Blackbeard- The Birth of America

by Samuel Marquis

  “Mr. Howard will be moved to the public jail in Williamsburg, and a trial date will be set,” answered Spotswood.

  “Who will serve on the Vice-Admiralty Court?” asked Ludwell.

  “Captain Brand of the HMS Lyme, his colleague Captain Gordon of the Pearl, and John Holloway, I should imagine. They’re the ones who have sat on the court for the past year.”

  Ludwell scoffed. “You think that Brand and Gordon will serve in the trial if Holloway sits on the court? After all, the crafty lawyer just indicted them for wrongful imprisonment. I should think they would be smarting over the incident.”

  Spotswood realized his adversary was onto something; Brand and Gordon, two prideful by-the-book men, would most likely be unwilling to work together with the lawyer after what he had done to them. But he needed these esteemed and uncontestable representatives of the Admiralty in his show trial to ensure that the outcome would be ratified by the British government.

  “If Captains Brand and Gordon are unwilling to participate with Esquire Holloway, then I will have to ask the lawyer to recuse himself.”

  “Is that so?” said Ludwell. “You know in that case Howard will no doubt swing from the gallows. It won’t be a bloody trial—it will be an execution.”

  “To prevent any disturbance on the bench that might ensue upon their publicly excepting against Mr. Holloway, I will send him a civil message to desire him not to expose himself by appearing on the trial. He will have no option but to accede and I will secure replacement counsel for him.”

  “Yes, and William Howard will be left to fight for his life in court without the support of a lawyer. You know the man comes from a good North Carolina landholding family. And let’s not forget that he was pardoned by Governor Eden.”

  “Yes, but Mr. Howard is in violation of the terms of the pardon. He has to answer for his transgressions in a court of law.”

  “A rigged court, I say.”

  “No one said life is fair, Mr. Ludwell. Especially no one who has had to live in these lawless colonies and come under attack by these marauders of the high seas. Now I believe we have concluded our session, gentlemen, and it is in God’s hands now. If William Howard is tried and convicted as a pirate, then it was God’s will that it should be so. If not, then he will be found innocent of all charges.”

  Ludwell shook his head. “I’m just wondering who in this particular case God is, Alexander. A part of me can’t help but think it is you, the Lord of Virginia.”

  Spotswood gave a supercilious smile. “The Lord of Virginia. Why thank you, Philip—I must say I rather like the title.”

  CHAPTER 60

  VICE-ADMIRALTY COURT, CHARLES TOWN

  NOVEMBER 12, 1718

  AS VICE-ADMIRALTY JUDGE NICHOLAS TROTT—South Carolina’s chief justice—prepared to deliver the court’s final verdict, Stede Bonnet felt his leg shaking. His future looked bleak. The presiding judge and his panel of ten assistant justices had, during the past two weeks of a highly-public trial, found twenty-nine of the major’s thirty-three seamen guilty of piracy. Twenty-four of them had already been marched down to White Point, the southern tip of the city facing the Ashley River, and hanged in front of a large jeering crowd, leaving only Bonnet and five of his crew members to still face justice. Looking into Trott’s stern visage, Bonnet lamented that his courtroom defense had fallen on deaf ears. It would be the rope for him for certain. He shuddered at the thought of a public hanging and having his unconsecrated mortal remains dumped into an unmarked grave between the low- and high-tide lines of White’s Point, where his soul would roam restlessly for all eternity. It was too grim a fate to contemplate and one he had not anticipated when he had abandoned his family and first set sail from Barbados to go a-pirating.

  “Major Stede Bonnet,” began Trott, “you stand here convicted of two indictments of piracy—one by verdict of the jury, the other by your own confession. Although you were indicted but for two facts, you know that at your trial it was fully proved, even by an unwilling witness, that you piratically took and rifled through no less than thirteen vessels since you sailed from North Carolina. So that you might have been indicted and convicted of eleven more acts of piracy, since you took the benefit of the King’s Act of Grace, and pretended to leave that wicked course of life…”

  As Trott droned on with yet another one of his lengthy harangues on sin, repentance, and divine justice, the gentleman pirate couldn’t help but feel that he had wasted his entire life. His fateful decision to become a pirate had turned out to be a disaster for not only himself and his family, but for the twenty-nine men who had already been hung or were about to be shortly. He wished he could turn back the clock and start anew, but that was an impossible fantasy.

  “You know that the crimes you have committed are evil in themselves,” Trott railed on, “and contrary to the light and law of nature, as well as the law of God, by which you are commanded that you should not steal, Exodus 20:15. And the apostle St. Paul expressly affirms that thieves shall not inherit the kingdom of God, I Corinthians 6:10.”

  Here the judge paused and glared at the accused, and Bonnet couldn’t help but feel a sinking feeling in his stomach and a spinning sensation in his head. Suddenly, his handsome lace-trimmed clothes, velvet jacket, buckled black shoes, and periwig felt terribly constricting. God, could he use a jolt of rum or brandy right now to settle his jangled nerves. He felt Trott’s eyes burning right through him, and he couldn’t help but draw a mental image of Cotton Mather, the fiery New England preacher who, it was reported in the pirate community, had sanctimoniously browbeaten Black Sam Bellamy’s captured men to repent their sins and ask God’s forgiveness for their wicked, dissolute ways. The condemned men locked in a Boston jail cell had been unable to shut up the loquacious Puritan, who held Atlantic pirates and the witches of Salem in equal disdain.

  But in Bonnet’s view, the overbearing Trott was even worse. The unfortunate pirates hauled before the bar in the chief justice’s court had received little sympathy during the proceedings. It was obvious he detested pirates, considering them “enemies of God and humanity” who had endangered his city for far too long. For two weeks straight, he had delivered interminable orations and tedious religious discourses that reviewed the law on piracy since ancient times, drew moral homilies from the Bible, and characterized Bonnet and his crew as “brutes and beasts of prey.” He reminded the jury that South Carolina had long suffered from “the evil of piracy,” stressing how many of its finest men had gone to Cape Fear to rid the colony of pirates and paid with their lives “by the hands of those inhuman and murdering criminals,” and that “the blood of those murdered persons will cry for vengeance and justice against these offenders.” Convinced that Bonnet had slipped from religious doctrine, he urged him to seek repentance to save his soul and pay with his life by suffering “in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.” In this censorious atmosphere, it came as no surprise to Bonnet that the jury had returned a verdict of guilty for most of his crew and sentenced them to hang.

  “But to theft you have added a greater sin, which is murder. How many you may have killed of those that refitted you in the committing of your former piracies, I know not. But this we all know. That besides the wounded, you killed no less than eighteen persons out of those that went by lawful authority to suppress you, and to put a stop to those rapines that you daily acted…”

  He had a sudden urge to jump up from his courtroom seat and run away. But there was no escape, not a second time. In early October, when Colonel Rhett had delivered him and his crew to Charles Town as prisoners, Bonnet had been treated courteously, but he had taken advantage of that courtesy. He and two of his men that had been placed under arrest at the marshal’s home rather than the prison had escaped. Not wanting to stand trial and be handed the death penalty, they had set out northward in a small open boat. They had little food or water, the weather suddenly turned stormy, and the pair was forced to turn back to Sullivan’s Island. Here Rhett
captured Bonnet again, and this time the attitude of the authorities towards the pirate captain turned harsh. He had forfeited the sympathy many South Carolinians had previously held for him as a “gentleman,” and the escape attempt had only confirmed that he couldn’t be trusted.

  And now, he sat in Trott’s courtroom being charged with thirteen piracies and the murder of eighteen men in the battle at Cape Fear. His own men had testified to the ships he had taken and his crimes, a jury had found him guilty, and he was likely about to be sentenced to hang right along with them. It was a monumental stroke of misfortune in a piratical career filled with endless bad luck, and he couldn’t believe what a horrible pirate he had been. It was then that Trott leaned forward from his judge’s chair, wagged a bony finger at him, and proceeded to again shame the gentleman pirate for his corruption and remind him of his need for repentance.

  “You, Major Bonnet, being a gentleman that have had the advantage of a liberal education, and being generally esteemed a man of letters, I believe it will be needless for me to explain to you the nature of repentance and faith in Christ, they being so fully and so often mentioned in the Scriptures, that you cannot but know them. But that considering the course of your life and actions, I have just reason to fear that the principles of religion that had been instilled into you by your education, have been at least corrupted, if not entirely defaced, by the skepticism and infidelity of this wicked age; and that what time you allowed for study was rather applied to the polite literature, and the vain philosophy of the times, than a serious search after the law and will of God, as revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures…”

  Glancing around the room, he saw the assistant justices and several people in the crowd scowling at him, admonishing him for his wickedness, but there were also several women who looked at him tenderly and a pair of younger women who were openly crying. He politely nodded his head to them, wanting them to know that he appreciated their support. But these women were not going to keep him from the gallows.

  And yet, a part of him didn’t even want to live any longer. The truth was he had been deeply unhappy for most of his year and a half as a pirate, and during that time the adventure, excitement, and danger had never measured up to his imagination or expectations from reading Exquemelin, Dampier, and Rogers. The only time he had felt alive was when he and his crew took a prize or fought in battle—but even the three pitched battles he had fought had proved supremely costly to him and his men. As a man once favored with wealth, the company of the best society on Barbados, and the veneration of his friends, he now felt an overwhelming numbness at his own insignificance. What a waste his life had been.

  Now Trott wrapped up his speech with a harsh rhetorical flourish that made Bonnet feel as if he would most certainly go to hell.

  “And therefore having now discharged my duty to you as a Christian, by giving you the best counsel I can with respect to the salvation of your soul, I must now do my office as a judge.”

  Here he paused and a hushed silence fell over the courtroom. Bonnet couldn’t help but feel embarrassed and angry at the humiliating dressing down and morality lesson he had received from the bombastic judge. And yet, a part of him wondered if it might be possible to avoid the hangman’s noose. Perhaps Judge Trott’s stern lecture was a warning and the sanctimonious martinet was going to allow him to go free. For a fleeting instant, he allowed himself the fantasy that he would be pardoned, as Governor Eden had done.

  But then he heard the chilling words as the judge pronounced the age-old ritual sentence.

  “The sentence that the law hath appointed to pass upon you for your offenses, and which the court doth therefore award, is that you, the said Stede Bonnet, shall go from hence to the place from whence you came, and from thence to the place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck till you are dead. And the God of infinite mercy be merciful to your soul.”

  The courtroom gave an audible gasp and several young women began to cry. Though he had expected and prepared himself mentally for such an outcome, he was still taken aback. He felt his whole body stiffen as the doomed reality of his situation struck him like a hammer blow.

  Tomorrow or soon thereafter, he would wear the hangman’s hempen halter, swing from the gallows on White Point, and be buried unceremoniously between the low- and high-water marks, accompanied by the last few pitiful members of his crew. It would be a dreadful, unchristianly way to meet his Maker and little Allamby up in heaven would be ashamed.

  Utterly ashamed.

  CHAPTER 61

  CAPITOL AND GOVERNOR’S PALACE

  WILLIAMSBURG

  NOVEMBER 12, 1718

  AS WILLIAM HOWARD was removed from the courtroom in chains, Spotswood smiled inwardly. The judge had just passed sentence and Thache’s former quartermaster was to be hung from the neck until dead for his acts of piracy, which meant that Spotswood’s plan was coming off to perfection. Now that Howard’s testimony was transcribed into the court records, the governor had a clear picture of what Blackbeard was up to, where he spent his time, and how he was definitely not eligible for His Majesty’s most gracious pardon and had merely bought the protection of the senior-most officials in North Carolina. Now it was time to act on his newly acquired intelligence and aggressively hunt down the pirate.

  He now had the confidence that he could—if not legally then at least semi-officially—enter his neighboring colony, apprehend Thache and his gang of misfits, and haul them in shackles to Virginia to be put on trial. Though not a legal action in the strict sense, he knew without question that Thache and his crew were not eligible for the King’s pardon due to piracies committed after the January 5 grace period, and he had the precedent of Governor Johnson in the apprehension and trial of Stede Bonnet and his recently condemned crew. With Howard’s incriminating testimony now a part of the official records, convictions for Blackbeard and his remaining crew members dividing their time between Ocracoke and Bath Town would be virtually guaranteed.

  With the attorney general of Virginia and two naval dignitaries sitting as judges, there had never been any doubt as to the outcome of the trial. John Clayton, the colony’s attorney general whom Spotswood had chosen to replace John Holloway, and Captains Ellis Brand and George Gordon, the commanders of the two British men-of-war stationed in Chesapeake Bay, had performed their roles to perfection by simultaneously sealing Howard’s fate and paving the way for an invasion of North Carolina in pursuit of the notorious Blackbeard. And now, with the courtroom proceedings complete and the verdict of death by hanging rendered, he could now meet with the Royal Navy officers without raising suspicions, as both were in Williamsburg on routine business to serve as officers of the court.

  While William Howard was being unceremoniously shoved back into Williamsburg’s tidy brick gaol, Spotswood escorted Brand and Gordon the four blocks from the resplendent H-shaped Capitol, through the market square, and down the Palace Green to the Governor’s Palace. Once seated in one of the second floor’s opulent meeting rooms, Spotswood pulled out a large map of continental North Carolina and its Outer Banks. He then laid out his plan before the two naval officers to invade the neighboring colony to the south and capture both the pirate and his treasure. The gentlemanly Brand and Gordon looked immaculate in their blue dress uniforms, periwigs, silk stockings, and silver-buckled shoes, their sheathed dress swords dangling from their sides with the proper hint of bellicosity.

  “What I envision, gentlemen, is a two-pronged assault to apprehend Blackbeard—or kill him, if he is foolish enough to offer resistance. Because we are unsure whether he and his crew are presently in Bath Town or on the island of Ocracoke, we will need to launch a surprise attack at both locations. To accomplish this, I propose that one contingent takes an overland route to Bath, while the other contingent sails to Ocracoke to confront the pirates and ensure that they do not escape into the Atlantic, should they be there instead.” Spotswood then indicated the two routes—one by land, the other by sea—by tracing his
index finger along the map on the conference table. “The Bath contingent will be supported by Mr. Moseley and his gentlemen friends of North Carolina. They are intimately familiar with the territory to the south. Now this plan is only preliminary and the actual details will have to be worked out here today and in the coming days. But we must not delay or else the pirates might be alerted to our intentions by their loyalists here in Virginia and in the Carolinas.

  “The plan must also be executed under a cloak of secrecy, so we cannot tell anyone of our intentions except those who must, by necessity, be in the know and are firmly loyal to the operation. I have not informed my governing Council or the House of Burgesses of my intentions, nor am I planning to, and I am certainly not going to air the matter with Governor Eden. The pirates are simply too popular and their many favorers in these parts, including several men on my own Council, might send intelligence to Thache. So what do you say, gentlemen? Are you willing to throw in with the Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia and rid our colonies, once and for all, of these villains that infest our peaceful waters?”

  Brand, the senior officer and Gordon’s direct superior, spoke up without equivocation. “It would be an honor, Governor, to take the fight to this nest of vipers. In fact, I sayeth it’s high time. So count me and my men in. I promise we won’t let you down and will do the colonies of Virginia and North Carolina and His Majesty King George honor. I also agree that a two-pronged attack to flesh out the pirates is the best approach given the present situation.”

  “I wholeheartedly agree and am fully on board as well, Governor,” said Captain Gordon. “We have wanted to take a crack at these rogues for quite some time and I know our men look forward to the opportunity.”