What can I say, I was born illegitimate to a bar wench who lived on the coast of Ireland.  She decided to marry a dirt poor farmer.  All I remember of him were the daily beatings. At the age of 7 he sold me into apprenticeship in the ship yard.  I was in the shipping industry for 12 years.  My mother had had enough of my step-father and burned down the house with him in it.  Before my mother was taken to jail she told me that my real father was a Dutch mercenary by the name of Schneiderman the Slaughterer.

            With nothing to go home to, I took the first ship leaving for any place near Germany.  After months we landed in Paris, France.  While I walked down the docks everyone was looking at me very different, like I was the walking dead.  When I went into a Free House and asked for an ale, the owner was hesitant.  He served me and directed me to a table in the back.  Almost as soon as I finished my first ale, four large pikeman and a musketeer approached me and said to come with them.  Being the smart man I am, I went calmly with them and was brought in front of Lord Beychevelle.  Lord Beychevelle informed me that because I looked so much like my father, I was to be hung for his crimes against the crown.  Lord Beychevelle had heard of my arrival and had met with me to give me two choices. Number one choice was to escort he and his secret cargo to the new world of the Americas.  Number two choice was to be turned over to the government and be hung without a trail.  Being the smart man that I am, I said the Americas sound good to me.  I asked him why he wanted me as his escort and not one of the locals.  His response was that the money and furniture had already arrived in the Americas. The cargo was a secret and should this secret get out the family would be ruined.  He was afraid one of the locals would turn him in.

            We set sail a week later.  I thought I had discovered the cargo walking on the top deck.  It was the most intriguing lady I had ever seen.  During the months I started to find any reason to see her.  I found out that she was not the secret cargo, but a small barrel with a grape vine in it. 

            I had to think of a way to freedom from this Frenchman so I did not end up as his slave or sent back to France to be killed.  I made a plan to sink the ship and take the Lady Beychevelle with me to start a new life in the Americas.  Lord Beychevelle found me drilling holes in the ship.  He tried to stop me but he lost the fight when I put the brace in his back.

            When I found the Lady, she was holding on to her vine.  I threw her and a water barrel onto a small boat and over the side before anyone took notice that we were gone.  We were picked up by the crew of Neptune’s Fury.  They said that they would drop us off as soon as they could in the Americas. 

            Until that day they have employed me as their master carpenter.  I have worked my way through the ranks.  I was elected to be their Captain after the last Captain decided to retire a wealthy man, rather than a poor pirate hanging as a warning to other pirates.