s---k pot, 1805 (?)

[George Thompson]

>From the report to his owners by the captain of a ship taken by privateers, 1805:
***  We took the privateer to be the Felicity (0ne of the fleet) until the moment she run the bloody flag up and commenced a very heavy fire of musquetry (upwards of sixty) she had ehr graplings and s---k pot to her yard arm, she shot up our windward quarter instantly and made an attempt to board. . . .
N-Y Commercial Advertiser, March 21, 1805, p. 3, col. 2

the dash I have represented as --- is in the paper a single long dash, so it doesn't indicate how many letters are omitted.  The "k" is perfectly clear, so barring a typo in the Commercial, the disguised word isn't "shit".
"stink"? -- but I don't know why that word wouldn't be printable, nor, indeed, what a stink pot that might be displayed on a yardarm would be.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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