These articles are known to have been used by Edward Low and George Lowther aboard their ship. They were first seen in the Boston News Letter, and it appears that Low and Lowther had the same articles. This is probably because they sailed together from early January to the end of May in 1722. Lowe’s articles were published in the Boston News-Letter on August 1, 1723, and also The Tryals of Thirty-Six Persons for Piracy, Twenty-Eight of them upon Full Evidence were Found Guilty and the Rest Acquitted, which was also printed in 1723. The first eight points of George Lowther’s articles were published in A General History of the Pyrates (1724).
Pirates are often viewed a being lawless bunch in need of a strong, authoritative captain figure to keep them in line, but, in fact, they operated under their own strict set of rules, which were often deemed sacred to them. This set rules, commonly known as the Articles of Agreement or the Pirate Code determined everything on board a pirate vessel from the distribution of booty to the allotting of punishments. Overall, pirates were fairly democratic, but the punishments for breaking the agreed upon articles could often be severe. Articles that applied to all were a necessary measure to maintain the cohesion of the crew, many of whom had previously been subjected to the dictatorial methods of merchant and naval captains, so it was important that the crew agreed on what the Articles should cover together with the captain. In contrast, privateer vessels usually had their own charters, assigning larger shares to the officers and owners of the ship and what was left to the rest of the crew, although they sometimes contained points similar to those in the Pirate Code.…