Mark Millman wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote">I'm afraid that both of these points are factually incorrect. The<br>
O.E.D. cites "dago" as appearing in print before 1725. As a slang<br>word, it's likely to have been in use for a considerable time--several<br>decades--before its first print citation...<br>The Golden Age of Piracy is generally held to have been between 1680<br>
and 1720. Your date of 1650 is a generation too early.<br></blockquote><pre>Thank you for the date corrections. There's still enough of a gap between 1680 and 1725 that Wolfe may have intended a clue, but it's not as clear as I first thought.<br>
<br></pre><blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote">...his belief that Chris is from Jersey, which puts him in mind of George Carteret's colony--so named because Carteret is also a Jerseyman...<br>
</blockquote><pre><br>By the way, Burt refers to George Carteret as if still alive on p. 138, and Carteret died in 1680. That tends to limit how late the story can be set,<br><br></pre><blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote">
Burt, as a former midshipman, is probably of good birth, from the gentry or better, and would have had adequate nutrition to reach his full height.<br></blockquote><pre>He says of himself on p. 55, "We weren't rich, you twig? My pa's a grocer." Still, a grocer's son might have access to better food than most.<br>
<br>It may be that Captain Burt was a pirate of that time who was duped by Lesage, perhaps believing the man had oracular powers. The idea that Lesage is a time-traveler who read Chris's manuscript can stand independently.<br>
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