Golden Years Pirate vs Chivalrous Knight

Greetings again to my worthy opponent. I am slightly unsure as to the form of debating my opponent expects me to follow; my apologies if the way I handle this does not meet his expectations. As it is, I shall first address the misconceptions in my opponent's post, and then give a more detailed description of the resulting battle. ***** I start by pointing out one vital mistake my opponent makes. "Unlike the knight, the pirate is unhindered by chivalry or honourly combat. " I admit Monseigneur Abelard is the soul of honour; a strict adherent of the laws of Chivalry, and a true gentleman. He honours women, defends the helpless, and is just and honourable in all his dealings. Where my opponent and I differ is in the extent of the laws of Chivalric combat. Certainly, one does not kill an unarmed knight, stab a fellow knight in the back, kick or hit with the fists in lieu of the knightly weapons of lance, sword, mace, and axe; but nothing in the laws of Chivalry limits a knight in what he can do to a ruffian. Chivalric combat applies to fighting between knights; when a knight confronts a bandit (such as the scummish Robert Goodfellow) he is impelled to rid the earth of such carrion by whatever means neccesarry, fair or foul. Certainly fair means first, and if he disarms or disables the rogue, he may have mercy on him; but there are entire handbooks of medieval longsword technique(1) that teach the kicks, punches, and clubbing moves for street fighting. Robert Goodfellow may have learned his moves in the alleys of Barbados and Tortuga, but he is faced with an opponent trained from early childhood to kill with style. Secondy, I would like to address the issue of the spear. I specified a medium weight spear, not a javelin; it is not intended as a throwing weapon, but as a thrusting/slashing weapon. M. du Crecy would not throw the weapon unless he was guaranteed a kill thereby; normal use would have it in his hands for the duration of the battle, unless it broke. I hesitate to bring my own personal experience with the spear into this debate, as I know it probably will not be accepted as evidence by my opponent; but let me assure him, from my four years of experience sparring with swords and spears (via a club for that purpose while in college) that the spear is a versatile weapon, allowing far more attacks than a simple throw. It's main function is to kill the opponent at a distance, without losing control of the weapon. A spear is a very difficult weapon to fight with a single handed sword, such as the ones referenced by my opponent; the long handle of the spear gives the knight extra time to react to any move made by the pirate, while allowing a killing stroke outside of the pirate's sword range. At any point, if du Crecy lands a thrust in Goodfellow's abdomen, head, or neck with the spear; this battle is essentially over. The trauma, shock, and blood loss caused by a deep spear wound is sufficient to swiftly kill a man even if no vital organs are pierced, and the "Scourge of Royale" posesses no armor capable of preventing such a wound. I pass lightly over the improbable weight of artillery carried by Mr. Goodfellow, merely noting that it is a good thing these time machines do not have a weight limit. :P Also, I have already noted Abelard is not wearing solid plate armour; I referr my opponent to the image I posted of knights in chian mail hauberks and breastplates. The weight is insufficient to interfere with athletic and strenuous activity; du Crecy's movement is not seriously interfered with by his armour. See the fourth paragraph down: . http://stormshock.com... ***** The battle: As my opponent states that the pirate waits until the knight has come near before firing, M. du Crecy advances steadily toward Mr. Goodfellow, shield in defensive position and spear in hand. When the pirate fires, Abelard drops to one knee with the shield before his chest and helm, guarding himself from the shot. The charge of small shot rattles harmlessly off the shield for the most part; at the range of 50' most of the impetus will have dissipated and the few that pass around the edges of the shild glance off th top of the hel or spend themselves in the chain mail. Although the likelihood of these pellets piercing the chain is small, there may perhaps be slight blood loss (on the order of scratches) as a result. The Pirate and Knight are soon at close range, as the Pirate intends to run behind the knight and fire at his back. He will need to be at very close range to accomplish that, as the Knight can turn in place and keep his front always facing his opponent. (Actually, it is more of a three-quarter face, to minimize the area exposed to the Pirate's attack. ) The Pirate fires his first pistol. Unless the ball hits the breastplate, helm, or shield, the ball should penetrate the chian mail; but the would should be reletively insignificant. The vital organs ar covered by the breastplat and helm, and the chain and padding should slow th ball anywhere else to the point where Abelard should still retain use of that limb. Again, we are talking in probabilities here; but still Abelard has a good chance of surviving the shot. At this point the Pirate attempts to light a grenado. The split moment he has to look down to find his slow match (which I assume he carries in a small iron pouch on his bandioleer, though my opponent neglected to mention it! :) and light the grenado is all the time Abelard needs to run him through with the spear with a swift lunge. Even if Abelard is unsuccessful in killing him with the first stroke, he still can close the distance between them that it becomes a hand-to-hand battle. Suddenly, Goodfellow's grenadoes become useless, as any explosion would kill/maim him at that range. It becomes a contest of strength and skill with the sword; and in that class, the Knight has had undoubtedly far more experience and training than the Pirate. I will post my sources ASAP in the comments section; I have 26 minutes left to post this. A quick note about throwing daggers and chain mail: Chain mail is designed to resist a direct thrust from a dagger, or "all but the most direct stroke of a sword" (2); a throwing dagger should glance off without piercing. The Pirate would be better advised to keep them in his hand for the close combat. This has been fun; I await my opponent's rebuttal.