Blackbeard- The Birth of America

by Samuel Marquis

  “The people have spoken, Governor, and King George has disallowed both acts,” Ludwell added. “The repeal is to be announced by proclamation this afternoon. If you would like to attend the formal announcement, your lordship, you would be more than welcome. It should be a celebratory crowd indeed.”

  Spotswood knew what that meant: he would be heckled by the disaffected members of his Governor’s Council and House of Burgesses as well as their tobacco merchant backers. “You mean you and your fellow colonial elite have spoken, Mr. Ludwell. These acts were designed to protect the King’s subjects, your so-called people, as well as the Indians who are taken advantage of by unscrupulous men such as yourself.”

  Ludwell gave a disdainful snort. “You are one to talk of unscrupulousness. You have set aside thousands of acres of land for yourself and made enormous profits directly from your policies. But now the people and the Crown have had their say. By royal veto, your two reforms have been crushed and you will now have to proclaim their repeal.”

  “Does it give you satisfaction to gloat like a vindictive schoolboy?”

  “As a matter of fact it does.”

  “I am sure that your fellow Cassius, Mr. Byrd in London, played no small part in this outcome.”

  “You have pushed us too far. This is not England—this is America.”

  “America? I have heard of no such nation and to talk of one is treason against the Crown.”

  “What is going on here in Virginia and in the other colonies is not treason—it is simple justice. The times are changing—and you and your draconian policies cannot stop it.”

  “Come now, Mr. Ludwell. You, William Byrd, and Reverend Blair don’t care a lick about my policies. In fact, the sole reason Mr. Byrd sits in opposition to me in London is because he covets my post. For years now, he has been trying to steal the governorship for himself. As a matter of fact, I am quite aware that he was the principal traitor and a key signer in the statement you and the others made against me to the Board of Trade.”

  “He was but one of fourteen.”

  “Along with yourself, Micajah and Richard Perry, William Hunt, William Dawkins, Thomas Sandford, John Maynard, Humphrey Bell, and several other traitorous miscreants whose names shall go unmentioned.”

  “Have you learned nothing in all of this? Your misguided Tobacco and Indian Acts have been great grievances to British subjects trading in Virginia and a discouragement to the navigation of Great Britain.”

  Spotswood felt his indignation rising, and though he wanted to throw Ludwell out of his office, he was naturally pugnacious and enjoyed a good verbal brawl with a worthy opponent. “You know as well as I that that is absolute poppycock, Philip. You just want to be rid of me.”

  “I would never deny that, but in your pomposity, sir, you miss the point. The truth is that instead of removing trash tobacco through improved inspections, the corrupt agents that you personally appointed have increased its currency.”

  “You stretch credulity with the rancor of your argument.”

  “No, you just don’t listen. Poor-grade tobacco is routinely approved by one agent or other to their own personal advantage through a tax of eight thousand pounds per annum on the tobacco traders. This is in addition to what charge it is to the shipping. And this without any benefit to the trade, which was the pretense of the law in the first place. But now thankfully, His Majesty has stricken this pernicious Tobacco Act so that it will no longer remain a load and clog to the trade.”

  “And the Indian Act too. What an accomplishment, Philip, you have succeeded in making sure the peaceful natives of Virginia and the Carolinas will be openly hostile to us for a generation to come. Not only that, they will be thoroughly taken advantage of by the hostile tribes and white men like yourself.”

  “Your Indian Company is a monopoly.”

  “No, it protects the Indians from predators like yourself. You and Mr. Byrd are only angry because the company buys stores directly from local suppliers and you and the other merchants have lost out on lucrative business.”

  Ludwell grinned condescendingly. “Not anymore.”

  “With no Assembly in session, all you will be accomplishing is to endanger the lives of the peaceful Siouan tribes at Fort Christanna in the name of profit. Iroquois bands are roving the borderlands as we speak. Dismantling the Indian Company post at Fort Christanna will leave the tributary Indians helpless. At the same time, the hostility of the Iroquois and Carolina Indians will be provoked by an abrupt ending of the trading at Christanna.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “But I do. That’s why I’m going to request that the Council allows the company to maintain the garrison and trading post until we are back in session in the spring.”

  “That might be achievable, provided you pay the schoolmaster’s salary out of your own pocket. The Burgesses are tired of your prodigal spending habits.”

  “No, you just don’t want me in power.”

  “You have brought this upon yourself, Governor. Even Byrd tried to work with you, but you drove him across the sea.”

  “Yes, and even from afar, he’s as dangerous as a viper.”

  “We tried to work with you, but you had to go and play the tyrant. Until the past year, me and the other merchants were undecided whether to support the Tobacco Act or to demand its repeal. So great was the depression in the trade that we were ready to welcome any measure which promised relief. Many of us were willing to wait and see if the act would rise the quality of Virginia tobacco. But poor-grade tobacco continued to be shipped by your hand-picked inspectors, and it cannot be used to pay customs in Britain. That was the decisive factor in turning the merchants against your act.”

  “I will offer an alternative theory. I believe your chief objection against the act is that it was authored by me.”

  “No, the chief objection is that it’s a restraint on trade.”

  “In that case, we might as well hand over all commerce to the smugglers and pirates.”

  “Maybe we should. At least they bring in high-quality products for sale at cheap prices without the Crown and its appointees taking an unfair cut.”

  “Surely, you don’t mean that. Why smugglers and pirates pose not only a threat to trade and foreign policy, but to the foundations of our colonial system.”

  “It’s time it was shaken up in my view. The pirates have a governance system based on their own self-interest—and that’s precisely why it works. Consequently, their ships are more orderly, peaceful, and well-organized than most merchant ships, vessels of the Royal Navy, or indeed, those of our British colonies. They take a great deal of pride in doing things right and will not answer to martinet captains who beat them senseless with as cat-o’-nine tails, imprison them, and dock their pay for the slightest infractions. Maybe we should have this Blackbeard fellow I’ve been hearing so much about take your job. He certainly couldn’t do any worse than you. Why you’ve made enemies of half this colony.”

  “Damn your impudence, Philip Ludwell! Pirates—and this Blackbeard in particular—are a menace to society and the villains of mankind. Why over the past month alone, this monster has brought a tide of terror and destruction from Virginia to New York such as had never been seen before. He has captured vessels bound for Philadelphia from London, Liverpool, and Madeira; sloops traveling between New York and the West Indies; and Pennsylvania merchantmen outbound to England and beyond. It is my understanding that he has seized nearly twenty ships and picked them clean, throwing overboard whatever fails to suit his fancy. Surely, you cannot compare a reprobate such as this man to me!”

  Ludwell held up his hands, palms out. “Now just calm down, Alexander. I want to hear what you know of this Blackbeard.”

  He took a deep breath to compose himself, glad that they didn’t have to argue, at least for a moment. “His real name is Edward Thache. It’s my understanding he did a stint in the Royal Navy.”

  With his curiosity concerning the pirate now piqued, Ludwell
assumed a more conciliatory expression. “Quite embarrassing for the Admiralty, I would imagine. Especially since overnight Blackbeard has become the most feared pirate in the Atlantic—and a folk hero to the people.”

  “Certainly not to those loyal to the Crown. The man is nothing but a brutal thug and showboater. Did you hear what he did to Captain Spofford?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. Not a day out of Philadelphia and he was forced to watch as Blackbeard’s men dumped a thousand barrel staves into the sea. Then he filled his cargo hold with the terrified crewmen of the Sea Nymph, a snow from Bristol the pirate captain had captured as it started its journey to Portugal.”

  “Not only that, but one of the Sea Nymph’s men, a merchant by the name of Joseph Richardson was very barbarously used by the pirates. They threw his cargo of wheat into the sea.”

  “That’s what the Boston News-Letter said. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the newspapers exaggerate.” The Boston News-Letter was controlled by the British Crown and noted for its pro-British sympathies, with the words “Published by Authority” appearing on its front page. Consequently, although it was the most authoritative publication in the New World, it was viewed with suspicion by many colonials.

  “Exaggerate? Oh, I highly doubt that,” sniffed Spotswood. “With drunken animals like these, no words could exaggerate their terrible deeds. Captain Peter Peters told how the pirates seized his sloop, stole twenty-seven barrels of Madeira wine, hacked away his mast, and left him to run aground. And then, apparently not satisfied with their debauchery, the pirates left the sloop of another captain, a man named Griggs, at anchor at the mouth of the bay with his masts chopped off and his cargo of thirty indentured servants whisked away. The pirates then took all the wine from a Virginia-bound sloop before sinking her. Captain Farmer’s sloop had already been looted by other pirates on its way from Jamaica, but Blackbeard’s men insisted on unrigging it and removing her mast and anchors to serve as spares for their ship, before they put the thirty captives aboard and let them sail free near Sandy Hook, New Jersey.

  “He set the indentured servants free?”

  “Yes, can you believe the audacity of the man? Free indentured servants, can you imagine? And then Captain Sipkins was relieved of his command of a great sloop from New York, which Blackbeard’s men kept as a consort after mounting her with thirteen guns.”

  “This Blackbeard is definitely a man to be feared. They say that he makes it a special point of terrorizing captives from New England on behalf of the surviving members of Samuel Bellamy’s crew.”

  “Yes, I heard that too.”

  “They are this minute rotting in a Boston Prison. Apparently, Blackbeard has said that if any of his fellow pirates suffer in Boston, he will revenge it on them.”

  “The word is that they are to be hung in less than a weeks’ time.”

  “Once they swing from the gallows, Blackbeard is going to show no mercy whatsoever and no one can do a bloody thing to stop him. Right now, he’s a king beholden to no one.”

  “His state of good fortune is only temporary. Help is most assuredly on the way. The King has apparently ordered a proper force to suppress piracy in our waters. Two frigates are said to be at Boston, the HMS Rose and Squirrel. HMS Phoenix has arrived at New York, and in Virginia the sixth-rate Lyme is now backing up the decrepit Shoreham. Two Royal Navy frigates have also recently come into the harbor, one en route to New York, the other to Virginia.”

  “So where is Blackbeard now?”

  “I’m not sure. He was last seen not far from Long Island. Perhaps Gardiner’s or Block Island. They may have been going to one or the other to pick items left behind by the crew, or perhaps to bury some of their ill-gotten treasure. They say that he was due to sail south back down to the Caribbean where he and his men hope to take a special prize.”

  “A special prize? And what might that be?”

  “A ship-of-force that will allow him and his gang of thieves to take on our Royal Navy fifth-rates without blinking.”

  “A ship-of-force, you say?”

  “Yes, Philip. And when Blackbeard finds one and refits her into his own personal flagship, he’ll be unstoppable. And you can quote me to the Council on that. Unstoppable!”

  PART 4

  QUEEN ANNE’S REVENGE

  CHAPTER 27

  ONE HUNDRED MILES SOUTHEAST OF MARTINIQUE

  NOVEMBER 17, 1717

  STARING OUT OVER THE STARBOARD RAILING in the direction of his former home of Barbados, disgraced sea captain Stede Bonnet pictured an image of his first-born child. Though little Allamby had died five and a half years earlier, seldom a day went by that the Barbadian mariner-planter didn’t picture him in his mind. He had loved the boy with all his heart, but God had mysteriously taken the child from him after only a year of life. Why? he had often wondered. Why poor Allamby? It seemed pointedly unfair to take the life of something so beautifully young and innocent, and Bonnet had long ago decided that only a very cruel and wicked Heavenly Father could allow such a terrible thing to happen. One who regarded his earthly creations as nothing more than meaningless pawns undeserving of kindness and mercy.

  As he continued to picture the boy in the swells and troughs of the sea, he felt tears coming to his eyes. There wasn’t a damned thing he could do to stop them so he closed his eyes, stuck his face in the wind, and let the breeze flow over him like a mighty river. He remembered holding Allamby’s limp body in his arms and how feather-light and peaceful he had seemed once he had succumbed to the fever. That was the day Bonnet’s heart had been utterly broken and his relationship with his wife had started to deteriorate. She had somehow managed to blame him for the boy’s death and, over the next few years, she had turned into a pitiless wretch and a tiresome nag. His troubles of the mind may have started with the death of his mother and father and Mrs. Whetstone, the family’s beloved guardian after his parents had passed, but the event that had pushed him over the edge was the death of his pride and joy Allamby. That’s when the first cracks in their marriage began to show. God, how he had loved the boy, so much so that his three subsequent children could never quite measure up, though he loved them, too, with all his heart and missed them now terribly. But Allamby had been his first-born son so he was special. Something had broken inside him the day the boy had died and he knew he would never be whole again.

  He continued staring out at waves rolling by like fields of wheat. After having left the Atlantic seaboard for sunnier southern climes, Blackbeard’s flotilla was a mere day’s sail from Bonnet’s Barbadian home in the Windward Islands. There were three ships in the pirate fleet now trolling for prizes: Bonnet’s twelve-gun Revenge, still captained by Thache with Bonnet occupying the captain’s quarters; a great twelve-gun sloop taken from one Captain Sipkins before they had left the capes of Virginia for the Caribbean; and a forty-ton, eight-gun sloop from Curacao taken recently as a prize from one Captain Goelet, who had been given the Margaret as compensation. For the past two weeks, Thache and his growing gang of over two hundred seamen had been on the lookout for a massive ship that would make them the most powerful pirate flotilla in the New World. They had brashly declared their intentions to every sea captain and crew they had captured in the past month.

  Bonnet still couldn’t quite believe that he had stolen away at night from his wife and three children to become a pirate. Nine months ago when the Revenge was being built, the life of a buccaneer had seemed such a romantic undertaking to him. The high adventure of the open sea and sharing the merry comradery of fellow gentleman of fortune had seemed exotically appealing, and a part of him thought his family would be better off without him and his morose moods. But now he knew the reality of the pirate world: endless days of boredom punctuated by bursts of raw violence, orgies of drunkenness, and the constant threat of rebellion on the part of the crewmen opposed to his leadership.

  After more than six months at sea, he was a social outcast who commanded virtually no respect among the crew.
Banished from captaining his own ship that he had purchased with his own funds, he couldn’t help but feel old and tired though he was not yet thirty. He felt especially useless when he compared himself to Thache, who had won over the respect of his crew through his skilled seamanship and leadership and was commodore of three sloops-of-war and over two hundred men. A part of him was envious of the man for being so well-respected and well-liked by his crew, but the other, more pragmatic side of him couldn’t help but admire the man. Unlike many of the crew members, Thache treated him respectfully and deferentially at all times and was the consummate gentleman.

  The truth was they had much in common. They both came from wealthy colonial planter backgrounds, had received a liberal education grounded in reading and writing, mathematics, lessons in Latin, and a mastery of the French and Spanish languages. With a shared class and history, they were both well-acquainted with the customs of the elite of their respective islands of Jamaica and Barbados, as well as the human suffering of the black Africans held in bondage in the sugarcane fields. But with their privileged backgrounds, they had other things in common and Bonnet could tell that was why Thache gave him the benefit of the doubt and regarded him more substantially than the other crew members drawn mostly from the working class. Bonnet’s mother was a Whetstone and piracy had long been in his blood. Thache formerly served on HMS Windsor in 1706, flagship of Rear Admiral Sir William Whetstone, a kinsman of Bonnet. They also both shared Jacobite sympathies. They were firmly opposed to King George, the foreign ruler of Hanover, occupying the British throne over the “Pretender” James III, feeling that the Stuart line represented the rightful heirs to the throne. Bonnet knew it was for all these reasons that Thache was exceedingly tolerant of and generous towards him despite his lack of maritime experience.