About this time one of the most famous of sea-robbers was harassing the
Atlantic coast of North America, and from New England to the West
Indies, he was known as the great pirate Blackbeard. This man, whose
real name was Thatch, was a most terrible fellow in appearance as well
as action. He wore a long, heavy, black beard, which it was his fancy to
separate into tails, each one tied with a colored ribbon, and often
tucked behind his ears. Some of the writers of that day declared that
the sight of this beard would create more terror in any port of the
American seaboard than would the sudden appearance of a fiery comet.
Across his brawny breast he carried a sort of a sling in which hung not
less than three pairs of pistols in leathern holsters, and these, in
addition to his cutlass and a knife or two in his belt, made him a most
formidable-looking fellow.

Some of the fanciful recreations of Blackbeard show him to have been a
person of consistent purpose. Even in his hours of rest when he was not
fighting or robbing, his savage soul demanded some interesting
excitement. Once he was seated at table with his mate and two or three
sailors, and when the meal was over he took up a pair of pistols, and
cocking them put them under the table. This peculiar action caused one
of the sailors to remember very suddenly that he had something to do on
deck, and he immediately disappeared. But the others looked at their
captain in astonishment, wondering what he would do next. They soon
found out; for crossing the pistols, still under the table, he fired
them. One ball hit the mate in the leg, but the other struck no one.
When asked what he meant by this strange action, he replied that if he
did not shoot one of his men now and then they would forget what sort of
a person he was.

At another time he invented a game; he gathered his officers and crew
together and told them that they were going to play that they were
living in the lower regions. Thereupon the whole party followed him down
into the hold. The hatches and all the other openings were closed, and
then Blackbeard began to illuminate the scene with fire and brimstone.
The sulphur burned, the fumes rose, a ghastly light spread over the
countenances of the desperadoes, and very soon some of them began to
gasp and cough and implore the captain to let in some fresh air, but
Blackbeard was bound to have a good game, and he proceeded to burn more
brimstone. He laughed at the gasping fellows about him and declared that
he would be just as willing to breathe the fumes of sulphur as common
air. When at last he threw open the hatches, some of the men were almost
dead, but their stalwart captain had not even sneezed.

In the early part of the eighteenth century Blackbeard made his
headquarters in one of the inlets on the North Carolina coast, and there
he ruled as absolute king, for the settlers in the vicinity seemed to be
as anxious to oblige him as the captains of the merchantmen sailing
along the coast were anxious to keep out of his way. On one of his
voyages Blackbeard went down the coast as far as Honduras, where he took
a good many prizes, and as some of the crews of the captured vessels
enlisted under him he sailed north with a stronger force than ever
before, having a large ship of forty guns, three smaller vessels, and
four hundred men. With this little fleet Blackbeard made for the coast
of South Carolina, and anchored outside the harbor of Charles Town. He
well understood the present condition of the place and was not in the
least afraid that the citizens would hang him up on the shores of the
bay.

Blackbeard began work without delay. Several well-laden ships--the
Carolinians having no idea that pirates were waiting for them--came
sailing out to sea and were immediately captured. One of these was a
very important vessel, for it not only carried a valuable cargo, but a
number of passengers, many of them people of note, who were on their way
to England. One of these was a Mr. Wragg, who was a member of the
Council of the Province. It might have been supposed that when
Blackbeard took possession of this ship, he would have been satisfied
with the cargo and the money which he found on board, and having no use
for prominent citizens, would have let them go their way; but he was a
trader as well as a plunderer, and he therefore determined that the best
thing to do in this case was to put an assorted lot of highly
respectable passengers upon the market and see what he could get for
them. He was not at the time in need of money or provisions, but his men
were very much in want of medicines, so he decided to trade off his
prisoners for pills, potions, plasters, and all sorts of apothecary's
supplies.

He put three of his pirates in a boat, and with them one of the
passengers, a Mr. Marks, who was commissioned as Blackbeard's special
agent, with orders to inform the Governor that if he did not immediately
send the medicines required, amounting in value to about three hundred
pounds, and if he did not allow the pirate crew of the boat to return in
safety, every one of the prisoners would be hanged from the yard-arm of
his ship.

The boat rowed away to the distant town, and Blackbeard waited two days
for its return, and then he grew very angry, for he believed that his
messengers had been taken into custody, and he came very near hanging
Mr. Wragg and all his companions. But before he began to satisfy his
vengeance, news came from the boat. It had been upset in the bay, and
had had great trouble in getting to Charles Town, but it had arrived
there at last. Blackbeard now waited a day or two longer; but as no news
came from Mr. Marks, he vowed he would not be trifled with by the
impudent people of Charles Town, and swore that every man, woman, and
child among the prisoners should immediately prepare to be hanged.

Of course the unfortunate prisoners in the pirate ship were in a
terrible state of mind during the absence of Mr. Marks. They knew very
well that they could expect no mercy from Blackbeard if the errand
should be unsuccessful, and they also knew that the Charles Town people
would not be likely to submit to such an outrageous demand upon them; so
they trembled and quaked by day and by night, and when at last they were
told to get ready to be hanged, every particle of courage left them, and
they proposed to Blackbeard that if he would spare their lives, and that
if it should turn out that their fellow-citizens had decided to
sacrifice them for the sake of a few paltry drugs, they would take up
the cause of the pirates; they would show Blackbeard the best way to
sail into the harbor, and they would join with him and his men in
attacking the city and punishing the inhabitants for their hard-hearted
treatment of their unfortunate fellow-citizens.

This proposition pleased Blackbeard immensely; it would have been like a
new game to take Mr. Wragg to the town and make him fight his
fellow-members of the Council of the Province, and so he rescinded his
order for a general execution, and bade his prisoners prepare to join
with his pirates when he should give the word for an assault upon their
city.

In the meantime there was a terrible stir in Charles Town. When the
Governor and citizens received the insolent and brutal message of
Blackbeard they were filled with rage as well as consternation, and if
there had been any way of going out to sea to rescue their unhappy
fellow-citizens, every able-bodied man in the town would have enlisted
in the expedition. But they had no vessels of war, and they were not
even in a position to arm any of the merchantmen in the harbor. It
seemed to the Governor and his council that there was nothing for them
to do but to submit to the demands of Blackbeard, for they very well
knew that he was a scoundrel who would keep his word, and also that
whatever they did must be done quickly, for there were the three
swaggering pirates in the town, strutting about the streets as if they
owned the place. If this continued much longer, it would be impossible
to keep the infuriated citizens from falling upon these blustering
rascals and bringing their impertinence to a summary end. If this should
happen, it would be a terrible thing, for not only would Mr. Wragg and
his companions be put to death, but the pirates would undoubtedly attack
the town, which was in a very poor position for defence.

Consequently the drugs were collected with all possible haste, and Mr.
Marks and the pirates were sent with them to Blackbeard. We do not know
whether or not that bedizened cutthroat was satisfied with the way
things turned out; for having had the idea of going to Charles Town and
obliging the prisoners to help him confiscate the drugs and chemicals,
he may have preferred this unusual proceeding to a more commonplace
transaction; but as the medicine had arrived he accepted it, and having
secured all possible booty and money from the ships he had captured, and
had stripped his prisoners of the greater part of their clothing, he set
them on shore to walk to Charles Town as well as they could. They had a
miserably difficult time, making their way through the woods and
marshes, for there were women and children among them who were scarcely
equal to the journey. One of the children was a little boy, the son of
Mr. Wragg, who afterward became a very prominent man in the colonies. He
rose to such a high position, not only among his countrymen, but in the
opinion of the English government, that when he died, about the
beginning of the Revolution, a tablet to his memory was placed in
Westminster Abbey, which is, perhaps, the first instance of such an
honor being paid to an American.

Having now provided himself with medicines enough to keep his wild crew
in good physical condition, no matter how much they might feast and
frolic on the booty they had obtained from Charles Town, Blackbeard
sailed back to his North Carolina haunts and took a long vacation,
during which time he managed to put himself on very good terms with the
Governor and officials of the country. He had plenty of money and was
willing to spend it, and so he was allowed to do pretty much as he
pleased, provided he kept his purse open and did not steal from his
neighbors.

But Blackbeard became tired of playing the part of a make-believe
respectable citizen, and having spent the greater part of his money, he
wanted to make some more. Consequently he fitted out a small vessel, and
declaring that he was going on a legitimate commercial cruise, he took
out regular papers for a port in the West Indies and sailed away, as if
he had been a mild-mannered New England mariner going to catch codfish.
The officials of the town of Bath, from which he sailed, came down to
the ship and shook hands with him and hoped he would have good success.

After a moderate absence he returned to Bath, bringing with him a large
French merchant vessel, with no people on board, but loaded with a
valuable cargo of sugar and other goods. This vessel he declared he had
found deserted at sea, and he therefore claimed it as a legitimate
prize. Knowing the character of this bloody pirate, and knowing how very
improbable it was that the captain and all the crew of a valuable
merchant vessel, with nothing whatever the matter with her, would go out
into their boats and row away, leaving their ship to become the
property of any one who might happen along, it may seem surprising that
the officials of Bath appeared to have no doubt of the truth of
Blackbeard's story, and allowed him freely to land the cargo on the
French ship and store it away as his own property.

But people who consort with pirates cannot be expected to have very
lively consciences, and although there must have been persons in the
town with intelligence enough to understand the story of pitiless murder
told by that empty vessel, whose very decks and masts must have been
regarded as silent witnesses that her captain and crew did not leave her
of their own free will, no one in the town interfered with the thrifty
Blackbeard or caused any public suspicion to fall upon the propriety of
his actions.




Chapter XXIII

A True-Hearted Sailor draws his Sword


Feeling now quite sure that he could do what he pleased on shore as well
as at sea, Blackbeard swore more, swaggered more, and whenever he felt
like it, sailed up and down the coast and took a prize or two to keep
the pot boiling for himself and his men.

On one of these expeditions he went to Philadelphia, and having landed,
he walked about to see what sort of a place it was, but the Governor of
the state, hearing of his arrival, quickly arranged to let him know that
the Quaker city allowed no black-hearted pirate, with a ribbon-bedecked
beard, to promenade on Chestnut and Market streets, and promptly issued
a warrant for the sea-robber's arrest. But Blackbeard was too sharp and
too old a criminal to be caught in that way, and he left the city with
great despatch.

The people along the coast of North Carolina became very tired of
Blackbeard and his men. All sorts of depredations were committed on
vessels, large and small, and whenever a ship was boarded and robbed or
whenever a fishing-vessel was laid under contribution, Blackbeard was
known to be at the bottom of the business, whether he personally
appeared or not. To have this busy pirate for a neighbor was extremely
unpleasant, and the North Carolina settlers greatly longed to get rid of
him. It was of no use for them to ask their own State Government to
suppress this outrageous scoundrel, and although their good neighbor,
South Carolina, might have been willing to help them, she was too poor
at that time and had enough to do to take care of herself.

Not knowing, or not caring for the strong feeling of the settlers
against him, Blackbeard continued in his wicked ways, and among other
crimes he captured a small vessel and treated the crew in such a cruel
and atrocious manner that the better class of North Carolinians vowed
they would stand him no longer, and they therefore applied to Governor
Spotswood, of Virginia, and asked his aid in putting down the pirates.
The Virginians were very willing to do what they could for their
unfortunate neighbors. The legislature offered a reward for the capture
of Blackbeard or any of his men; but the Governor, feeling that this was
not enough, determined to do something on his own responsibility, for
he knew very well that the time might come when the pirate vessels would
begin to haunt Virginia waters.

There happened to be at that time two small British men-of-war in
Hampton Roads, and although the Governor had no authority to send these
after the pirates, he fitted out two sloops at his own expense and
manned them with the best fighting men from the war-vessels. One of the
sloops he put under Captain Brand, and the other under Captain Maynard,
both brave and experienced naval officers. All preparations were made
with the greatest secrecy--for if Blackbeard had heard of what was going
on, he would probably have decamped--and then the two sloops went out to
sea with a commission from the Governor to capture Blackbeard, dead or
alive. This was a pretty heavy contract, but Brand and Maynard were
courageous men and did not hesitate to take it.

The Virginians had been informed that the pirate captain and his men
were on a vessel in Ocracoke Inlet, and when they arrived they found, to
their delight, that Blackbeard was there. When the pirates saw the two
armed vessels sailing into the inlet, they knew very well that they were
about to be attacked, and it did not take them long to get ready for a
fight, nor did they wait to see what their enemy was about to do. As
soon as the sloops were near enough, Blackbeard, without waiting for
any preliminary exercises, such as a demand for surrender or any
nonsense of that sort, let drive at the intruders with eight heavily
loaded cannon.

Now the curtain had been rung up, and the play began, and a very lively
play it was. The guns of the Virginians blazed away at the pirate ship,
and they would have sent out boats to board her had not Blackbeard
forestalled them. Boarding was always a favorite method of fighting with
the pirates. They did not often carry heavy cannon, and even when they
did, they had but little fancy for battles at long distances. What they
liked was to meet foes face to face and cut them down on their own
decks. In such combats they felt at home, and were almost always
successful, for there were few mariners or sailors, even in the British
navy, who could stand against these brawny, glaring-eyed dare-devils,
who sprang over the sides of a vessel like panthers, and fought like
bulldogs. Blackbeard had had enough cannonading, and he did not wait to
be boarded. Springing into a boat with about twenty of his men, he rowed
to the vessel commanded by Maynard, and in a few minutes he and his
pirates surged on board her.

Now there followed on the decks of that sloop one of the most fearful
hand-to-hand combats known to naval history. Pirates had often attacked
vessels where they met with strong resistance, but never had a gang of
sea-robbers fallen in with such bold and skilled antagonists as those
who now confronted Blackbeard and his crew. At it they went,--cut, fire,
slash, bang, howl, and shout. Steel clashed, pistols blazed, smoke went
up, and blood ran down, and it was hard in the confusion for a man to
tell friend from foe. Blackbeard was everywhere, bounding from side to
side, as he swung his cutlass high and low, and though many a shot was
fired at him, and many a rush made in his direction, every now and then
a sailor went down beneath his whirling blade.

But the great pirate had not boarded that ship to fight with common men.
He was looking for Maynard, the commander. Soon he met him, and for the
first time in his life he found his match. Maynard was a practised
swordsman, and no matter how hard and how swiftly came down the cutlass
of the pirate, his strokes were always evaded, and the sword of the
Virginian played more dangerously near him. At last Blackbeard, finding
that he could not cut down his enemy, suddenly drew a pistol, and was
about to empty its barrels into the very face of his opponent, when
Maynard sent his sword-blade into the throat of the furious pirate; the
great Blackbeard went down upon his back on the deck, and in the next
moment Maynard put an end to his nefarious career. Their leader dead,
the few pirates who were left alive gave up the fight, and sprang
overboard, hoping to be able to swim ashore, and the victory of the
Virginians was complete.

The strength, toughness, and extraordinary vitality of these feline
human beings, who were known as pirates, has often occasioned
astonishment in ordinary people. Their sun-tanned and hairy bodies
seemed to be made of something like wire, leather, and India rubber,
upon which the most tremendous exertions, and even the infliction of
severe wounds, made but little impression. Before Blackbeard fell, he
received from Maynard and others no less than twenty-five wounds, and
yet he fought fearlessly to the last, and when the panting officer
sheathed his sword, he felt that he had performed a most signal deed of
valor.

When they had broken up the pirate nest in Ocracoke Inlet, the two
sloops sailed to Bath, where they compelled some of the unscrupulous
town officials to surrender the cargo which had been stolen from the
French vessel and stored in the town by Blackbeard; then they sailed
proudly back to Hampton Roads, with the head of the dreaded Blackbeard
dangling from the end of the bowsprit of the vessel he had boarded, and
on whose deck he had discovered the fact, before unknown to him, that a
well-trained, honest man can fight as well as the most reckless
cutthroat who ever decked his beard with ribbons, and swore enmity to
all things good.




Chapter XXIV

A Greenhorn under the Black Flag


Early in the eighteenth century there lived at Bridgetown, in the island
of Barbadoes, a very pleasant, middle-aged gentleman named Major Stede
Bonnet. He was a man in comfortable circumstances, and had been an
officer in the British army. He had retired from military service, and
had bought an estate at Bridgetown, where he lived in comfort and was
respected by his neighbors.

But for some reason or other this quiet and reputable gentleman got it
into his head that he would like to be a pirate. There were some persons
who said that this strange fancy was due to the fact that his wife did
not make his home pleasant for him, but it is quite certain that if a
man wants an excuse for robbing and murdering his fellow-beings he ought
to have a much better one than the bad temper of his wife. But besides
the general reasons why Major Bonnet should not become a pirate, and
which applied to all men as well as himself, there was a special reason
against his adoption of the profession of a sea-robber, for he was an
out-and-out landsman and knew nothing whatever of nautical matters. He
had been at sea but very little, and if he had heard a boatswain order
his man to furl the keel, to batten down the shrouds, or to hoist the
forechains to the topmast yard, he would have seen nothing out of the
way in these commands. He was very fond of history, and very well read
in the literature of the day. He was accustomed to the habits of good
society, and knew a great deal about farming and horses, cows and
poultry, but if he had been compelled to steer a vessel, he would not
have known how to keep her bow ahead of her stern.

But notwithstanding this absolute incapacity for such a life, and the
absence of any of the ordinary motives for abandoning respectability and
entering upon a career of crime, Major Bonnet was determined to become a
pirate, and he became one. He had money enough to buy a ship and to fit
her out and man her, and this he quietly did at Bridgetown, nobody
supposing that he was going to do anything more than start off on some
commercial cruise. When everything was ready, his vessel slipped out of
the harbor one night, and after he was sailing safely on the rolling sea
he stood upon the quarter-deck and proclaimed himself a pirate. It might
not be supposed that this was necessary, for the seventy men on board
his ship were all desperate cutthroats, of various nationalities, whom
he had found in the little port, and who knew very well what was
expected of them when they reached the sea. But if Stede Bonnet had not
proclaimed himself a pirate, it is possible that he might not have
believed, himself, that he was one, and so he ran up the black flag,
with its skeleton or skull and cross-bones, he girded on a great
cutlass, and, folding his arms, he ordered his mate to steer the vessel
to the coast of Virginia.

Although Bonnet knew so little about ships and the sea, and had had no
experience in piracy, his men were practised seamen, and those of them
who had not been pirates before were quite ready and very well fitted to
become such; so when this green hand came into the waters of Virginia he
actually took two or three vessels and robbed them of their cargoes,
burning the ships, and sending the crews on shore.

This had grown to be a common custom among the pirates, who, though
cruel and hard-hearted, had not the inducements of the old buccaneers to
torture and murder the crews of the vessels which they captured. They
could not hate human beings in general as the buccaneers hated the
Spaniards, and so they were a little more humane to their prisoners,
setting them ashore on some island or desert coast, and letting them
shift for themselves as best they might. This was called marooning, and
was somewhat less heartless than the old methods of getting rid of
undesirable prisoners by drowning or beheading them.

As Bonnet had always been rather conventional in his ideas and had
respected the customs of the society in which he found himself, he now
adopted all the piratical fashions of the day, and when he found himself
too far from land to put the captured crew on shore, he did not hesitate
to make them "walk the plank," which was a favorite device of the
pirates whenever they had no other way of disposing of their prisoners.
The unfortunate wretches, with their hands tied behind them, were
compelled, one by one, to mount a plank which was projected over the
side of the vessel and balanced like a see-saw, and when, prodded by
knives and cutlasses, they stepped out upon this plank, of course it
tipped up, and down they went into the sea. In this way, men, women, and
children slipped out of sight among the waves as the vessel sailed
merrily on.

In one branch of his new profession Bonnet rapidly became proficient. He
was an insatiable robber and a cruel conqueror. He captured merchant
vessels all along the coast as high up as New England, and then he came
down again and stopped for a while before Charles Town harbor, where he
took a couple of prizes, and then put into one of the North Carolina
harbors, where it was always easy for a pirate vessel to refit and get
ready for further adventures.

Bonnet's vessel was named the _Revenge_, which was about as ill suited
to the vessel as her commander was ill fitted to sail her, for Bonnet
had nobody to revenge himself upon unless, indeed, it were his scolding
wife. But a good many pirate ships were then called the _Revenge_, and
Bonnet was bound to follow the fashion, whatever it might be.

Very soon after he had stood upon the quarter-deck and proclaimed
himself a pirate his men had discovered that he knew no more about
sailing than he knew about painting portraits, and although there were
under-officers who directed all the nautical operations, the mass of the
crew conceived a great contempt for a landsman captain. There was much
grumbling and growling, and many of the men would have been glad to
throw Bonnet overboard and take the ship into their own hands. But when
any symptoms of mutiny showed themselves, the pirates found that
although they did not have a sailor in command over them, they had a
very determined and relentless master. Bonnet knew that the captain of a
pirate ship ought to be the most severe and rigid man on board, and so,
at the slightest sign of insubordination, his grumbling men were put in
chains or flogged, and it was Bonnet's habit at such times to strut
about the deck with loaded pistols, threatening to blow out the brains
of any man who dared to disobey him. Recognizing that although their
captain was no sailor he was a first-class tyrant, the rebellious crew
kept their grumbling to themselves and worked his ship.

Bonnet now pointed the bow of the _Revenge_ southward--that is, he
requested somebody else to see that it was done--and sailed to the Bay
of Honduras, which was a favorite resort of the pirates about that time.
And here it was that he first met with the famous Captain Blackbeard.
There can be no doubt that our amateur pirate was very glad indeed to
become acquainted with this well-known professional, and they soon
became good friends. Blackbeard was on the point of organizing an
expedition, and he proposed that Bonnet and his vessel should join it.
This invitation was gladly accepted, and the two pirate captains started
out on a cruise together. Now the old reprobate, Blackbeard, knew
everything about ships and was a good navigator, and it was not long
before he discovered that his new partner was as green as grass in
regard to all nautical affairs. Consequently, after having thought the
matter over for a time, he made up his mind that Bonnet was not at all
fit to command such a fine vessel as the one he owned and had fitted
out, and as pirates make their own laws, and perhaps do not obey them
if they happen not to feel like it, Blackbeard sent for Bonnet to come
on board his ship, and then, in a manner as cold-blooded as if he had
been about to cut down a helpless prisoner, Blackbeard told Bonnet that
he was not fit to be a pirate captain, that he intended to keep him on
board his own vessel, and that he would send somebody to take charge of
the _Revenge_.

This was a fall indeed, and Bonnet was almost stunned by it. An hour
before he had been proudly strutting about on the deck of a vessel which
belonged to him, and in which he had captured many valuable prizes, and
now he was told he was to stay on Blackbeard's ship and make himself
useful in keeping the log book, or in doing any other easy thing which
he might happen to understand. The green pirate ground his teeth and
swore bitterly inside of himself, but he said nothing openly; on
Blackbeard's ship Blackbeard's decisions were not to be questioned.




Chapter XXV

Bonnet again to the Front


It must not be supposed that the late commander of the _Revenge_
continued to be satisfied, as he sat in the cabin of Blackbeard's vessel
and made the entries of the day's sailing and various performances. He
obeyed the orders of his usurping partner because he was obliged to do
so, but he did not hate Blackbeard any the less because he had to keep
quiet about it. He accompanied his pirate chief on various cruises,
among which was the famous expedition to the harbor of Charles Town
where Blackbeard traded Mr. Wragg and his companions for medicines.

Having a very fine fleet under him, Blackbeard did a very successful
business for some time, but feeling that he had earned enough for the
present, and that it was time for him to take one of his vacations, he
put into an inlet in North Carolina, where he disbanded his crew. So
long as he was on shore spending his money and having a good time, he
did not want to have a lot of men about him who would look to him to
support them when they had spent their portion of the spoils. Having no
further use for Bonnet, he dismissed him also, and did not object to his
resuming possession of his own vessel. If the green pirate chose to go
to sea again and perhaps drown himself and his crew, it was a matter of
no concern to Blackbeard.

But this was a matter of very great concern to Stede Bonnet, and he
proceeded to prove that there were certain branches of the piratical
business in which he was an adept, and second to none of his
fellow-practitioners. He wished to go pirating again, and saw a way of
doing this which he thought would be far superior to any of the common
methods. It was about this time that King George of England, very
desirous of breaking up piracy, issued a proclamation in which he
promised pardon to any pirate who would appear before the proper
authorities, renounce his evil practices, and take an oath of
allegiance. It also happened that very soon after this proclamation had
been issued, England went to war with Spain. Being a man who kept
himself posted in the news of the world, so far as it was possible,
Bonnet saw in the present state of affairs a very good chance for him to
play the part of a wolf in sheep's clothing, and he proceeded to begin
his new piratical career by renouncing piracy. So leaving the _Revenge_
in the inlet, he journeyed overland to Bath; there he signed pledges,
took oaths, and did everything that was necessary to change himself from
a pirate captain to a respectable commander of a duly authorized British
privateer. Returning to his vessel with all the papers in his pocket
necessary to prove that he was a loyal and law-abiding subject of Great
Britain, he took out regular clearance papers for St. Thomas, which was
a British naval station, and where he declared he was going in order to
obtain a commission as a privateer.

Now the wily Bonnet had everything he wanted except a crew. Of course it
would not do for him, in his present respectable capacity, to go about
enlisting unemployed pirates, but at this point fortune again favored
him; he knew of a desert island not very far away where Blackbeard, at
the end of his last cruise, had marooned a large party of his men. This
heartless pirate had not wanted to take all of his followers into port,
because they might prove troublesome and expensive to him, and so he had
put a number of them on this island, to live or die as the case might
be. Bonnet went over to this island, and finding the greater part of
these men still surviving, he offered to take them to St. Thomas in his
vessel if they would agree to work the ship to port. This proposition
was of course joyfully accepted, and very soon the _Revenge_ was manned
with a complete crew of competent desperadoes.

All these operations took a good deal of time, and, at last, when
everything was ready for Bonnet to start out on his piratical cruise, he
received information which caused him to change his mind, and to set
forth on an errand of a very different kind. He had supposed that
Blackbeard, whom he had never forgiven for the shameful and treacherous
manner in which he had treated him, was still on shore enjoying himself,
but he was told by the captain of a small trading vessel that the old
pirate was preparing for another cruise, and that he was then in
Ocracoke Inlet. Now Bonnet folded his arms and stamped his feet upon the
quarter-deck. The time had come for him to show that the name of his
vessel meant something. Never before had he had an opportunity for
revenging himself on anybody, but now that hour had arrived. He would
revenge himself upon Blackbeard!

The implacable Bonnet sailed out to sea in a truly warlike frame of
mind. He was not going forth to prey upon unresisting merchantmen; he
was on his way to punish a black-hearted pirate, a faithless scoundrel,
who had not only acted knavishly toward the world in general, but had
behaved most disloyally and disrespectfully toward a fellow pirate
chief. If he could once run the _Revenge_ alongside the ship of the
perfidious Blackbeard, he would show him what a green hand could do.

When Bonnet reached Ocracoke Inlet, he was deeply disappointed to find
that Blackbeard had left that harbor, but he did not give up the
pursuit. He made hot chase after the vessel of his pirate enemy, keeping
a sharp lookout in hopes of discovering some signs of him. If the
enraged Bonnet could have met the ferocious Blackbeard face to face,
there might have been a combat which would have relieved the world of
two atrocious villains, and Captain Maynard would have been deprived of
the honor of having slain the most famous pirate of the day.

Bonnet was a good soldier and a brave man, and although he could not
sail a ship, he understood the use of the sword even better, perhaps,
than Blackbeard, and there is good reason to believe that if the two
ships had come together, their respective crews would have allowed their
captains to fight out their private quarrel without interference, for
pirates delight in a bloody spectacle, and this would have been to them
a rare diversion of the kind.

But Bonnet never overtook Blackbeard, and the great combat between the
rival pirates did not take place. After vainly searching for a
considerable time for a trace or sight of Blackbeard, the baffled Bonnet
gave up the pursuit and turned his mind to other objects. The first
thing he did was to change the name of his vessel; if he could not be
revenged, he would not sail in the _Revenge_. Casting about in his mind
for a good name, he decided to call her the _Royal James_. Having no
intention of respecting his oaths or of keeping his promises, he thought
that, as he was going to be disloyal, he might as well be as disloyal as
he could, and so he gave his ship the name assumed by the son of James
the Second, who was a pretender to the throne, and was then in France
plotting against the English government.

The next thing he did was to change his own name, for he thought this
would make matters better for him if he should be captured after
entering upon his new criminal career. So he called himself Captain
Thomas, by which name he was afterwards known.

When these preliminaries had been arranged, he gathered his crew
together and announced that instead of going to St. Thomas to get a
commission as a privateer, he had determined to keep on in his old
manner of life, and that he wished them to understand that not only was
he a pirate captain, but that they were a pirate crew. Many of the men
were very much surprised at this announcement, for they had thought it a
very natural thing for the green-hand Bonnet to give up pirating after
he had been so thoroughly snubbed by Blackbeard, and they had not
supposed that he would ever think again of sailing under a black flag.

However, the crew's opinion of the green-hand captain had been a good
deal changed. In his various cruises he had learned a good deal about
navigation, and could now give very fair orders, and his furious pursuit
of Blackbeard had also given him a reputation for reckless bravery which
he had not enjoyed before. A man who was chafing and fuming for a chance
of a hand-to-hand conflict with the greatest pirate of the day must be a
pretty good sort of a fellow from their point of view. Moreover, their
strutting and stalking captain, so recently balked of his dark revenge,
was a very savage-looking man, and it would not be pleasant either to
try to persuade him to give up his piratical intention, or to decline to
join him in carrying it out; so the whole of the crew, minor officers
and men, changed their minds about going to St. Thomas, and agreed to
hoist the skull and cross-bones, and to follow Captain Bonnet wherever
he might lead.

Bonnet now cruised about in grand style and took some prizes on the
Virginia coast, and then went up into Delaware Bay, where he captured
such ships as he wanted, and acted generally in the most domineering and
insolent fashion. Once, when he stopped near the town of Lewes, in order
to send some prisoners ashore, he sent a message to the officers of the
town to the effect that if they interfered with his men when they came
ashore, he would open fire upon the town with his cannon, and blow every
house into splinters. Of course the citizens, having no way of defending
themselves, were obliged to allow the pirates to come on shore and
depart unmolested.

Then after this the blustering captain captured two valuable sloops, and
wishing to take them along with him without the trouble of transferring
their cargoes to his own vessel, he left their crews on board, and
ordered them to follow him wherever he went. Some days after that, when
one of the vessels seemed to be sailing at too great a distance, Bonnet
quickly let her captain know that he was not a man to be trifled with,
and sent him the message that if he did not keep close to the _Royal
James_, he would fire into him and sink him to the bottom.

After a time Bonnet put into a North Carolina port in order to repair
the _Royal James_, which was becoming very leaky, and seeing no
immediate legitimate way of getting planks and beams enough with which
to make the necessary repairs, he captured a small sloop belonging in
the neighborhood, and broke it up in order to get the material he needed
to make his own vessel seaworthy.

Now the people of the North Carolina coast very seldom interfered with
pirates, as we have seen, and it is likely that Bonnet might have
stayed in port as long as he pleased, and repaired and refitted his
vessel without molestation if he had bought and paid for the planks and
timber he required. But when it came to boldly seizing their property,
that was too much even for the people of the region, and complaints of
Bonnet's behavior spread from settlement to settlement, and it very soon
became known all down the coast that there was a pirate in North
Carolina who was committing depredations there and was preparing to set
out on a fresh cruise.

When these tidings came to Charles Town, the citizens were thrown into
great agitation. It had not been long since Blackbeard had visited their
harbor, and had treated them with such brutal insolence, and there were
bold spirits in the town who declared that if any effort by them could
prevent another visitation of the pirates, that effort should be made.
There was no naval force in the harbor which could be sent out to meet
the pirates, who were coming down the coast; but Mr. William Rhett, a
private gentleman of position in the place, went to the Governor and
offered to fit out, at his own expense, an expedition for the purpose of
turning away from their city the danger which threatened it.




Chapter XXVI

The Battle of the Sand Bars


When that estimable private gentleman, Mr. William Rhett, of Charles
Town, had received a commission from the Governor to go forth on his own
responsibility and meet the dreaded pirate, the news of whose
depredations had thrown the good citizens into such a fever of
apprehension, he took possession, in the name of the law, of two large
sloops, the _Henry_ and the _Sea-Nymph_, which were in the harbor, and
at his own expense he manned them with well-armed crews, and put on
board of each of them eight small cannon. When everything was ready, Mr.
Rhett was in command of a very formidable force for those waters, and if
he had been ready to sail a few days sooner, he would have had an
opportunity of giving his men some practice in fighting pirates before
they met the particular and more important sea-robber whom they had set
out to encounter. Just as his vessel was ready to sail, Mr. Rhett
received news that a pirate ship had captured two or three merchantmen
just outside the harbor, and he put out to sea with all possible haste
and cruised up and down the coast for some time, but he did not find
this most recent depredator, who had departed very promptly when he
heard that armed ships were coming out of the harbor.

Now Mr. Rhett, who was no more of a sailor than Stede Bonnet had been
when he first began his seafaring life, boldly made his way up the coast
to the mouth of Cape Fear River, where he had been told the pirate
vessel was lying. When he reached his destination, Mr. Rhett found that
it would not be an easy thing to ascend the river, for the reason that
the pilots he had brought with him knew nothing about the waters of that
part of the coast, and although the two ships made their way very
cautiously, it was not long after they had entered the river before they
got out of the channel, and it being low tide, both of them ran aground
upon sand bars.

This was a very annoying accident, but it was not disastrous, for the
sailing masters who commanded the sloops knew very well that when the
tide rose, their vessels would float again. But it prevented Mr. Rhett
from going on and making an immediate attack upon the pirate vessel, the
topmasts of which could be plainly seen behind a high headland some
distance up the river.

Of course Bonnet, or Captain Thomas, as he now chose to be called, soon
became aware of the fact that two good-sized vessels were lying aground
near the mouth of the river, and having a very natural curiosity to see
what sort of craft they were, he waited until nightfall and then sent
three armed boats to make observations. When these boats returned to the
_Royal James_ and reported that the grounded vessels were not
well-loaded trading craft, but large sloops full of men and armed with
cannon, Bonnet (for we prefer to call him by his old name) had good
reason to fold his arms, knit his brows, and strut up and down the deck.
He was sure that the armed vessels came from Charles Town, and there was
no reason to doubt that if the Governor of South Carolina had sent two
ships against him the matter was a very serious one. He was penned up in
the river, he had only one fighting vessel to contend against two, and
if he could not succeed in getting out to sea before he should be
attacked by the Charles Town ships, there would be but little chance of
his continuing in his present line of business. If the _Royal James_ had
been ready to sail, there is no doubt that Bonnet would have taken his
chance of finding the channel in the dark, and would have sailed away
that night without regard to the cannonading which might have been
directed against him from the two stranded vessels.

But as it was impossible to get ready to sail, Bonnet went to work with
the greatest energy to get ready to fight. He knew that when the tide
rose there would be two armed sloops afloat, and that there would be a
regular naval battle on the quiet waters of Cape Fear River. All night
his men worked to clear the decks and get everything in order for the
coming combat, and all night Mr. Rhett and his crews kept a sharp watch
for any unexpected move of the enemy, while they loaded their guns,
their pistols, and their cannon, and put everything in order for action.

Very early in the morning the wide-awake crews of the South Carolina
vessels, which were now afloat and at anchor, saw that the topmasts of
the pirate craft were beginning to move above the distant headland, and
very soon Bonnet's ship came out into view, under full sail, and as she
veered around they saw that she was coming toward them. Up went the
anchors and up went the sails of the _Henry_ and the _Sea-Nymph_, and
the naval battle between the retired army officer who had almost learned
to be a sailor, and the private gentleman from South Carolina, who knew
nothing whatever about managing ships, was about to begin.

It was plain to the South Carolinians that the great object of the
pirate captain was to get out to sea just as soon as he could, and that
he was coming down the river, not because he wished to make an
immediate attack upon them, but because he hoped to slip by them and
get away. Of course they could follow him upon the ocean and fight him
if their vessels were fast enough, but once out of the river with plenty
of sea-room, he would have twenty chances of escape where now he had
one.

But Mr. Rhett did not intend that the pirates should play him this
little trick; he wanted to fight the dastardly wretches in the river,
where they could not get away, and he had no idea of letting them sneak
out to sea. Consequently as the _Royal James_, under full sail, was
making her way down the river, keeping as far as possible from her two
enemies, Mr. Rhett ordered his ships to bear down upon her so as to cut
off her retreat and force her toward the opposite shore of the river.
This manoeuvre was performed with great success. The two Charles Town
sloops sailed so boldly and swiftly toward the _Royal James_ that the
latter was obliged to hug the shore, and the first thing the pirates
knew they were stuck fast and tight upon a sand bar. Three minutes
afterward the _Henry_ ran upon a sand bar, and there being enough of
these obstructions in that river to satisfy any ordinary demand, the
_Sea-Nymph_ very soon grounded herself upon another of them. But
unfortunately she took up her permanent position at a considerable
distance from her consort.

Here now were the vessels which were to conduct this memorable
sea-fight, all three fast in the sand and unable to move, and their
predicament was made the worse by the fact that it would be five hours
before the tide would rise high enough for any one of them to float. The
positions of the three vessels were very peculiar and awkward; the
_Henry_ and the _Royal James_ were lying so near to each other that Mr.
Rhett could have shot Major Bonnet with a pistol if the latter gentleman
had given him the chance, and the _Sea-Nymph_ was so far away that she
was entirely out of the fight, and her crew could do nothing but stand
and watch what was going on between the other two vessels.

But although they could not get any nearer each other, nor get away from
each other, the pirates and Mr. Rhett's crew had no idea of postponing
the battle until they should be afloat and able to fight in the ordinary
fashion of ships; they immediately began to fire at each other with
pistols, muskets, and cannon, and the din and roar was something that
must have astonished the birds and beasts and fishes of that quiet
region.

As the tide continued to run out of the river, and its waters became
more and more shallow, the two contending vessels began to careen over
to one side, and, unfortunately for the _Henry_, they both careened in
the same direction, and in such a manner that the deck of the _Royal
James_ was inclined away from the _Henry_, while the deck of the latter
leaned toward her pirate foe. This gave a great advantage to Bonnet and
his crew, for they were in a great measure protected by the hull of
their vessel, whereas the whole deck of the _Henry_ was exposed to the
fire of the pirates. But Mr. Rhett and his South Carolinians were all
brave men, and they blazed away with their muskets and pistols at the
pirates whenever they could see a head above the rail of the _Royal
James_, while with their cannon they kept firing at the pirate's hull.

For five long hours the fight continued, but the cannon carried by the
two vessels must have been of very small calibre, for if they had been
firing at such short range and for such a length of time with modern
guns, they must have shattered each other into kindling wood. But
neither vessel seems to have been seriously injured, and although there
were a good many men killed on both sides, the combat was kept up with
great determination and fury. At one time it seemed almost certain that
Bonnet would get the better of Mr. Rhett, and he ordered his black flag
waved contemptuously in the air while his men shouted to the South
Carolinians to come over and call upon them, but the South Carolina boys
answered these taunts with cheers and fired away more furiously than
ever.

The tide was now coming in, and everybody on board the two fighting
vessels knew very well that the first one of them which should float
would have a great advantage over the other, and would probably be the
conqueror. In came the tide, and still the cannons roared and the
muskets cracked, while the hearts of the pirates and the South
Carolinians almost stood still as they each watched the other vessel to
see if she showed any signs of floating.