Today’s word of the day is actually two words of the day: balderdash and twaddle. Balderdash means “senseless, stupid, or exaggerated talk or writing; nonsense” and “a muddled mixture of liquors” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/balderdash), the second called an obsolete meaning. Twaddle, as a noun, means “trivial, feeble, silly, or tedious talk or writing,” and as a verb means to engage in such talk or writing (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/twaddle). In other words, balderdash and twaddle are synonymous. But there is something else similar about the two words.

According to www.etymonline.com, balderdash first appears in the language in the “1590s, of obscure origin despite much 19c. conjecture; in early use ‘a jumbled mix of liquors’ (milk and beer, beer and wine, etc.); by 1670s as ‘senseless jumble of words.’ Perhaps from dash and the first element perhaps cognate with Danish balder ‘noise, clatter’ (see boulder). /But the word may be merely one of the numerous popular formations of no definite elements, so freely made in the Elizabethan period’ [Century Dictionary].” The entry for twaddle is much shorter—”’silly talk, prosy nonsense,’ 1782, probably from twattle (1550s), of obscure origin”—though just as unhelpful when it comes to revealing the origin of the word.

So today we have synonyms whose origin is similarly the 1500s and obscure. It’s as if people in the 1500s just made up words meaning “silly talk.”

On this date in 1671, Captain Henry Morgan landed at the gates of Panama City.

Captain Henry Morgan was a pirate. That is how he is remembered today. But I’m not sure that most of us really have a clear understanding of what a pirate was in the 17th century.

We know little about Morgan’s youth except that he was born in Wales, somewhere near modern-day Cardiff, probably in 1635. The next thing we know about him is that he is in the West Indies. He may have been part of the crew of another English privateer named Christopher Myngs. Somehow he became friends with the English governor of Jamaica, Thomas Modyford. Both of those men were lords.

Let me take a moment to explain privateer. A pirate is a person, or a ship, which robs other people or ships on the high seas. A privateer is the same thing, except that it is authorized to do so by a government. A member of the government would issue a letter of marque, a kind of license given to a private individual to engage in piracy against a nation with whom the issuer of the letter of marque was at war. A monarch or governor with enough privateers had, essentially, a private navy, and in the 1660s, there were, supposedly, about 1500 privateers who made their base Jamaica. Of course, the privateer shared the booty with whoever issued the letter of marque.

In the 1660s, England was at war with Spain, so Morgan was free to attack Spanish ships and colonies. In 1666, he married his cousin, Mary Morgan, who was the daughter of Edward Morgan, who was the deputy general of Jamaica. Yeah. A pirate married to a government official’s daughter. He also did quite well as a pirate, making (or stealing) enough to afford the purchase of two plantations.

In 1670, at the order of the Queen of Spain, Spanish privateers began to attack English settlements in the Caribbean. In response, the Modyford enjoined Morgan to begin attacking the Spanish again, as there had been a break in the war. Morgan organized a veritable navy of privateers, with over 30 ships. This is the part of being a pirate that I think we don’t understand. In the movies, a pirate ship is a lone wolf on the seas, attacking single ships that are vulnerable to such attacks. We don’t often think of pirates being a pack of wolves. And we don’t think of pirates as landing in order to fight, but that is what Morgan and his army did against the Spanish.

To attack Panama City, the privateers had to land and cross the isthmus of Panama on foot. They arrived at the gates of Panama City on January 27, 1671, and they faced an army of about 1200 Spanish soldiers. Morgan arranged a feint, employing about 300 men. The Spanish though the pirates were retreating and went after them, landing in an ambush set up by Morgan. The pirates won the day, losing about 15 men versus the 300-400 soldiers who were killed in the battle. Though the city had been set on fire by its governor, Morgan’s men managed to depart with a lot of treasure.

Unfortunately for Morgan, while he was on his campaign, a treaty was formed between the English and the Spanish, so when he got back to Jamaica, he was arrested and returned to England. Fortunately for Morgan, the people considered him a hero, so he was ultimately released and allowed to return to Jamaica. In the coming years, he would serve as part of Jamaica’s government, even as temporary governor in 1678 and 1680. He eventually bought a third plantation, and those plantations came with a large number of African slaves. He and his wife had no children, so upon his death he left his land to Mary, for the rest of her life, and then to a couple of nephews and a friend.

So Captain Henry Morgan was a pirate, a government agent, a land owner, and a slave owner. And now he is a brand of spiced rum, which is actually not inappropriate given that the Atlantic slave trade involved slaves to the Caribbean, sugar and molasses to New England, and rum and other manufactured goods to Africa.

One does wonder, however, why our founders, like Washington and Jefferson, are being criticized by many in our country for their being slaveholders, but a pirate and slaveholder seems to be getting a free pass. Maybe the rum is just that good. Or maybe it’s all balderdash and twaddle.

Today’s image is a movie poster from the 1935 Errol Flynn classic Captain Blood, which was based upon the 1922 novel of the same name by Rafael Sabatini, which was based in large part upon the life of Captain Henry Morgan. I think Flynn makes a much better picture than a bottle of rum.