“The English have a great festival”

Back in July, I discussed how Simeon Potter of Rhode Island had commanded a privateer in 1744 and attacked “Fort d’Oyapoc,” a small French settlement in Guyana.

In Historical Scenes from the Old Jesuit Missions, the Right Rev. William Ingraham Kip included a translation of a long report from Father Elzéar Fauque about that raid.

Writing from the port of Cayenne on 22 Dec 1744, Father Fauque described this exchange with Capt. Potter:

“Monsieur,” he said to me, “do you know that tomorrow, being the fifth of November, according to our method of computation” [for we French people count it to be the fifteenth], “the English have a great festival?”

“And what is the festival?” I asked him.

“We burn the Pope,” he answered, laughing.

“Explain to me,” I said; “what is this ceremony?”

“They dress up in a burlesque style,” he said, “a kind of ridiculous figure, which they call the Pope, and which they afterwards burn, while singing some ballads; and all this is in commemoration of the day when the Court of Rome separated England from its communion. To-morrow,” he continued, “our people who are on shore will perform this ceremony at the fort.”

After a while, he caused his pennon and flag to be hoisted. The sailors manned the yard-arms, the drum was beaten, they fired the cannon, and all shouted, five times, “Long live the King!” This having been done, he called one of the sailors, who, to the great delight of those who understood his language, chanted a very long ballad, which I judged to be the recital of all this unworthy story.

You see in this, my Reverend Father, an instance which fully confirms what all the world knew before, that heresy always pushes to an extreme its animosity against the visible Head of the Church.

This anecdote confirms the popularity of the holiday called Pope Night in New England and Guy Fawkes Day in Britain today. This Rhode Island crew was even exporting the practice into Catholic territory.

It also confirms that the popular knowledge of the history behind commeorating the 5th of November was fuzzy. That holiday was the anniversary of the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, not of England’s break with the Roman Catholic church nor (as a broadside in Boston said) the Spanish Armada.