Monthly Archives: November 2023

The Threatened Self.

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            Philanthropy, empathy, and altruism (whether effective or not) are much celebrated in contemporary culture.  The opposites of these qualities are—and long have been—condemned as destructive.  What this school of thought misses is that the mind possesses and deploys psychological defenses against perceived harm to ourselves by others. 

            Anger is a common expression of threats to one’s self-respect.  Spite—doing the opposite of what you are told to do–is a common response to feeling bossed-about by someone without the authority to do so.  Both defend an aspirational individual autonomy. 

“Schadenfreude”—delight–is a common response to a mishap suffered by a person who treats us as an inferior.  Here “inferior” means in personal qualities or social station, rather than in formal rank.  Contempt is a common response to someone we judge less competent than ourselves.  Contempt doesn’t have to be felt of a person in a superior position.  It is more often directed at those below us.  Perhaps Schadenfreude and Contempt face in opposite directions socially?  Contempt affirms the existing social order; schadenfreude makes it tolerable. 

            Envy is a common response to people who have undeservingly obtained something that we ourselves merit (or at least covet).  That is, most people don’t begrudge Bill Gates and Paul Allen their immense fortunes: they built something important and useful.  Many people distrust Affirmative Action because they see it as rewarding the undeserving. 

All are defenses of the “Self” against attacks, real or imagined.  Self-respect, self-esteem, self-mastery, self-worth, and self-assertion are, to use contemporary jargon, forms of “self-care.”  In this sense, it can be argued that socially-disparaged feelings are actually constructive, even healthy.[1]  This isn’t a new point of view.[2] 

All these feelings are inter-personal, rather than social or political.  That is, they concern individuals, rather than groups.[3]  Are such widespread feelings innate, rather than learned?  Or are some people more vulnerable or more battered than other people?  Hence, more prone to “defend” themselves with these formally “bad” emotions?  Are “good” people just less harmed or better endowed with a thick hide?    

            If many or all of us are vulnerable to such feelings, what is to be done?  Erasmus wrote that “virtue and true freedom of the soul consist of self-governance, controlling one’s baser impulses and passions in the name of a higher principle—namely friendship and community with others.”[4]  He is hardly alone in this view of desirable human behavior.  The prescriptive (“You should…”) literature in most civilizations since the dawn of Time is chock full of such advice.  It’s just that the good advice is apparently hard to take.  Certainly, today in America “friendship and community with others” who hold different views on public matters is hard to come by. 

            Perhaps so much anger, contempt, spite, envy, and delight in the mishaps of others is explained by widespread individual feelings of being attacked in the ability to govern the self? 

[1] Krista K. Thomason, Dancing With the Devil: Why Bad Feelings Make Life Good (2023). 

[2] See, for example, the remarks on Satan in Mark Twain, “Concerning the Jews.”  Concerning the Jews – Wikisource, the free online library  Or, if you must have something more high-toned, then Nietzsche’s attack on Christianity as destructive of man’s true nature. 

[3] Although if many individuals share the same feeling about a person or group of persons or an organization or institution, then things can quickly become social or political. 

[4] Quoted in Alexandra Hudson, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves (2023). 

Captain Evan Seys, Mariner.

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            Captain Evan Seys descended from a distinguished and prosperous Welsh family.[1]  His great-grandfather, Roger Seys (1539-1599), had served Queen Elizabeth I as Under-Sheriff of Glamorgan and then as Attorney General for Wales.  Roger Seys married well, with the estate of Boverton as part of the dowery of Elizabeth Voss (1540-1599).[2]  Their son, Richard Seys (1564-1639) continued in this line, practicing law and marrying the heiress Mary Evans (1570-1641).  Richard and Mary Seys were very prolific, with thirteen children born between 1595 and 1610.  One of these children received the common Welsh name of Evan (1604-1681).  Like his grandfather, Evan Seys took to law and politics.  If anything, Evan Seys was more adept than was Roger because the times were more troubled.[3]  He served both Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate and in the parliaments of King Charles II.[4] 

            William Seys (1610-1691) figured as the last-born of Richard Seys’s brood.  Looking around at all the uncles and cousins ahead of him in the hunt for opportunity, he did the sensible thing.  He moved to London and found work.  Doubtless he benefitted from the position, connections, and knowledge of his older brother Evan.  He married an Englishwoman, Jane Turberville (1612–?).  With her, he had two sons, (Charles Seys, 1631–?) and William Seys (1633—1686).  Jane died at some point before 1655.  William Seys later re-married, to Mary Hakewell, a young widow with a daughter from her first marriage.  The future Captain Evan Seys was born to this couple in 1655. 

            This Evan Seys was the younger son of a younger son.  It is unlikely that he could have expected a rich inheritance.  He would have had to find useful work.  From an early age, his mind turned toward the sea.  He lived in London, the greatest port in Britain, and his father’s business may have had some connection with overseas trade or with the supplying of ships.  Either of these could have put him in contact with sailors and their stories.[5]  It seems likely that he first went to sea at a young age, perhaps as early as age twelve.[6] 

            Starting working so early in life, men could reach positions of authority at what contemporary people would regard as a very young age.  In 1678, at age twenty-three, Evan Seys took command of his first ship, the Royal African Company (RAC) slave ship “Swallow.”  

Going to sea is one thing; going to sea in a slaver is another; and going to sea as a slave ship officer is yet another.  Seys must have had previous experience as an officer on a slave ship for the RAC to have entrusted a ship and its cargo to him.  Sailors on slave ships shared with all sailors the usual rigors of a pre-modern life at sea, increased in their case by the dangers inherent in spending long periods in the Tropics.[7] Added to these was the role of the “Middle Passage” in reducing “captives” to “slaves.”  This involved the crew inflicting immense brutality upon their captives.  The psychological effects on slave ship crews cannot have been healthy.  Still, it wasn’t an uncommon career choice among mariners.  By one estimate, 330,000 sailors served on British slave ships between 1600 and 1800.[8] 

How did Seys compare to other slave ship captains?  For this period. there seems to be no study of the officers and commanders of slave ships equivalent to the work of Emma Christopher on the common sailors.[9] 

His family belonged to the gentry, valuing education and property.  His uncle, a Member of Parliament from 1671 to 1681, was often in London.  This might have given Captain Evan Seys some entree into the halls of power, even if it was only with hat in hand.  If the circumstances demanded it, he could pass for a “gentleman.”[10]  It would have been only human of him to have envied the better-situated members of his own family.

On the other hand, he lived in the Hamlet of Ratcliffe, one of the disreputable Tower Hamlets.  Commonly called “Sailor Town,” Ratcliffe contained boarding houses occupied by men either home from a voyage or looking for a ship, and by taverns, brothels, and pawn shops. 

The “Swallow” wasn’t big, displacing 70 tons.[11]  Between September 1678 and June 1679, Seys sailed his ship to New Calabar,[12] purchased 179 souls, and carried them to slavery in Virginia.[13]  Along the way, he called at Barbados because his food supply for the captives had begun to rot.  He would have been back in London by Fall 1679.[14] 

            The RAC seems to have been pleased with his performance for they soon gave him another voyage.  Between March 1680 and January 1681, again in the “Swallow,” Seys sailed from London to New Calabar, purchased 146 souls, and sailed for Nevis in the West Indies.  This voyage proved much less successful than his first.  The RAC had instructed him to try to purchase 220 souls, but the best he could manage was 146.  Then only 101 of the captives survived the journey.  That amounted to a 30 percent death rate.[15]  The death rate on his first voyage had been 10 percent.  He might have been back in London by April 1681.

At Nevis, Seys purchased one of the captives for himself.[16]  His reasons for doing so are unknown.  Perhaps he intended the person as a gift to some young woman of means whom he hoped to impress.  More likely, he wanted a servant who might be useful, either as a translator in future voyages to the Bight or as a “guardian” who could help keep the captives tranquil during the sea voyage.[17] 

            Not until more than four years later, in August 1685, did Evan Seys command a ship in the service of the RAC.  Four years is a long time for a sailor to spend ashore with no income.  Perhaps he had wanted a break—temporary or permanent—from the slave trade.[18]  He may have commanded another ship or ships not involved in the slave trade[19] or he may have tried his hand at some business enterprise ashore.[20]  In any event, the comparative failure of the second voyage seems not to have soured the RAC on Evan Seys.  His next command marked a step upward. 

The “Oxford” was a larger vessel of 100 tons displacement and 12 guns.  Moreover, his orders took him not to the familiar Bight of Biafra, but much farther south to Cabinda near the mouth of the Congo River.  From there he would carry his captives to Jamaica, deep in the Caribbean.  It was a much longer voyage to an unfamiliar coast and then on to an unfamiliar destination with a bigger ship, so it represented a vote of confidence by the RAC in Seys’s abilities. 

It also amounted to a plum job.  A slave-ship captain’s pay “averaged £0.43 per slave who left Africa….”  In addition, the price of slaves delivered to Jamaica, rather than Barbados, was higher.  As a result, “captains on the Jamaican voyages received 20 percent more in commissions.”[21]  With the ship capacity to carry over 400 captives, and pay in the area of L0.5 per slave loaded in Africa, Seys could expect to be paid-off at the end of the voyage with about L200 Sterling. 

            The “Oxford” sailed from London on 20 August 1685.[22]  Seys called at one or more RAC post on the coast of West Africa on the way down.[23]  He would have bought additional food for his captives.  On a normal slave voyage to Barbados or Nevis, he would have tried to buy gold and other African products to fill out the profit earned from the slaves.  Bound for Jamaica, his ship faced a much greater danger of attack by pirates.  As a result, RAC ships sailing for Jamaica usually did not buy gold.[24]  Finally, he added a sloop to his command at one of the RAC forts.[25]  A sloop is a smaller, single-masted vessel which does not draw as much water as does a ship.  It is faster than a square-rigged ship and with a fore-and-aft rig that made it more handy in confined areas.[26]  It could be used either for in-shore work or for going up-river.  The RAC maintained a number of them in their West Africa posts for the river trade, but they could be detailed to larger ships.[27]  Then he sailed for Cabinda. 

            Seys earned L242 on the voyage of the “Oxford.”  This exceeded the average compensation for captains on the Jamaica voyages (L175) or the Barbados voyages (L155).[28]  Adjusted for inflation, it would be the equivalent of approximately L62,000 today.[29] 

            There are several ways of thinking about this figure.  On the one hand, it was effectively pay for two year’s work, so it amounted to L121 per year.  On the other hand, he had few personal living expenses during the voyage.  He lived aboard the ship; he ate the company-supplied rations that the crew ate, improved by whatever personal stores he had bought before the voyage began or when in foreign ports; and he wore whatever simple, durable gear that he had brought on board with him.  Most of the money he spent during the voyage would have gone for benders and brothels in Port Royal.  He would have received the L242 as a lump sum paid to him after completion of the voyage. 

            Where did it place him among contemporary British income-earners?  According to the calculations of Gregory King, L121 per year would have fallen between the average L154 earned by “Persons of the Law” and the average L72 earned by “Eminent Clergymen.”[30]  On the other hand, he wasn’t a barrister, a solicitor, a dean, or a priest with a favored living.  He was a slave-ship captain living in a rough part of London.  What he may have lacked in traditional social standing, he made up for in the chief measure of a class society.  Seys’s L121 annual income put him in the top 4 percent of “Heads of Families” in terms of income. 

NB: Did he live to enjoy it? 

            The “Oxford” was a hired ship, rather than owned by the RAC.[31]  NB: So had Seys been in the employ of the ship’s owners during the four year gap? 

The Royal African Company’s net income on the Jamaican voyages of £1,133 was nearly twice what the company earned from the voyages to Barbados. The greater risk of piracy on voyages to Jamaica and risk of attack from the Spanish, which likely reduced the trade in gold, may explain part of the difference in returns.” Eltis, “Accounting,” p. 954.  NB: Go back and look up the bit on purchasing gold in West Africa on the way down. 

The time between a ship’s departure from London and its arrival in the Caribbean averaged just over nine and a half months, and ranged from the 182-day voyage of the Mary to Jamaica, to the 386 days it took the Owners Adventure to reach Nevis.(8)  Based on when the final accounts were recorded, it appears that ships reached London about six months after their arrival in the Caribbean. Thus, depending on the African port of embarkation, the entire voyage took between 15 and 17 months.  (p. 942.)  NB: What was I calculating? 

            P. 944, n 8. Ten voyages were to the Eastern Caribbean (nine to Barbados, one to Nevis) and 12 to the Western Caribbean (Jamaica). The Mary went to Senegambia, the most northerly of the African trading regions. Differences in the combined length of the first two legs of the voyage had more to do with the time spent sailing to Africa and purchasing and boarding slaves than with the middle passage. In the mid- 1680s Africa to Jamaica averaged 85 days, which was about two weeks longer than the voyage to Barbados.

[1] The broad history of the Seys family’s strategy of ascent can be discerned in Philip Jenkins, The Making of a Ruling Class: The Glamorgan Gentry 1640-1790 (New York: Cambridge UP, 1983).  For the particulars of the genealogy, see:The Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian Glamorgan Monmouth and Brecon Gazette, 10 July 1863, p. 8, “Glamorgan Pedigrees (Part One)” and 17 July 1863, p. 8, “Glamorgan Pedigrees (Part Two).”  https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3093641/3093649   

[2] See: https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/richard-seys-24-2kj9yz6 

[3] On Evan Seys, see http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1660-1690/member/seys-evan-1604-85  and Clive Jenkins, “Evan Seys (1604-1685)” at http://www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/clivejenkins/evan_seys.pdf 

[4] The long history of pragmatic adaptation offers many examples, as does popular culture.  See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rWuJ3eD6Qc  Apparently there wasn’t a Roundhead Slim Charles to clap a stopper on his tricks. 

[5] See the illustration at: https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/sir-walter-raleigh/#gs.nmlvxv 

[6] For most of human history, children went to work at an early age.  Apprenticeships in the trades often began at age twelve.  Midshipmen (officer trainees) in the Royal Navy commonly joined their first ship at age twelve.  Sir Horatio Nelson offers an example.  Thereafter, they attended the “school of the sea.”  There is an English folk-song called “The Shoals of Herring” about the life of a fisherman who started as a cabin-boy.  https://mainlynorfolk.info/ewan.maccoll/songs/theshoalsofherring.html 

[7] NAM Rodger,The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy (New York: WW Norton & Co, 1996). 

[8] Emma Christopher, Slave Ship Sailors and Their Captive Cargoes, 1730-1807 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).  On average, that would have been 1,650 sailors in any given year.  The crew of H.M.S. “Bounty” was 44 officers and men; the crew of H.M.S. “Beagle” on its famous second voyage was 65 officers and men, plus 9 supernumeraries. 

[9] For a later period, see Stephen Behrendt, “The Captains in the British Slave Trade from 1785 to 1807,” Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire #140 (1991), pp. 70–140.  See also: Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History (2007).

[10] The near-gentle status of slave-ship captains and surgeons is a point made in passing by Kathleen S. Murphy, “Collecting Slave Traders: James Petiver, Natural History, and the British Slave Trade,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 70, No. 4 (October 2013), pp. 637-670. 

[11] That didn’t make the “Swallow” tiny.  It’s just that it is tricky.  Today’s Cal40 sloops displace 7.5 tons.  The H.M.S. “Bounty” was 90 feet long and displaced 215 tons.  The U.S.S. “Constitution” is 175 feet in length at the waterline and displaces 2,200 tons. 

[12] That is the mouth of the New Calabar River in the Niger River delta.  It was at that time the center of the slave trade in the Bight of Biafra. 

[13] The voyage formed a part of the RAC’s floundering, inconstant effort to develop the Chesapeake Bay slave market.  See Charles Killinger, III, “The Royal African Company Slave Trade to Virginia, 1689-1713,” M.A. Thesis, College of William and Mary, 1969, pp. 11, 94-95.  Killinger calculates that, between 1673 and 1688, the Chesapeake took only 3 percent of the slaves delivered to the Americas by the RAC. 

[14] Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade – Database (slavevoyages.org): Voyage 15065.  See also Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America (Washington, DC: Carnegie, 1930) Vol. I, Document #83, p. 250. 

[15] Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade – Database (slavevoyages.org): Voyage 9914. 

[16] Donnan, ed., Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, Vol. I, Document #88: “Accounts of the Swallow, 1679-1681,” pp. 256-258.

[17] See: Stephanie Smallwood, “African Guardians, European Slave Ships, and the Changing Dynamics of Power in the Early Modern Atlantic,” William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 64, #4 (October 2007), pp. 679-716.  The terms “probably” and “may” begin to appear frequently in her discussion.  Which is convenient for me. 

[18] Seys had spent about 22 months out of 29 months at sea as captain of a sailing ship, loaded with all the responsibilities that such a position involves.  You don’t have to sympathize with a bad man involved in a brutal business.  But Eric Muhsfeld, one of the SS guards in the crematoria in Auschwitz, had to be treated for high blood pressure.  However we regard such people, they usually regard themselves as normal human beings. 

[19] Seys’s command in 1685, the “Oxford,” was a ship hired, rather than owned, by the RAC.  Seys may have been serving as captain of that ship during the years after commanding the “Swallow.”  David Eltis, Frank D. Lewis, and Kimberley McIntyre, “Accounting for the Traffic in Africans: Transport Costs on Slaving Voyages,” Journal of Economic History, Vol. 70, #4 (December 2010), p. 953, Table 4, Column 3. 

[20] In Spring 1685 he brought suit against three other men (two merchants and one “Gentleman”) over responsibility for a bond.  See: Case #111: Seys v. Bellwood, ‘Pleadings, 1685-1686: nos 91-120’, in London and Middlesex Exchequer Equity Pleadings, 1685-6 and 1784-5, ed. Henry Horwitz and Jessica Cooke (London, 2000), pp. 33-43. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-record-soc/vol35/pp33-43. 

[21] David Eltis, Frank D. Lewis, and Kimberley McIntyre, “Accounting for the Traffic in Africans: Transport Costs on Slaving Voyages,” Journal of Economic History, Vol. 70, #4 (December 2010), p. 951.  The sample of voyages studied by the authors include the voyage of the “Oxford.” 

[22] Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade – Database (slavevoyages.org) Voyage 9861. 

[23] Likely Fort George/Fort Secondee at Takoradi in what is now Ghana. 

[24] David Eltis, Frank D. Lewis, and Kimberley McIntyre, “Accounting for the Traffic in Africans: Transport Costs on Slaving Voyages,” Journal of Economic History, Vol. 70, #4 (December 2010), p. 942, 952 n. 20. 

[25] Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade – Database (slavevoyages.org) Voyage 21077, “Sloop to Oxford.”  Followed the same itinerary as the “Oxford.” 

[26] Think of just about any sailboat that you may have seen on the Chesapeake Bay or Puget Sound or the Charles River basin. 

[27] Kenneth G. Davies, The Royal African Company (London: Longmans, Green: 1957), pp. 194-195. 

[28] David Eltis, Frank D. Lewis, and Kimberley McIntyre, “Accounting for the Traffic in Africans: Transport Costs on Slaving Voyages,” Journal of Economic History, Vol. 70, #4 (December 2010), p. 953, Table 4. 

[29] See the Consumer Price Index calculator at https://www.officialdata.org/1760-GBP-in-2018?amount=100  The CPI calculator takes 1760

[30] “A General View of the National Income and State of Society, in England and Wales,” Robert Forster and Elborg Forster, eds., European Society in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Harper and row, 1969), pp. 239-240. 

[31] David Eltis, Frank D. Lewis, and Kimberley McIntyre, “Accounting for the Traffic in Africans: Transport Costs on Slaving Voyages,” Journal of Economic History, Vol. 70, #4 (December 2010), p. 953, Table 4, Column 3. 

Evan Seys and the Black Boy Charles.

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On This Day in History: 22 November. Edward Teach/”Black Beard,” a pirate was killed by Royal Navy sailors in what is now North Carolina. Piracy posed a grave danger to mariners in the 17th and early 18th Centuries. It also provided opportunities for Anglo-American settlers to get quality merchandise at a discount. I’m publishing this here because I fear piracy by someone with whom I shared early information about this research project.

London, 20 September 1687.  The Royal African Company to Captain John Low. 

“You are desired to have the carrying of the Black boy Charles to his Freinds upon your ship the “St. George” we consent to it (god sending you wel to return) we expect that you take account or give us some other good proofe of his delivery.  He being, as we are Informed sonne to the Messuca of Cabenda who is brother to the King of that Country and is in greatest authority under him whereby hee is able to do us much prejudice or Furtherance in our Trade for which reason is our Desire to please him.  He trusted his sonne to Capt. Seys, but what Instruction he had about more than to deliver him to us we know not, Capt. Seys having Been ill ever since he Came over but we understand by other Masters [NB: ship captains] that have since been on that [West African slave] coast that his father expects him back we have therefore Clothed and sett him out in such Maner as we are advised may be acceptable to his friends w’ch we recommend to your Managem’t soe as may not only be advantageous to your Selfe but allsoe to our futer trade in that place soe wishing you a good voyage.”  

The British Royal African Company ship “Oxford,” Evan Seys commanding, departed London for the African coast on 16 August 1685.  Seys had made two previous slave-trading voyages for the company, commanding the “Swallow” in 1678-1679 and in 1680-1681.  Before this he could have been an officer serving on a slaver, then was promoted to be captain.  I don’t know. 

The “Oxford” loaded 426 slaves at Cabinda, then sailed for Jamaica.  The voyage between Africa and the Caribbean might take six to eight weeks, or much longer if winds and current did not favor the ship.  The composition of the slaves was: 49.6 percent men, 33.2 percent women, 10.8 percent boys, and 6.4 percent girls. 

The “Oxford” arrived at Jamaica on 31 July 1686. It disembarked 369 surviving slaves.  It had been 349 days since it left London. 

NB: So, Charles was in Jamaica during August and September 1686.  What did he see? 

The “Oxford” sailed from Jamaica for London on 6 October 1686.  A normal voyage between Jamaica and London might take twelve or thirteen weeks. 

[NB: so, the “Oxford” could have reached London in December 1686 or January 1687.  What did Charles do between January and September 1687?]   

  1. By what route did the boy Charles arrive in London, then return to Cabinda? 
  2. Why was he sent on the “Oxford” by his father?  How well did that long voyage fulfill this mission? 
  3. Based on what the boy Charles had seen  on his journey, how much information might have been available to one African ruler about the nature of the “Middle Passage”  between Africa and the Caribbean and about the nature of plantation slavery in Jamaica? 
  4. Why were the directors of the Royal African Company so concerned about one young African in England?  How concerned are they that he arrive safely home and with a good opinion of the country?  What does this suggest to you about how the slave trade operated on the African coast? 
  5. Evan Seys, the captain of the “Oxford,” belonged to an influential and prosperous Welsh family.  He had relatives who were graduates of Oxford University, lawyers, landowners, members of parliament, and sheriffs of their county.  Charles was the nephew of a king and—one might expect—slated for high office in his own country.  Did these two men have more in common than set them apart, or were there differences greater than their social roles? 

My Weekly Reader 21 November 2023.

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            What did the “Roman Peace” mean in the Ancient world?  It meant two things.  Within the empire, it meant the determined effort to provide good government, reconcile different peoples with one another, suppress rebellions by ambitious men and malcontent groups, foster trade, and prevent invasions by barbarians.  At the outer edges of the empire and beyond, it meant frequent and destructive wars.[1]  Romans saw no contradiction here.  The two were inextricably linked.  Only in more recent times have people claimed to see hypocrisy. 

The dangers of internal disorder appeared in 69 AD, the “Year of the Four Emperors.”  Julius Caesar’s nephew, Augustus, had ended the Roman Civil War, established the Empire, and founded the Julio-Claudian dynasty that ruled Rome until 68 AD.[2]  In that year, Nero, the last of the Julio-Claudians, died.  Nero had no heir and his misrule already had inspired rebellion in the provinces and multiple conspiracies among officials in Rome itself. 

Notable among the rebels was Galba (3 BC-69 AD), governor of Hispania.  Although born to a wealthy and noble family, Galba had spent decades building a reputation for greed, abuse of those under his power, and social climbing.  Galba was old by Roman standards.  Nevertheless, he was proclaimed emperor by his legion.  He soon won the support of several other provincial governors, notably of Otho, the governor of Lusitania.  Then Nero died and Galba became emperor.  Quick as a snake, Galba turned on those who had helped him to power.  One was killed, but the more dangerous Otho (32-69 AD) merely suffered public humiliation. 

Otho didn’t take the snub very well.  Although only 37, he had already suffered enough public humiliation to choke a hog.  His wife, Poppaea, had only married him to get close to Nero.  Otho soon found himself divorced and exiled to a minor post in the provinces, while Poppaea married Nero.  Otho had Galba murdered to clear his own way to power.  “That’ll show her.” 

 Otho immediately confronted a rebellion led by the commanders of the legions in Germany,[3] who took their nominal commander–Vitellius (15-69 AD)—in tow.  Invading Italy, the army of Vitellius defeated the army of Otho, who then committed suicide.  Vitellius became emperor.  Like Otho, he faced a grave challenge from another general. 

This challenge came from Vespasian (9-79 AD), a man as ambitious as Galba, Otho, or Vitellius, but markedly more formidable as both a soldier and an administrator.  Vespasian left of repressing s Jewish rebellion, sent troops to Italy, while he took control of the Egyptian bread-basket of Rome.  Vitellius paid with his life in the war, while Vespasian ruled the empire for ten years and established the Flavian dynasty (69-96 AD). 

Vespasian shrewdly built his power upon competent administration, propaganda, increased tax revenues, rewards for his supporters, and non-lethal purges of his opponents.  In doing so, he re-established the “Roman Peace” as Romans understood the term.[4]    

[1] Famously, the Roman historian Tacitus quoted a barbarian chief as saying that the Romans “create a devastation and call it peace.”  Well, yes, if you were an enemy of the Romans, that’s what they did.  They would do it to rebels inside the Empire as quickly as they did it to enemies outside the Empire. 

[2] If you don’t want to plow through Tacitus, then two historical novels by Robert Graves, I, Claudius (1934) and Claudius the God (1935) are a hoot.  If you find that daunting, then try the BBC’s televised version (1976: “I, Claudius” 1976 P1 Siân Phillips, BrianBlessed, MargaretTyzack, JohnHurt, JohnCastle, DerekJacobi – YouTube 

[3] Aulus Caecina Alienus – Wikipedia and Fabius Valens – Wikipedia

[4] All this is told with great skill in the first half of Tom Holland, Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age (2023). 

Catastrophists.

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            In economics there is the idea of the “neutral [interest] rate.”  This is the rate that “keeps inflation and unemployment stable over time.”[1]  There are at least three things to bear in mind about the “neutral rate.” 

First, an unemployment rate of 4 percent is commonly taken as “natural,” while the Federal Reserve Board has a long-term inflation goal of 2 percent.    

Second, “neutral” is the real interest rate that achieves its goals plus the inflation rate.  So, IF 2.0-2.5 percent is the desired real interest rate and inflation is running at 2.0 percent, THEN the “neutral” rate would be 4.0-4.5 percent. 

Third, over the long haul, it is the product of “very slow moving forces: demographics, the global demand for capital; the level of government debt and investors’ assessment of inflation and growth risks.” 

Fourth, it is nebulous.  Essentially, if the current interest rate is not achieving its aim (such as reducing demand or slowing inflation to the target rate), then it isn’t high enough to be “neutral.”  Monetary policy isn’t actually “tight,” regardless of what previous historical rates would suggest or what the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board says. 

Before the financial crisis of 2007-2009, the Federal Reserve Board had a real “neutral” rate of 2.0-2.5 percent, with an annual inflation rate of 2.0 percent added on for a rate of 4.0-4.5 percent.  After the financial crisis, many parts of the economy de-leveraged.  That is they paid off existing debt and limited borrowing.  The Federal Reserve Board kept interest rates very low for a long time without seeing even their target inflation rate of 2.0 percent.  The shrunken demand for capital facilitated this policy.  Then the government began expanding the deficit during the Covid emergency and afterward.[2]  Demand began to recover, so this began to exert pressure on “real” interest rates held near zero.  Much could change, but “the evidence suggests the public should get used to higher rates as far as the eye can see.” 

            In the 1970s, “poorly conceived regulatory and tax systems” contributed to the substantial inflation.  Government debt amounted to 34 percent of GDP.  The recent (and current) inflation is due to “the government’s gross over-reliance on debt financing to give voters stuff without taxes to pay for it.”  Government debt now amounts to 122 percent of GDP.  In addition, Social Security and Medicare have unfunded obligations of $78 trillion.  The interest rate on the debt has almost doubled, to 2.97 percent.”  Interest payments have “more than doubled, to $985 billion.”  This is larger than the defense budget.”[3]    

            It is easy to argue that this is unsustainable.  The chickens will come home to roost—at some point.  They will arrive in the form of higher taxes on upper income groups and degraded services for lower income groups.  They may hamstring defense spending in a dangerous time.  American politics could get even uglier than they are today.  Hardly seems possible, but….

[1] Greg Ip, “Higher Rates Not Just for Longer—Maybe Forever,” WSJ, 22 September 2023. 

[2] In early 2020, Federal debt held by the public amounted to 80 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  Today it stands at 95 percent of GDP.  GDP in 2020 amounted to $20.93 trillion.  Advance estimates of GDP for the third quarter of 2023 project a total of $27.62 trillion.  See: Gross Domestic Product, Third Quarter 2023 (Advance Estimate) | U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)  Eighty percent of 20.93 = $16.75 trillion; Ninety-five percent of 27.62 = $26.24 trillion.  That’s about $9.5 trillion in four years.  A bigger share of a bigger pie. 

[3] Holman Jenkins, Jr., “The U.S. Needs a Defense Buildup,” WSJ, 11 October 2023. 

War Movies The 317th Platoon.

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            Having been defeated in a crushing fashion by Germany in 1940 and having been rescued in a humiliating fashion by the Anglo-Americans in 1944, France didn’t want to turn loose of its empire after 1945.[1]  Hence, France fought bloody wars against nationalism in Indochina (1946-1954) and Algeria. 

            As part of the French war effort in Indochina, its intelligence service, SDECE (pr. “Ess-deck”) engaged in paramilitary operations.[2]  The SDECE created the “Groupement de commandos mixtes aeroportes” or “GCMA.”  These “airborne commando groups” took their inspiration from “Operation Jedburgh” during the Second World War.[3]  The “Jeds” were three-man teams parachuted into France primarily, before the invasion of Normandy.  They were sent to contact, train, and lead groups of anti-German “partisans.”[4]  As applied to French Indochina, this meant 2-3 French soldiers (a junior officer or senior non-com and a couple of other non-coms) dispatched to the back country to recruit, train, and lead groups of “partisans” in a guerrilla war against the Viet Minh.[5]  This went on for years without defeating the Viet Minh. 

In December 1953, the French abandoned the GCMA area of operations in northwestern Vietnam.  The commando groups were ordered to march toward the newly-established fortress at Dien Bien Phu.  The small groups found themselves on the run through jungle that the Viet Minh were flooding with troops marching toward the same destination.  Few of them survived.[6] 

Pierre Schoendoerffer (1928-2012)[7] wrote a novel about one of these groups in 1963, although he set it in Cambodia.  Then made a movie from his novel in 1965.[8]  In “The 317th Platoon” (1965), a GCMA group receives orders to withdraw to safety.  The group is led by young lieutenant Torrens, but—in a situation familiar to many old sweats—Sergeant Wilsdorff provides important ballast.  Willsdorff fascinates Torrens.  The sergeant is an Alsatian who was drafted into the Wehrmacht during the Second World; he has many stories about the Russian Front as a result.  Moreover, he is on his third tour of duty in Indochina.  The “partisans” trust Willsdorff, believing that his experience and caution will get them to safety.  It’s not to be.  Although avoiding contact with the enemy is the key to survival, Torrens seizes the opportunity to ambush a Viet Minh column while it is crossing a river.  Thereafter, the little group is hunted into extinction, although Willsdorff may survive. 

Anthony Beevor, a historian both “popular” and highly-regarded, calls “The 317 Platoon” the greatest war movie ever made.  You can watch it—without English subtitles—at Bing Videos

The second best?  Beevor says “The Battle of Algiers.”  I’m inclined to agree. 

[1] Proof that France remained a “great power”?  This is odd, because in other areas, France boldly pursued new paths.  See: Monnet Plan; Schumann Plan, and the ENA. 

[2] See: Service de documentation extérieure et de contre-espionnage – Wikipedia  It isn’t highly reliable, being derived from one secondary source. 

[3] See: Operation Jedburgh – Wikipedia  For more detail and a better interpretation, see: U.S. Army Special Operations in World War II 

[4] On Roger Trinquier, one of the most interesting of GMAC’s leaders, see: Roger Trinquier – Wikipedia 

[5] Vietnam has a lot more ethnic diversity than round-eyes might expect.  In the simplest, most universal case, hill people didn’t like low-landers, and vice versa.  Watch “Rob Roy” (dir. Michael Caton-Jones, 1995). 

[6] Bernard Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place (1967), pp. 64 ff., tells what is known of their fate. 

[7] On Schoendoerffer, see: The 317th Platoon and The Anderson Platoon. | waroftheworldblog 

[8] One of the production assistants was Brigitte Friang (1924-2011).  A remarkable person. 

Of Two Minds on the Hamas Israel War.

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On the One Hand: Bunch of stuff in the papers and–for all I know–on television news as well about the “rising tide of anti-Semitism” in Europe, America, Russia, and even China.  Some Jews in the US buying guns, just in case.  No more Tree of Life stuff: “I see an anti-Semite with a gun, I shoot the bastard; that’s my policy.”[1]

This is an age-old story.  Kishinev[2]; the Dreyfus Case[3]; the “Jewish census” by the German Army in WWI[4]; various “numerical limits” on everything from the number of Jewish dentists in Hungary to Jewish blacksmiths in Rumania to Jewish undergraduates in the Ivy League[5]; various kinds of “genteel” anti-Semitism[6]; Kielce[7]; the rue Copernic[8]; the Buenos Aires community center.[9] 

It’s too bad that the Jews don’t have a country of their own.  One that has the will and the means to defend itself against attack by enemies either close at hand or operating at arms-length.  Like the US after 9/11: invade Afghanistan, invade Iraq, send the Special Forces scalp-hunting in Somalia, and no American cares if the League of Nations tries dragging on our coat-tails.  

Maybe the US can operate as a normal nation-state because memory in international opinion has a short half-life.  I see that another Iranian girl has died under murky circumstances after contact with the morals police.  I see that Saudi Arabia gets the World Cup for 2034 or so.  I don’t see much on Uighurs, so maybe that one got sorted out to everyone’s satisfaction.

So perhaps if the Jews had a country of their own, the anti-Semitism would stop? 

On the Other Hand: We all want the bombing of Gaza to stop.  It isn’t just Israel that is involved in this war.  Hamas has responsibilities and choices too.   Like Japan in 1941, it started a war that it cannot win. 

Here’s a simple solution.  Hamas surrenders.  Lays down all its arms.  Turns over all its war criminals—all of them–to the International Criminal Court,[10] rather than to Israel.  They get taken to the Netherlands and are held while their cases are investigated[11] and tried.  

The League of Nations could propose this and Hamas could accept out of their deep humanitarian concern for the people of Gaza.   Israel would stop bombing.  What the UN and the European Union and US media all refer to as “innocent civilians” would no longer suffer loss of life and limb, house and home, livelihood and sanity.  These people are, after all, the families, friends, and neighbors of the Hamas soldiers.  Hamas isn’t like ISIS.  It didn’t recruit from all over the Muslim world.  So it could demonstrate the depths of its humanity by ending the war. 

[1] Stole that one, obviously.  Intent to Commit Rape — My Policy — Shoot the Bastard – Clint Eastwood – YouTube 

[2] Kishinev pogrom – Wikipedia 

[3] I gotta give you a reference to the Dreyfus case?  Shame on you. 

[4] Judenzählung – Wikipedia 

[5] Jewish quota – Wikipedia 

[6] See: An Education #8 Movie CLIP – Hard and Boring (2009) HD – YouTube and Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) – Hotel registration [HD] – YouTube

[7] Kielce pogrom – Wikipedia  Like Kishinev, not so genteel. 

[8] 1980 Paris synagogue bombing – Wikipedia 

[9] AMIA bombing – Wikipedia 

[10] ICC doesn’t assign the death penalty, just some term of imprisonment in a reasonably comfy European prison. 

[11] Lots of video evidence of who did what. 

The World Will Not Just Go Away.

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            Under Xi Jinping, China’s rise as an economic and military power sent shock-waves around the world.  President Obama called for a “pivot to Asia,” although he failed to un-moor the United States from European and Middle Eastern entanglements.  President Trump actually did begin a pivot to Asia, both by confronting Chinese economic practices and by beginning to walk away from European and Middle Eastern entanglements.  However sensible his policies, Trump could not overcome domestic the reaction to his own multiple divergences from our behavioral norms.  Now President Biden finds himself facing far greater difficulties in Europe, in the Middle East, and in Asia than did either predecessor.  The three crises are linked. 

            The first crisis is the Chinese attempt to assert its hegemony over the Far East and to extend its influence well beyond that region.  The second crisis is the Ukraine-Russia War.  The third crisis is the Israel-Hamas War, or—more exactly—the wars fueled by Iran’s regional aggressiveness.  All are what might be labelled “revisionist” powers.[1] 

Xi Jinping’s pressure on the system is by far the most important.  China’s economic and military build-up became eye-catching, and recently its assertion of control over the South China Sea alarming.  China is indifferent to or irritated by calls to conform to the “rules-based order” created under American leadership since 1945. 

It has been foreseen that China could try to push the United States down into being the second power in East Asia, or exclude it entirely.  As a first step, China may try to take Taiwan.  It may do so by direct assault or by blockade.  Either way, the United States would be drawn into an air and naval war in East Asia. 

Why?  Because Taiwan, and South Korea, and Japan—major industrial nations and American trading partners—depend on open sea ways for prosperity and survival.  All import food, energy, and raw materials in order to export manufactured goods.  The costs of such a war would hit the whole world.  Supply chains would be disrupted, as would international payments.  Public and private financial systems would be badly stressed.  The risks to China also are enormous.  The war would be fought on China’s door-step, even if it could be limited to a conventional war.  Chinese trade, and especially energy imports, would be badly disrupted.  So China profits from the distracting conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. 

            Until recently, the “world order” seemed solid, rational, and productive.  Decades of good times seemed to prove it.  Now, as in Ukraine and Israel, war “might come with dangerous and surprising suddenness.”[2] 

A conservative interpretation of the issues focuses too narrowly on the Biden administration.  “The most important international development on President Biden’s watch has been the erosion of America’s deterrence.”[3]  That erosion or decay has complex origins.  In truth, some of the biggest cracks have appeared during the Biden administration.  But it has been a long time developing.  It will take a long time to repair.  Start now.  We all have a role to play. 

[1] Between the two World Wars, countries that wanted to re-write (revise) the post-WWI peace settlements included Germany (under both the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich) , the Soviet Union, the Japanese Empire, Fascist Italy, Hungary, and Rumania. 

[2] US Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew to the State Department before Pearl Harbor. 

[3] Walter Russell Mead, “How China Could Turn Crisis to Catastrophe,” WSJ, 24 October 2023.