Blackbeard- The Birth of America

by Samuel Marquis

  “Give them a taste of shot, Mr. Morton!” cried Thache. Then to his quartermaster. “Mr. Miller, you and your men prepare to board the second vessel!”

  As Morton opened up with his cannons, the Adventure closed on the Toison d’Or. A moment later, steel grappling hooks were tossed across and the wooden hulls collided with a heavy groan. Upon impact, the iron hooks found purchase in the wooden bulwark amidships and were pulled taut. With the vessels now lashed together, the pirates swarmed over the gunwales and onto the ship’s deck. Surprisingly, the French offered no resistance and the pirates were able to seize the captain and all of his crew members without a single shot fired or loss of life on either side. To discourage further broadsides or small-arms fire from the other vessel, they kept several prisoners as human shields. In less than five minutes, they had secured the ship, removed all the French prisoners, and now set upon the Rose Emelye and her stubborn Nantes captain as not one attacker but two.

  “A round of bar and chain shot, Mr. Morton! And a volley of musket fire, Mr. Miller!”

  “Aye, Captain!”

  Once again, the cannons discharged. Just before, the Frenchmen aboard the Rose Emelye wisely ducked belowdecks and made themselves small to avoid death and injury. A round of musket balls followed, flying over the captain’s head and quickly mangling sails, masts, and rigging. A moment later, the captain turned the ship into the wind, drifted to a halt, and surrendered his command. A raucous cheer went up from the pirates.

  Blackbeard just shook his head. He had captured two vessels more than twice the size of his own—but all he felt inside was anger. Three of his men were badly wounded and would need a surgeon. Damn the French for doing what Frenchmen weren’t supposed to do: fight back. He couldn’t believe the captain had seriously considered putting up all-out resistance. He thought about having the bastard flogged in front of his men for his effrontery, but then decided against it. His three gunners, though hurt, would survive their wounds and he couldn’t help but admire the Frenchmen for their tenacity. But he would give the captain an earful and make him understand that what he had done might very well have cost him and his men their lives; and he would take the Rose Emelye as his new consort and pick the two French vessels clean of anything and everything of even the remotest value to put an exclamation point on the victory. With triumph in the air and fresh plunder in the hold, the pirate company would be happy again, and having a second vessel on hand would be of great help in careening the Adventure.

  He ordered all three vessels to be rafted together. Thomas Miller boarded the prizes with his boarding party and inspected the holds and spaces belowdecks. While this was going on, Blackbeard interviewed Jan Goupil, the commander of the Rose Emelye, and the other French captain—and made sure Goupil knew how he and his men felt about the resistance offered. Miller quickly confirmed that the Toison d’Or was indeed “sailing light” with little cargo in her holds, while the Rose Emelye was transporting a modest consignment of sugar, cocoa, cotton, and indigo dye. But the ship had other plunder the pirates desperately wanted: rigging, sails, anchors, spare masts, oakum, pitch and tar, and timber for repairs. The ship also had food and water and even a few French delicacies like casks of confectionaries. Thache had to admit that the pair of prizes were just what the pirates had been looking for in preparation for sailing south to St. Thomas, provided they could fence the seized goods in Bath Town.

  The men transferred the French crew of the burdened vessel to the empty Toison d’Or and sent them on their way. Now Thache and his men needed to take their prize back to Ocracoke. Here they would be able to work discreetly and peacefully to careen and outfit the Adventure. Here they had colonial friends to keep a weather-eye out for enemies, and they would be able to get a sympathetic doctor to quietly attend to the wounds of Joseph Brooks and the other two wounded pirates. And here they would feel at home and still under the protection of Governor Eden and Tobias Knight. But no one could learn of the seizure of the Rose Emelye or they would have to claim her as salvage, for they had committed an act of sea robbery for which His Majesty’s pardon would not exonerate them. In the minds of his crew members, taking the Martiniqueman was necessary for their survival—or at least necessary to keep the Adventure afloat—but he knew the Crown would not see it that way. Then again, as long as no one learned the fate of the Rose Emelye, it was possible that the King’s authorities might be none the wiser and the violation of the pardon wouldn’t amount to any trouble. But they had to go somewhere safe, and if the French prize was somehow discovered, he would have to find a way to smooth things over with Eden and Knight.

  They set sail for Ocracoke. The remaining days of August passed without incident as the Adventure and Rose Emelye followed the warm waters of the Gulf Stream back to the Outer Banks. On the second of September, the two ships sailed into Ocracoke Inlet and followed the right-hand channel up toward the Old Slough and Old Watering Hole. But Thache and his crew did not enjoy the privacy the pirate captain had hoped for. Over the next fortnight, they were watched by a British loyalist who was not a friend and didn’t think much of gentlemen of fortune, a man who was quietly serving as an informant to Captain Ellis Brand.

  And it would change their lives dramatically.

  CHAPTER 50

  BATH TOWN

  SEPTEMBER 14, 1718

  ONE STROKE PAST MIDNIGHT, Thache spotted the landing at Tobias Knight’s house on Town Creek. With the careening of the Adventure completed using the captured Rose Emelye, the cannon remounted, and the crew busy with sail repair, tarring-down the new standing rigging, and transferring the French cargo to the tents on Ocracoke Island, he had decided to take a little trip, up country, to Bath Town. He had announced to Israel Hands and the other officers that he would travel alone with just four black pirates: Richard Stiles, Thomas Gates, James Blake, and James White. They would take the periauger and would only be gone for two or three days. Blackbeard’s goal was to deliver gifts to the government in the hopes that Eden would again grant the Adventure’s captain and crew entry into the colony—and to seek legal advice from Tobias Knight on what to do with the captured French prize.

  They left Ocracoke Inlet in the periauger at dawn, sailing across the compact, choppy waves of Pamlico Sound for the mainland. It was a surreal moment for Thache. In two and a half years at sea, he had never had fewer men in his pirate company than he did now. A mere three months earlier, he had seven hundred men under his command, and now he had just four black men traveling with him as brothers-in-arms and a longboat stocked with gifts: casks of sweetmeats, a bag of cocoa, loaf sugar, and several boxes, the contents of which were known only by him. During the forty-seven-mile voyage across the sound and up the Pamlico River, he served as helmsman, pilot, navigator, and sailing master of the thirty-foot-long open periauger, while the four black pirates operated the sails and, when necessary, pulled at the oars to speed the vessel along.

  Without a lookout up in the rigging as with the Adventure, Blackbeard relied on his local knowledge and a small, handheld pocket compass set to a course of 310 degrees north by northwest. Once they reached Pamlico River, the sea breeze weakened and then died away altogether a few more miles inland. Out came the sweeps again and the African pirates went to work, reaching Knight’s landing just after midnight. The two-hundred-forty-acre plantation occupied a beautiful part of Bath County, but it was isolated from the town and far from help during Indian uprisings. It was also situated out on the river so that midnight visitors could come and go and no one in town at the north end of Town Creek would be aware of their presence.

  Once they had tied off the periauger at the dock, Thache saw Pompey, Tobias Knight’s slave that had grown up with Caesar, appear out of the gloom, carrying a yellow lantern. With Pompey’s help, the exhausted pirates began to unload some casks and boxes as another slave, a man named Tom, walked out to the landing to greet them. After talking with them for a moment about their journey, he returned to the house to alert Knight. A minute
later, the door of the house creaked open, a shaft of wavering yellow light spread over the barren ground at the foot of the steps, and the North Carolina council secretary, collector of customs, and interim chief justice appeared. Tom quickly returned to the periauger and led Thache up to the house where Knight was waiting, while Pompey remained with the four black crew members, who sat down on the dock. Eventually, they would be brought food, water, and blankets so they could comfortably rest.

  “Captain Thache, my friend, what are ye doing here?” asked Knight as Blackbeard came walking up. “I thought you were going to sail for St. Thomas.”

  “I apologize, Esquire Knight, but a problem has come up and I found it necessary to seek out your most wise counsel.”

  Knight stared off at the periauger and the four black crew members faintly illuminated by the dock lantern. “Where is your sloop, Captain?”

  “Back at Ocracoke. She is freshly careened and will soon be ready to make sail for the West Indies.”

  “Come inside and we will share a refreshment and talk. But please be quiet. My wife, Katherine, is asleep in her bed chamber on the second floor, and our guest Mr. Chamberlayne is staying in the lodging room on the upper story. No doubt they have been roused out of bed due to the commotion of your arrival, but if we could speak quietly from here on out, that would be greatly appreciated.”

  He led him into a parlor where his young female house slave, Phillis, was waiting and proceeded to pour out two stiff brandies. With drinks in hand, they took their seats at a small black walnut table surrounded by six yellow-colored chairs. Once they had settled in, the two men pulled out their long-stem white clay pipes, packed them with rich Carolina tobacco, and began smoking. Shadows danced about the painted white walls as the candles on the table flickered and the two men quietly puffed on their pipes. One was old and sickly, the other young and virulent—but what united the two men was their open-minded appreciation of the useful role of piratical-based commerce in the Americas and their wariness towards the excessive powers of the British Crown in distant London. After a moment, Knight looked intently at the heavily bearded pirate captain and, with a look of weary concern, said, “Now how can I help ye, Edward my friend?”

  Exhausted from being in a boat for the past eighteen hours and suppressing the urge to yawn, Thache took a moment to gather his thoughts. Though he and Knight had developed a rapport in July, they were not yet bosom friends and he still felt he had to tread somewhat cautiously with the man.

  “I have a serious problem on my hands, and I do not know what the best solution is to deal with it. Against my wishes, my crew—with me acting as captain —has committed an act of piracy and taken a French prize. Our actions most certainly will not be excused by King George’s most gracious pardon. I want to know if there is a way we can legitimize the French prize such that we might still be able to be protected under the King’s pardon.”

  “So that’s what this be about? Well then, you must start from the beginning and recount your movements since you last visited us here in Bath in July. Where did you go?”

  “To Philadelphia.”

  “You sailed to the City of Brotherly Love when you were supposed to set a compass for the West Indies? Why did you sail to Philadelphia?”

  “So that I could see my Margaret and we could sign on some additional crew members for the voyage south.”

  “Margaret, is she your wife?”

  “No, but I’d like her to be one day. Once I’ve obtained a privateering commission in St. Thomas and cleaned the slate once and for all.”

  “Did you obtain any new crew members in the city?”

  “No, we had to leave too quickly. Governor Keith had issued a warrant for my arrest. That’s when everything went to hell.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My crew nearly held a mutiny. They demanded we look for a prize, far out in the ocean where no one would know about it, in order to repair and resupply the Adventure. East of Bermuda we found her.”

  “So that’s when you took the French vessel? What cargo was she carrying?”

  “She was a small brigantine loaded with cocoa, sugar, and a few French delicacies. I have brought with me several gifts for you, including casks of sweetmeats.”

  “We can talk about appropriate payment for my expert counsel later in the evening. For now, I want to make sure I have all the facts. Tell me about the action at sea. How was it accomplished?”

  He quickly described the incident with the French, beginning with the spying of the two sails on the horizon, and ending with the send-off of the vanquished crew of both vessels in the empty Toison d’Or and keeping the Rose Emelye as a prize. When he was finished, the lawyerly Knight probed him with more questions, which Thache answered before posing a question of his own.

  “Would it be possible for me and my men to claim that we found the French ship abandoned at sea? In other words, could I proclaim the Rose Emelye as a derelict?”

  Knight stood up and began pacing the room, thinking. Bookishly bespectacled, gaunt in his baggy bedclothes, and reeking of musty air and illness from his ongoing losing battle with the fever, the North Carolina official provided a striking contrast to the tall, robust, and healthy Blackbeard, dressed in calf-length boots, tarred-dungarees, and muslin blouse and wearing a long, braided beard that carried the salubrious scent of the sea.

  “Yes, you could claim that you found the French ship at sea without a soul on board her. In legal terms, this would make the vessel ‘unmanned and abandoned on the high seas.’ By Admiralty law, this would make you the salvor in her possession, giving you the legal right to both the vessel and cargo.”

  “The French would no doubt see it differently.”

  “Yes, but if the second French ship continued on its way to Europe, it could be months or even years before an inquiry would find its way back to North Carolina. Furthermore, if no one knew the prize was brought to Ocracoke, the French would never be able to trace its whereabouts.”

  “So what you’re saying is, if no suspicions are raised, then I could successfully claim I found the Rose Emelye abandoned at sea. I could claim that the vessel’s French crew may have been washed overboard in a storm.”

  “It will be tricky but it should work. Governor Eden is the official senior representative of the British Admiralty in North Carolina. He could request that I form a Court of Vice-Admiralty to formally hear your claim to the rights of salvage. Once that is completed, he would call another meeting of the court to determine ownership and conclude that the ship and its cargo belong to you.”

  “But I would have to prove my story.”

  “Ye will need several witnesses on hand in addition to yourself to tell the story of what happened and sign affidavits. Provided the French are out of the picture entirely and unable to make a claim, the governor will have no option but to grant you salvage rights over the French ship. It goes without saying that the stories of you and your crew members should be consistent with one another. You don’t want any surprises.”

  “So if everything went according to plan, the court would, after serious consideration of all the facts in the case, adjudicate the prize.”

  “Yes, but remember that the physical ship would then be in evidence. Its rightful French owners, if they were ever located and made aware of your salvage case, could cause problems. That’s why after the court has rendered its decision in your favor, you should claim that the ship is leaky and in danger of foundering in the inlet.”

  “Making it a hazard to navigation.”

  “Precisely. The governor would then issue you legal instructions to tow the brigantine to a place out of the channel and burn it to the waterline.”

  “Thereby destroying the evidence of piracy.”

  “Yes.”

  Again, Thache was so exhausted from his journey that he had to suppress a yawn. But his physical exhaustion couldn’t conceal the fact that he was quite pleased with the discussion thus far. He had expected Knight to
be helpful and sympathetic, but not this helpful and sympathetic. The man was, quite clearly, a brilliant legal mind, and Thache had no doubt he would make a most formidable advocate or opponent in a courtroom.

  “And how are ye and the governor to be properly compensated for your expert legal advice in this matter and to offset your court costs?”

  “By law the Court of the Vice-Admiralty typically claims a fraction of the cargo, usually a fifth, to offset administrative costs. In this case, the tariff would be paid to the governor as the representative of the government. A percentage of the cargo payable in the casks of sugar ye took from the Rose Emelye would suffice.”

  “What about you? I would like to make sure that you are properly compensated for your expert services.”

  “Officially, His Majesty’s Customs does not require a payment. But as this is a case of salvage, a voluntary payment to me in the form of sugar would certainly not be refused for my expert counsel.”

  “I can deliver sixty barrels of sugar and cocoa to Governor Eden’s plantation house, and a further twenty barrels here to your home on your behalf.”

  “That sounds like a most reasonable payment for the services rendered by the court. But as you and I well know, even though the governor and I would fully be within our legal rights to handle the matter in this way, the perception of the citizens of North Carolina, specifically our political enemies among the wealthy planters and traders, would be that we both personally profited from your piratical activities and were now the unlawful owners of stolen property. I would also further presume that the rest of your French cargo would be sold in Bath Town, and the profits divided amongst you and your crew. After all, gentlemen of fortune have need of money as much as the next man.”