Alternate interpretation:

El Cid Barrett was recruiting fishermen to go privateering. Minimizing risk could be part of the recruiting drive. He might say "The minute they see our guns, they'll surrender..." or even add "...its not their gold and they won't want to be blasted". Then the no tears part is "...and as a result, we don't lose crew either."

Either way, the idea was that the lad was naive and didn't recognize a dubiously seaworthy vessel with a newbie crew and a set of small, ancient used guns was going to be no match for a gold ship.... crewed by well paid men who were likely pretty competent.

Anybody who every tried to pirate gold fleets in Sid Meier's Pirates would know how tough a proposition they could be... and that has to be the definitive historical record of the period... ;)

On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 12:06 PM Timothy Collinson - timothy.collinson at port.ac.uk (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:

Quick question: why were they promised they'd fire no guns? (or perhaps more strictly, why did they buy into that?) Surely they knew as pirates and as crews after American gold that combat was almost guaranteed? What were they hoping to do?!

Naval funerals involve firing one or more of the deck guns as a salute to the dead (the main guns were properly called the cannons, guns were for anti-personnel use). Paired with the phrase “shed no tears”, and with the wartime context, gives the interpretation that the American weapons would be ineffective and the crew would survive.

Ah! That makes a lot more sense - funeral salute. I get it now. Thank you.

tc

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