Bilboes

[justawench]

I came across the unusual punishment of the bilboes in an article in Early American Life magazine, which was described as frequently used on ships to restrain sailors. Looking for more information I found this link which says:

The Bilboe was a form of shackle used from the 16th Century onward till at least the end of the Golden Age of Piracy.

Comments

[soubie]

No, your second paragraph makes perfect sense (it's still used in some parts of the world to explain why they execute or at least maim people for what we would consider very little reason).

I was looking at what I think were a set of bilboes aboard HMS Victory just the other day (as it happens) and they had a brief side-note on the theory of crime and punishment at the time.

As I understand it, imprisonment in C18, including in England, wasn't really a sentence in and of itself. Prisons were generally just holding-cells for those who were to be hanged, branded, flogged, etc.- or transported, another common punishment (not possible in the colonies, of course)- which was why they were hardly like prisons today- generally it would just be a huge cellar where a great mass of people were thrown in together, men, women, kids, whoever- only special cases were singled out. (As such, the prison scenes in Moll Flanders are rather more realistic with those in PotC- certainly, ships of the line wouldn't waste space with cages in the hold). (A few special cases- celebrity prisoners mostly, like the famous jail-breaker Jack Shepherd, got imprisoned separately- another practice of its time was that Shepherd was at one point imprisoned in a cell with his long-term girlfriend- apparently spouses or family often were locked up together.)

However, HMS Warrior, launched in 1860, does have a prison cell- which figures as the Victorians by then were experimenting with prison as a long-term solution to reform a felon into a decent member of society (the first stage, mind, was a gentlewoman-lead campaign for children born in prison not to be left there until their mothers were released or hanged).

Yes- a population where turnover of people was rapid, and the future of any individual so uncertain that taking extraordinary risks would upset very little, and life was so unfair that ending it didn't seem to matter that much. I think of this sometimes, whenever I hear politicians bleat about 'broken society' because single mothers aren't always left in penury and young boys spit in the street and wear trainers that you wouldn't think they could afford but they do anyway. We might actually be getting civilised...