Blackbeard- The Birth of America

by Samuel Marquis

  In the past month, a group of around fifty men had emerged to become a particular thorn in Thache’s side, and it was the members of this fractious group that vexed him now. Many of them were well-liked, experienced, and charismatic seamen, and two weeks ago, they had come close to mutiny when the rum supply had briefly run out. “Our company somewhat sober,” Blackbeard had written of the incident in the journal he kept by his bedside and wrote in religiously. “Damned confusion amongst us! Rogues a plotting and great talk of separation. Fortunately, the fleet’s next prize had a great deal of liquor onboard that kept the company hot, damned hot, and then all things went well again.” But he never forgave the plotters, and had no intention of allowing them to ever again undermine his authority. He decided that he would have to have a plan going forward to deal with the men, a plan that he would share with only his most trusted officers and crew members.

  In the past week alone, he had held two secret meetings with this inner circle—which included William Howard, Caesar, and several other of his trusted Bath County pirates as well as men he trusted such as Israel Hands—and explored options on how they might go about a breakup of the companies and seizure of the company’s arms and powder, accumulated prize-money, and provisions if it became necessary. It was becoming painfully apparent that the outfit was growing too large and unwieldly, with too many independent voices, and that there was a portion of the crew in a constant state of quarrelsome rebellion, ready to mutiny the next time the rum supply ran out. It wasn’t the first time he had joined forces with the Bath County men. He found that, having come from North Carolina, they had a good grasp of the situation in the colonies with regard to commerce with pirates and he often sought their counsel on these important matters.

  Howard and his associates had long held that Bath Town was the ideal port to sell piratically-taken goods and slaves, since the place was becoming increasingly important as the seat of the North Carolinian government, even though it was still something of a backwater. Thache had been assured by the Bath Country pirates that he would receive favorable treatment from Governor Eden and his customs collector and interim chief justice, Tobias Knight, the owner of Caesar, especially since he had met both men on two prior occasions during his merchant sailing day’s out of the port of Philadelphia. With the recent offer of King George’s official Act of Grace, Thache had explored the various options that Governor Eden and Bath Town might represent for his bloated pirate fleet. Unfortunately, the terms of the King’s pardon required that pirates turn themselves in by September 5 of the current year, 1718, and only acts of piracy committed prior to the 5th of January of the year would be forgiven—any after that date would not be eligible. This meant that he and his men were already in violation of the terms of the pardon.

  The news of the King’s Proclamation for Suppressing Pirates had sparked a lively debate amongst his men for the past three months, but he already knew what the outcome of the debate would be. Roughly a third of his men would take the offered pardon and surrender to the new British-appointed governor of the Bahamas, Woodes Rogers, when the pirate flotilla returned to Nassau next month, giving up their life on the account for good. Another third would staunchly resist and flatly call for the rejection of King George’s terms. And another third would try to delay the process or come out somewhere in between, by signing the pardon but actually refusing to adhere to it, or at least restricting prizes to Spanish and French vessels. At a minimum, this would buy them time and follow the precedent of hoping that the Crown would simply turn a blind eye to the plundering of Britain’s usual enemies, Spain and France, as they had done so often in the past.

  Staring into his crystal ball, Blackbeard saw what lay ahead for him and his men as brigands of the sea. Once Woodes Rogers gained a toehold in the New World, it would be only a matter of time before the pirate enclave of New Providence would be broken up and dispersed. The days of lawless anarchy would be over and Nassau and the other pirate safe havens in the Bahamas would no longer be a refuge for those who were increasingly unwelcome elsewhere. Once Rogers authority took hold in the proprietary colony, it would be copied elsewhere throughout the Atlantic world as a new generation of governors and their leading commercial backers no longer tolerated or encouraged pirates in their colonies. But Thache was counting on that not happening with Governor Eden of North Carolina and his second-in-command Tobias Knight.

  All the same, he still hadn’t decided where he might fall out. For the time being, he was keeping his options open. But he liked what the Bath County men had to say about North Carolina as a new pirate hub, or at least a place to lay low. It appeared that the officials there were not corrupt; rather Eden and Knight had been so decimated by Indian wars, Virginia Governor Spotswood’s’ draconian tobacco laws, and political infighting amongst various factions that they had no choice but to find suitable financiers to bolster their decimated economy. On the two occasions he had met the two men in Bath Town as first-mate aboard a Philadelphia merchant vessel, he had found them to be intelligent men who clearly had the best interests of their colony at heart. With so many problems to deal with and a moribund economy, they had to be open-minded when it came to commercial ties to rogues of the sea—otherwise they soon might not have a proprietary colony to govern. To respond to the needs of their people, they had to promote the interests of their colony, even if that included turning an occasional blind eye to pirates, smugglers, and the like. North Carolina was in a battle for its survival, and its leaders recognized this, or at least that’s what Howard and the other Bath County men maintained. In his brief but telling interactions with the two colonial officials, Blackbeard had seen nothing to dissuade him from that perspective, and he decided that he would keep his options open with regard to pursuing a relationship of mutual benefit with these men if and when the time came.

  The fate of Bellamy’s crew factored heavily into his decision to prepare for the future. A couple of weeks ago, he had learned from one of his captives that six of the crew members had been hanged from the gallows at Boston. Based on this information, he vowed that going forward he would renew the vigor with which he would punish New England ships and their owners, and he would simultaneously have a plan in place for his retirement from piracy to avoid the same fate as Bellamy’s men. If there was one thing he and his fellow brethren of the coast fretted over, it was the prospect of dangling by their necks from a hempen rope, fouling their breeches, and doing the macabre dance of death that so entertained the common masses in cities such as Boston, Charles Town, Port Royal, and London. He would never give the swabs the satisfaction of seeing him hang.

  “Sail! A sail!” came the sudden cry from Richard Greensail, who was acting as lookout.

  “English?” inquired Thache.

  “No, she be not a prize,” said Israel Hands. “It’s Bonnet returning from Roatán.”

  He smiled. “Well, well, the prodigal son returns.”

  “Aye, but you’re not going to like the look of the Revenge,” said Hands. “She’s taken a pounding.”

  Having an uneasy feeling of déjà vu, Thache reached for his spyglass. It was the Revenge all right and she had indeed taken a terrible beating: sails tattered; shrouds, halyards, and braces torn up; gunwales and decks splintered from cannon fire. The damage was not as extensive as after the bout with the Spanish man-of-war last September, but it was devastating nonetheless.

  As Bonnet and his crew set anchor, pirates crowded the decks of the Queen Anne’s Revenge to see what all the ruckus was about. Patters of gossipy conversation filled the vessel until finally the pirates were rendered silent as a group of Bonnet’s officers rowed over in a longboat. Thache received them on the quarterdeck of the great ship.

  Still smarting from their recent defeat, Bonnet’s men quickly informed him of the encounter with the Protestant Caesar, which they had since learned from local logcutters was from Boston and captained by William Wyer. Out-classed and out-gunned, the bungling Bonnet, they declared, had
attempted to wage a running gun battle with a heavily-armed, four-hundred-ton merchant vessel captained by the stubborn New Englander—and he had failed. Clearly, their commander had learned little from his yearlong apprenticeship under Thache, and he now needed to pay the price. Ignatius Pell and several of the others begged Thache to use his influence to terminate Bonnet’s command altogether, which was a messy situation to begin with since he owned the ship and his crew worked for him on a wage basis rather than based on shares per the articles. And now here he was skulking back to his commodore like a worthless puppy with his tail between his legs.

  With Bonnet not there to defend himself, Thache diplomatically called a meeting of the entire company. He wanted to ensure that Bonnet had the opportunity to tell his side of the story, and that the men would adhere to the articles and cast their votes for a new course of action for the Revenge and her captain. A half hour later, all parties had arrived for the meeting, including Bonnet dressed in a satin shirt with ruffles, a hunter-green velvet vest, a powdered wig, and buckled shoes. Thache patiently listened as Bonnet recounted the details of the stern-attack on the Protestant Caesar and subsequent battle. He then proceeded to pose several questions, which, out of a sense of fairness, were for the most part favorable to the gentleman pirate from Barbados. When he had heard out both sides and refereed the accusation-filled debate that followed, Thache stood up and asked for the floor to speak.

  “I believe there is a simple solution,” he said. “I propose that Captain Bonnet be replaced for the time being by Captain Richards, who will now command the Revenge.”

  “And what of Bonnet?” asked Ishmael Hanks, glowering at the major. “Where will he go?”

  “As my wayward colleague has not been used to the fatigues and care of such a post as ship captain, it would be better for him to stay with me aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge. Here he can live easy, at his pleasure, where he will not be obliged to perform the necessary duties of a sea voyage.”

  “So you’re placing me under house arrest,” snapped Bonnet, who at first had seemed supportive of the outcome but now bore a stubborn look on his face.

  “I wouldn’t call it that, Major Bonnet. I would call it by another name: a second chance. Or really a third chance as it appears that you have two strikes against you. Mind you, this is only a temporary relief from command. Just while we recuperate here in Turneffe—gorging on permit, bonefish, and sea turtle, and capturing wayward vessels. The time will go by fast.”

  Bonnet rolled his eyes. “One can only hope.”

  “You brought this upon yourself, damn you,” hissed Ishmael Hanks. “And yet now you’re ungrateful to the very man who spared you, our commodore Blackbeard?”

  Thache and Bonnet looked at one another. “I didn’t mean to appear ungrateful,” said the Barbadian apologetically.

  Thache gave an understanding nod. “We all have our good days and our bad on the open sea, lads. It’s how you rebound when you’ve been knocked to the deck that counts most. We need to put this behind us and move forward. Be that plain enough, gentlemen?”

  There were nods and words of agreement. He looked again at Bonnet and couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. But what took him by surprise was the simmering anger and hatred he saw just beneath the surface of the eccentric planter’s face. Showing kindness and impartiality towards him appeared to have only made him feel more ashamed and spiteful. From here on out, he decided, Bonnet would be his worst enemy, and he would have to watch him like a hawk. But at least the man had virtually no influence with the men and would remain something of a pariah. It would take some time before he would become a viable threat.

  “Is it settled then, men?” he asked.

  “Aye, it’s settled,” said Bonnet, more forcefully than Thache would have thought possible for such a weak and compromised man. “I’ll be moving my books and clothing into this ship’s more spacious quarters.”

  “Of course.”

  “And might I also ask, where are we going now, Captain?”

  Blackbeard smiled bloodlessly. “Why we’re going after the Protestant Caesar, of course. I’ll be damned if I let her captain brag, when he returns to New England, that he has beaten a pirate. No one who sails with me shall be bettered by a Boston ship—and that’s all there is of it.”

  A rowdy cheer rose up from the men. “May the Lord have mercy on her and Captain Wyer both when we get through with them!” shouted Howard.

  “Aye verily,” agreed Blackbeard. “Damnation to him who ever lived to wear a halter. We’re men not animals, by thunder, and we will take our vengeance upon all those high powers who want to keep us harnessed in yokes. Amen!”

  “Amen! Amen!” shouted the company—their rebellious, democratic sentiments in the name of both profit and common fairness echoing all across Turneffe Lagoon.

  CHAPTER 33

  COAST OF HONDURAS

  APRIL 8-11, 1718

  THE SEA BREEZE chased up and over the fringing reef, bringing with it the salty scent of the Spanish Main. Caesar inhaled the salt air deeply. He stood on the quarterdeck of the Queen Anne’s Revenge with William Howard, Stede Bonnet, and Thache, watching a flock of seagulls wheeling against silvery-gray clouds. They had plundered several ships during the past few days, bringing the size of the burgeoning pirate fleet up to seven hundred seamen spread amongst five cannon-studded vessels: the “Great Devil, as the Spanish and British logcutters called Thache’s flagship; Captain David Herriot’s Adventure, seized in Turneffe Lagoon and now captained by Israel Hands; two pirated supply sloops carrying “bloody” red flags to indicate that they were also serving as privateers; and the refitted Revenge captained by Richards, which also bore crimson colors.

  “There she be!” cried the lookout from the maintop, high above the deck. “The Protestant Caesar in all her high and mighty glory!”

  Caesar removed Thache’s brass spyglass from its leather case and handed it to the captain, who had it against his eye and scanning the bay and mangrove-infested land beyond within a fraction of a second.

  “She has nowhere to go, Master Howard,” said Thache, his voice calm and composed but carrying an unmistakable trace of excitement. “We’ll close on her with full sail and prepare to stand to her forefoot if she shows her heels.”

  “Aye, Captain. I’ve been looking forward to this moment.”

  “As have we all, Mr. Howard. But none have been looking forward to it as much as Major Bonnet here. He has graced us with his company on deck to watch the spectacle.”

  He gestured deferentially to the Barbadian planter, who gave a polite bow. Though Bonnet’s expression remained courtly and impassive, Caesar could see how badly he wanted to take out his revenge on Captain Wyer of the Protestant Caesar. The merchant captain had thoroughly embarrassed him by outfighting him, which had in turn led to his once again being stripped of his captaincy.

  The man wants revenge so badly he can taste it, thought Caesar. Well now, Major Bonnet, it looks like you are about to get your chance.

  “Fore and aft, all hands!” shouted Thache.

  The crew mobilized swiftly and precisely, the sailors, gun crews, and armed boarding party forming up into their designated positions.

  “She hasn’t struck her colors or turned out her cannon. What do you think her play is, Captain?” asked Garret Gibbons.

  “I don’t know, but our fine Captain Wyer only has three choices: to flee, to stand and fight, or to run his vessel ashore with the hope that he can later return and save his ship once we have left the scene.”

  Caesar looked at him. “Which one do you think he will try?”

  “I don’t know. But being as he is from Boston, he and his men are truly in for it now. Mark my words, they will feel my wrath upon them.”

  ***

  Captain William Wyer couldn’t believe his bad luck as he stared at the five-vessel pirate flotilla sailing directly towards him with the weather, numbers, and armament in their favor. His four-hundred-ton Protestant
Caesar carried twenty-six guns and a fifty-man crew—but she was no match for the thirty-eight-gun behemoth racing towards her like a hound unleashed from hell itself, or the group of sleek-bodied consorts that together brought the grand total of cannon to more than eighty pieces. It would be suicide for him to resist at all, but of course that would be for his men to decide.

  He quickly called them on deck for a conference.

  “Take a look there,” he said, looking through his glass. “We’ve got quite a large ship and a big sloop with black flags and deaths’ heads, and we have three more armed sloops with bloody flags, and they are coming straight for us. If they don’t have us trapped already, they will in the next five minutes. Now I’m asking what ye want to do? Are you willing to defend the ship from these pirates?”

  His crew nervously studied the armada of approaching vessels, which were slowly growing bigger on the eastern horizon.

  “There’s no way to outrun them?” the quartermaster asked the first-mate.

  “Not likely. Our holds are more than half filled up with logwood and it’s more than likely every one of their vessels can outrun us.”

  “Look at that big monster,” said the bosun. “Why she must carry thirty guns.”

  “Closer to forty,” said the first-mate.

  “She carries a lot of sail and looks to me to be Dutch-built with a hull sleeker than most,” observed the captain. “I would wager that she can overhaul any vessel she encounters short of a small sloop.”