve not stated what their sources are to begin with.

Without knowing the specific sources Pack used to make this claim, a discussion of its validity cannot go far. What little clues there are in text surrounding the 1655 claim in Pack’s work, and in the work of many of the other mainstream publications regarding rum, all still suggest my previously mentioned conclusion that at some point someone used conjecture based on weak and incomplete information to create the 1655 claim. This wouldn’t be the first time in the history world that something considered a given “fact” being based on no solid evidence and only surviving because of being passed from person to person. It is also a common occurrence in mainstream publications for writers to include inaccuracies, mistakes, and poor arguments purely because of the way mainstream writers often produce works. Journalists and mainstream writers often concentrate on the narrative and story they are telling their audience. This frequently results the previously mentioned issues. In many cases, the issue comes from neglecting research or exclusion of a point that doesn’t flow well with the narrative the author is trying to tell. Unfortunately, those points and details that aren’t included can be significant to proper and academic discussions of history. In all of this, one of the most telling things about this 1655 claims is that academics like McCusker and Frederick Smith, who wrote amazing works of academic history on rum with tons of primary sources, never found evidence to support this claim in their thorough searches into early rum history (which are often the origins of significant amounts of information for the mainstream writers on rum history in the past two decades).
For the 1655 claim, it remains in the state I found it when this whole discussion began – a claim made by mainstream writers who cannot produce a period source that directly proves it occurred. If a primary source (and not another secondary source without adequate notes to sources used) can be produced, I will change my mind. However, until there is such a source, it cannot be admitted as an established fact.

I’ll conclude with a quote from William Cronon, one of the presidents of the American Historical Association, during his 2013 presidential address, since it’s relevant to the use of evidence in academic history arguments: “We are not allowed to argue or narrate beyond the limits of our evidence.”
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Capn Jimbo
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Post by Capn Jimbo »

We should all thank CSP for his participation and very unique viewpoint...


Let's face it we are not historians, though I surely understand the value of period sources. Still when these are scarce, obscure, or disagree with one another one can hardly draw any absolute conclusion from these. Fair enough. At the same time, absence of same does not disprove an observation.

When little hard data exists, I think it fair to consider surrounding factors, what one might otherwise call circumstantial evidence.
Was sugar and molasses available in the West Indies at this time? Was the art of distillation known and/or used? Was rum being made in the West Indies in that time period? Was rum highly valued and sought after? Was rum smuggled? Was the rapidly developing port we came to know as Port Royal a central point of smuggling, transport, goods and uh, services? Had buccaneers and privateers been active and using the port? Was the English Navy present at that time? Did they have a victualizing station? Did individual captains and crew have the opportunity to buy highly sought rum? Were there "service" skiffs that would bring goods and rum to the ships for sale?
The answer to all these is mosty "yes" with a few "highly likelies", lol. And Pack's surety in his statement made clear that the unofficial provisioning of rum was occuring at the English takeover of Port Royal and Jamaica in 1655. Did he cite a specific period source? Knowing the sources and official British navy records available to him, the answer is "probably". Otherwise he'd have used some hedge language, eg "It is said, it was rumoured, it can be assumed that...". I found him to be this kind of writer.

Further, it's hard for me to call Pack a "mainstream" writer, to be lumped in with Wayne Curtis! Not to me. In comparison and to me, Curtis is merely a skilled magazine and pop culture writer/lover of spirits and successful dilettante who writes commercially about spirits in general. In comparison Pack had attributes that demand respect:
1. He spent his life in the BRN, with a loyalty, deep love and respect for the tradition of the daily tot, and an officer in the British Royal Navy (Captain, ODE RN).

2. He was also respected as not just a historian, but a specialist in the affairs of the English/British navy. Again, his commitment to this was of a lifetime, not a casual or commercial interest. It was clear to me this was man whose dedication to truth and precision was obvious.

3. He was both respected and honored for his work by the Admiralty, and wrote in special, high quality, editions of work dedicated to naval and military history.

4. Accordingly he had access to materials, collections, and even official records otherwise off limits to any other author known to me.
Last, I have had the extreme pleasure of reading his book dedicated exclusively to the entire history of Naval rum. It is a brilliant and detailed book that covers the minutia of the origin, development, use and protocol of Naval rum in every regard. It is a must buy (used from $5 to $10 plus shipping).

For my anal retentive purposes I'm quite satisfied that 1655 is a fair enough date (though like CSP, I too suspect that the English Navy use of rum preceeded that date). This is yet another reason to trust that Pack likely had access to period sources, incluging English and British Royal Navy documents for his 1655 claim.
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