Pillaging and Plundering?  Not us.....

In those days it was legal! 

Back in the mid-1700's, England was engaged in war with Spain and France.  Since all the goods were passed down to the first son, families often sent their younger boys off with the Royal Navy to serve on discovery voyages and fight marine battles.  Several less mouths to feed that way, I suppose.

Around about 1736, we find the younger son of the Blackwood clan joining Commodore Anson as he set out on his voyage of discovery around the world.   Little did John Blackwood know it would be seven long years before he returned.

Had he known, it would have been doubtful he would have entered into marriage and fathered several children before departing.   For the salary he received was small and insufficient to provide for his young family.

Fortunately for all concerned, the Commodore harbored his own definition of piracy, and showed no hesitation when it came to plundering rich Spanish vessels and private commercial cities.  So the prize money our great, great, great grandfather drew sufficed to keep the wolf from the door.  Sadly, all the pirating fun ceased in 1748 when the treaty of Aux-La-Chapelle was signed effectively stopping further captures of Spanish vessels.

When the French/English war moved to Canada in 1759, John Blackwood returned home to find his fair wife had fled Carrickfurgus (the walled seaport where he'd left his wife so many years before) with her two young sons, James and Robert.  With the return of her husband, however, she returned to Carrickfurgus where they lived until her death.

In due time, James and Robert removed themselves from their parents' abode and struck out on their own - moving across the lough to the town of Bangor.  Our side of the family branches from these two brothers, and it's their story we'll follow.

Daily Life in County Down, Circa 1800