 Good afternoon. There are so many things I'd like to tell you, but first I have to take a poll of the audience. How many members of the wardroam are present? Former members of the wardroam? Oh, that's good. That means without any officers I can speak freely. And chiefs are want to do that upon occasion. I am indeed a chief petty officer of the United States Navy Reserve. I was in Afghanistan during the surge. I came to the Navy very late and so I'm here I am facing you a very august audience because I'm certain there are great many naval historians here. Whether you've written books or whether you just read voraciously you probably know more naval history than I do. And that is heritage and naval history or something that the chief petty officers are charged with guarding and passing down to our junior sailors as you all know. So I've always loved history. I've been a military historian in one fashion or another for almost 40 years. I know it doesn't seem possible when you look at me to think that what did he start when he was two? I actually just turned 50 and the reason that that's significant is I joined the Navy at 38 right after 9-11. My dad was Korea US Army. My uncle was Korea United States Navy. An unrated seaman attached to the quarter masters division aboard the USS Wasp. So I had these you know this kind of proud heritage of uncles and a father who served in the military during time of war. And I grew up as all of you did with those heroes in film and story. And on that day 9-11 my daughter who is not here was sitting on my lap. She was two and a half years old and I said oh this is this is big. This is Pearl Harbor. And how am I going to answer her and say I did nothing. And I really did. I mean it sounds corny but I didn't want to tell my daughter I did nothing. And I knew that question would come up sometime in the future. So I started calling recruiters and the only one that really answered the phone and wanted to have anything to do with me was a Navy Reserve recruiter who then didn't show up for the appointment because she thought I wouldn't show up. They had been so flooded and inundated with guys that wanted to get back in the Navy who were in their 40s guys that said like me who said you know I didn't do it when he's younger and I've got to do it now. So I showed up and lo and behold you know long story short I had to write an age waiver down to NOLA and say please take me I know I'm old but I had I want to serve my country and they said okay we'll let you do that. So I was a journalist. This MC business is you old salts probably remember journalists and photographers mates and draftsmen and lithographers and they decided to bunch us all together and and make us mass communications which I think is just mass confusion. But I became a chief petty officer in 2008. My anchors were pinned down by my family in front of all and sundry in the mess. And I deployed to Afghanistan during the surge with NMCB 18 or do we have any CBS present? All right I was with a construction battalion out of the Pacific Northwest the Skooka Mamook which translates to the mighty builders and they indeed were mighty builders as a reserve battalion they averaged 30 32 years old 560 some of them plus or minus and they did tremendous things. Things that CBS haven't done since the Second World War and I was very proud to be a part of that battalion and and I served as the X5 public affairs officer from July of 2010 until March of 2011. So great experience. I love the Navy. We'll see how much longer the old bod will hold up and you know let me keep doing the PFA physical fitness exam as you all are probably familiar with. So I had started writing Indians rogues and giants in 1999 and it was a lark. I wasn't in the Navy I was a military history buff had done some lecturing done some teaching I have a bachelor's degree in anthropology I have graduate work in American history and about 30 years as a living historian which translates to reenactor the guys that dress up on the weekend I go out and play war. I like to think of myself as a living museum my kids do too. So I have lectured on all of those you know in all of those areas and and it's not something where I talk about hard tack I'm not that there are different levels of interest in American history some people you know they they want to know how you made the hard tack and how did you clean your musket and all that stuff and I could do all that but that's kind of boring I don't think it's very germane I was always kind of a big picture American history person and I find that American history is you're all avid readers American history is often mistreated we tend to break it down into events decades when we teach it in our school system you know we want to talk about the revolution and the French and Indian war as though they were separate events very isolated from each other you know and then we've got war of 1812 we've got industrial revolution and civil war we just break it all down like that which of course has no bearing on on reality because people don't live in a period or in a war you know they're lifespan many events and so that's always been my take on American history and the other thing I like to look at are the the people I mean we talk about battles and we talk about you know victories and losses and great inventions but the human factor as anybody who's been in the Navy will agree the human factor is what drives it you know without our sailors we just have great big steel ships that do nothing they got a man and historic events that's that's what drives them are the people that that create them the people that you know do those awesome amazing things day in and day out that have done them for hundreds and thousands of years and so when I write I kind of want to delve into that and I probably overdo it I don't think I overdo it as a writer I overdo it in the in the process I just kind of you know I can't let go and I kind of I get a bone in my teeth and I just gnaw on it drives my kids nuts we just came down from Maine and everywhere you go in New England there's something historic there's a brown sign for this then there's a brown sign for that and you know your it's a shipyard it's a fort you know there's something and and I try to connect those dots for my kids and that's what I try to do as an author it's what I try to do as a chief when I'm working with sailors sharing heritage with them you fiction is so different now I listened to some of the other books that the John introduced you know that are going to be future lecturers those people are so much smarter than I am I am not I'm not capable of focusing enough thought and energy to bring something new to the table I want to reach out there and grab from all those different events and people and pull it together into a story and I do think that there is a place even for really sharp tax like yourself to read fiction I think we need our brains to relax sometimes we also need to to feed it a little with some imagination that is what drives invention that is what drives you know new thought and if any of you have worked in in the intelligence field you probably have read some fiction our intelligence world relies heavily on the free thought of imaginative people and it's imaginative people that bring so much to it in Fleming was himself a you know an intelligence operative and and later you know it management level and look what he wrote so I write fiction and I and I go out there and I glom on to all these facts and I try to pull them together in a way that's entertaining something that you haven't read before perhaps a new perspective now that said Indians rogues and giants is as John gave you the little blurb you know one man's journey I don't think I need to revisit a lot of previous works I don't want to reinvent the wheel so I tried to create characters that perhaps you hadn't encountered and my principal character is one of those guys who just kind of goes through life and good things happen to him despite the fact that he's a first-class heel life is very unexpected at least that's been over my 50 years that's been my takeaway you think you understand it you think you know where it's going you think you know what's gonna happen next because you planned it that way and then something comes along and sidelines you or perhaps you benefit from you know an unforeseen windfall and so that's what happens with my characters a great deal and so I invented a a young subaltern which was the phrase back in the day 200 years ago for a junior officer in the British and even in the the Continental Army during the Revolution subalterns were ensigns and junior lieutenants and so I created a subaltern whose kind of a near-do-well comes from a rough background but back then unlike today you could buy a commission I suppose the somebody could argue in the future that well that's what they did when they sent them to West Point and what they did when they sent them to the Naval Academy because there's a tab associated with that but we're so much more democratic today in that we go out and we you know we cherry picked those bright young minds those bright young men and women and we encourage them to come to our academies and you can't just buy your way in but back then literally here's some money and you give me a commission that did change there were some reforms in the British military establishment in the 18th century they did away with that system because they realized that it wasn't really the best way you tended to get a lot of inbred nobility that couldn't think their way out of a paper bag and really weren't the guys you wanted leading your troops on a battlefield but until the Duke of Cumberland's reforms took effect you could buy a commission so this young man his parents buy him a commission because they're trying to you know make a silk purse out of a sows ear and so he comes to the colonies and starts to suffer a series of as John said misadventures and today you know we would we would think of these things as maybe a little bit fantastical but if you read it I think you know it'll work for you because everybody that's reviewed it so far says it works for them and the inspiration that I had as I was writing was an officer named Major Robert Stobo who during the French and Indian War was attached as a subaltern to the 60th of foot which was the one colonial American regiment on the Royal Military Establishment and Major Stobo was with Colonel Washington when Colonel Washington signed a capitulation to the French at Fort Necessity which brought about the French and Indian War or the Seven Years War it was he literally threw a hand grenade into the room pulled the pen through it because what Washington did is he said yes I assassinated Lieutenant Jean Montville who was a French officer he admitted to setting an ambush springing the ambush killing the French officer in disputably French territory and young Colonel Washington really wasn't as well-schooled he needed the Naval War College to tell him how to handle command but he didn't have it he signed the capitulation French said hey good terrific now you can march off back to Virginia take your drums take your guns keep your flags just case them up so away he went but he had to offer up some officers on good faith that he would return to Virginia and one of those was I guess he was a major by this by this point Major Robert Stobo so Major Stobo went by kind of a circuitous route from Fort Necessity which is in the wilds of Pennsylvania to Fort Niagara from Fort Niagara to Montreal and along the way he makes sketches of the layout of Fort Niagara sticks it in his boot they don't catch him he makes good friends with the French officers and they think he's just a jelly good fellow so they give him his parole which is to say the freedom of the town in Montreal in other words hey you promise you're not going to go anywhere you promise you're not going to try to escape you know you can you can walk about so he does he breaks his parole tries to escape and they take him you know and they give him a you know thou shalt not kind of a conversation they lock him up for a little while tell him he's a bad boy he's a very clever chap he take charms them again and they give him his parole well this time he succeeds and he manages to escape down the St. Lawrence he encounters a native family probably here on her Abonaki and in the 18th century his feats would have been considered heroic today we might look a little of scants he murders said native American family steals all of their furs which they were paddling up to Montreal to trade and begins paddling their canoe down the St. Lawrence he encounters a schooner he manages somehow to load the fur out of the schooner and steal the schooner and sail it back to Boston all of this happened to one man who truly existed so as you begin to encounter the adventures of St. Crispin Mullen I hope you will because much of the proceeds from the sale of today's books will benefit the museum keep in mind Major Stobo because he was sort of the genesis for this project which as I started to tell you began as a short story that was meant to be a lark and I had dabbled with a couple of novels I was much younger not completed them and this one got away from me so I really enjoyed it and it just didn't stop and it grew and it grew over about six years until I completed it and started seeking publishing when I came back from Afghanistan but the tie-in for all of you is that it's a military officer it will give you a flavor for military life in the 18th century I also dabble a little bit with with privateering and privateering and piracy is you probably are all aware and I'm sure we have a various student audience here are pretty close the only difference between a privateer and a pirate is one document and many a privateer when told to cease and desist decided to cease and desisting was not what he wanted to do and even though his letters of mark he didn't have letters of mark from a governor from a a regent allowing him to pray upon the commerce of another nation continued to pray upon the commerce and sometimes upon the commerce of his own nation not I think that modern contemporary fiction and by that I mean you know fiction of the last hundred and fifty years kind of glorifies and certainly takes a lot of license with that there were privateers that did that majority of privateers returned to more peaceful occupations at the end of war and when their letters were no longer good the letter of mark kind of you know taking advantage and going on and pirating is more of a 17th century type of event I mean it's just didn't happen a lot in the 18th century in the first half of the 18th century colonial Britain and the United Kingdom are coalescing you have the end of the Jacobite rebellion you know which eventually pulls together the entire kingdom to be the United Kingdom as we know it today they began policing both the seas and the land much more strictly and they had a plan of expanding infrastructure within England and law and order really took you know a strong hold in the 18th century and that's probably you know from my my study and research I would have to say that the modern world is we know it truly begins to emerge just before the French and Indian War there was a lot of free-booting even in government things that we would hopefully not tolerate today in England you know the the granting of sinicures and elevating people to high office based on birth based on bribery just all kinds of nasty behaviors going on prior to that but as we move into the mid 18th century you really see a new moral behavior in government and you see government take on an expanded role in the lives of people in England and in the colonies and that really was probably one of the motive forces in ending piracy and creating an environment where it wasn't easy for privateers to cross that line the Royal Navy and their squadrons that patrolled all the colonies but especially in the Caribbean and along the Atlantic coast became very powerful and a force to be reckoned with and people took it very seriously I mean you know we can hearken back to the you know the story of Edward Teach you know and and how he was taken and that while it's romanticized it probably is is is a cusp moment for the Royal Navy in the 18th century and for Colonials to go oh they're they're not kidding they're really serious about this Maynard Lieutenant Maynard you know took Teach reportedly took his head off you know and he's hung at the dock and we see smuggling reduced not done away with but reduced you know we still don't have a cutter service in the colonies smugglers are still sneaking in and out of the eastern seaboard but the Royal Navy squadrons are you know starting to put a lid on that too and of course that's that comes to the revolution and and you know much of the ill will that colonial Americans were directing back home to government in England because it was starting that strong hold that the Royal Navy had that long arm was starting to affect economy here at home so was I I started to tell you the main character in getting simply getting to the colonies encounters a privateer so there's you know like 40 pages he's involved with a privateer won't tell you won't spoil for you how he gets involved with a privateer but as you can see privateering was critical in the 18th century the cost of a ship of the line would have been the same equivalent as for us building an aircraft carrier today so it and they didn't have great revenue collecting and there was so much malfeasance in government with people skimming money that government often found itself short of the funds it needed oh yeah it's not that different than today but they did find themselves shorthanded and when you needed to quickly ramp up privateers were a very simple expedient to doing that because all you had to do was rip off letters authorizing you didn't have to give them guns you didn't have to give them crews they took care of all of it now why governments didn't take a piece of the action is unknown but none of the major governments of the 18th century got in on the action of privateers there was there were some fees associated with condemning a ship but they didn't like King George didn't say and you owe me 20% of the value of every ship condemned didn't happen but be that as it may they utilize privateers in the French Union were to capture almost 1300 merchant vessels now I don't know you know very poor records were kept there were undoubtedly more ships than that that were not reported we don't have you know really careful details regarding cargoes sizes of vessels so we don't know the you know the details of the depth of the impact that this had on economies but it was important and so you know when you think of the 18th century and privateering you know it's not just these haphazard pirate types these were and oftentimes by show of hands anybody here know of a fellow named Patrick O'Brien I'm a huge fan myself so you know Aubrey finds himself on half on shore at half pay and ends up taking the surprise out and using her as a privateer and is issued a letter of mark now is some of that romantic yes but mostly it's true half pay officers did find themselves you know in need of employment so we can also look at you know the privateer not only as a reserve force but you know depending on what lens you put him under he's also potentially a mercenary he could be listed depending on who's looking at him as a mercenary and we've seen that in you know the last 40 years Rhodesia was overrun with mercenaries in the 1970s so and there are I I will dare say and as a current member of the military I know that in 150 years they're gonna look at black water they're gonna look at security agencies that we're using that we're contracting with they're going to be viewed that way also the Romans did it they augmented the legions with German mercenaries so this is an expedient that's been used throughout history undoubtedly will continue to be but when you look at privateers when you read about privateers you know maybe put put that lens over the top of them and view them that way I I wanted to weave a fun story I wanted to weave a story that was sort of Treasure Island for grown-ups you know we all read it as kids and I've I've read it to my children you know Robert Louis Stevenson is an amazing author I and I'm a fan of Robert Louis Stevenson James Fenimore Cooper but they're they're tough to wade through sometimes some books are better and some are a little harder and I wanted something that was a little grittier so Indians rogues and giants is sort of you know influenced by those authors and as I said influenced by Major Stobo there were the the individual in the 60th of foot and you know you can't tell the story of colonial America without you know touching on maritime subjects because it was crucial to everything that we did a fact that's not a factoid that's not in there during the French and Indian War over 36,000 Americans served on a privateer now we're talking a population by the time of the Revolution of 2 million at the time of the French and Indian War colonial Britain a colonial British North America would have had a population less than 2 million because there was actually a big influx in the 40s 50s and 60s all right so post the French and Indian War they were still coming so something under 2 million 36,000 of those available men served at one time or another aboard a privateer that was the powerball of the day if you if that you need that explained it was simply you know cash was very hard to come by we were not an economy that was based on hard currency and of course hard currency then literally meant silver and gold copper notes were starting to be issued but it hard currency was indeed hard so you know it without that hard currency to buy the many things that they needed people found other ways and that included smuggling and privateering so St. Crispin mall encounters a privateer and I hope you'll enjoy the privateer that he encounters every one of our cities at that time was a port we didn't have any great inland cities Philadelphia would have been the closest still has access to the sea you know Boston and Charleston and New York are the three biggies and obviously today Charleston is not Charleston did not you know grow the way that New York and Boston did but that new port and Newport and Newport and Providence well and Providence plays a role here in this story I didn't use Newport but I did use Providence because New England is indeed you know it's the point of all great mercantile traffic in the colonies between New York and Boston Charleston plays a role but it's more for getting tobacco out and bringing in hard goods what they called fancy goods for the people the very small population of South Carolina was a more of a strategic port than it was a great mercantile portal so New York Boston Providence Hartford but in in for the sake of Indians rogues and giants Providence plays a role couldn't get him everywhere the journey starts in Charleston comes north and I'm not going to delve into every detail of it because I would just spoil it and it's pointless it's also I also used it as a way to expose people maybe to some ideas about colonial America that that popular histories don't touch on and I think there's a tendency today to do to kind of re-engineer American history and that goes a little too far to sometimes person weems wrote the first really huge popular 18th or early 19th century history of America which then propagated a whole bunch of myths you know and that sort of lasted through the 19th century we get into the 20th century to say we need to reinvent and then some of the reinvention I think we've lost touch with some things try to find some balance but certainly you know early histories of the United States and the colonies the French and Indian War you know pre-colonial or French and Indian tend to focus on you know white men of European descent we were it or so we would like to think but we weren't really you know I mean there were the the the color of America was so much richer than that so the story also has some of that we also like to think that people had very strict mores well they didn't that's more antebellum 18th century people were dirty they were nasty and they were quite a bit more immoral than they would be later on post the war of 1812 you know they were naughty you know women showed a little bit more cleavage in the 18th century men tended to you know it was usually called dalliance you know he played the field so you know the the morals were very different people didn't think twice about taking or giving bribes so I try to weave a lot of that in and a lot of that thought and not to judge them through a 21st century sensibility you know they were who they were based upon the times they lived in and I don't think they need us apologizing for them just as I don't think the 19th century needs us to apologize for them they were who they were based upon the times that they lived in and we need to to look at them as multi-dimensional people