Spotswood gave his most ebullient smile. “That’s what I like to hear, gentlemen. Now let’s get to the details. I presume, Captain Brand, that as the senior naval officer in these waters ye would be in overall command of the operation?”
“That is correct, Governor. I will also lead one of the contingents.”
“And who shall lead the other?”
“It will be Captain Gordon here”—he motioned to his Royal Navy colleague to his right—“or perhaps his subordinate Lieutenant Maynard, depending on potential threats along the coast as the date of embarkation approaches.”
“I would like you to set out by the end of the week.”
Brand made eye contact with Gordon. “I don’t see that as a problem. But what is going to be a problem is a matter that you and I have discussed previously.”
“And what is that, Captain?”
“The fact that the Lyme and the Pearl are both far too large to negotiate the dangerous shoalwaters of North Carolina’s rivers and sounds inside of the barrier islands. I’ve consulted the charts for Pamlico Sound and can tell you without equivocation that both vessels will be useless in the coming campaign against Blackbeard and his pirates. The Lyme is a good deal smaller and substantially lighter than the Pearl, displacing three hundred eighty-four tons, but she still draws ten and a half feet of water. And the Pearl…well, she’s out of the question. She’s nearly ninety-eight feet long, displaces over five hundred thirty tons, and draws thirteen and a half feet of water from the waterline to the bottom of her keel. The draught of both vessels is too great to pass over the coastal sandbars that link together the islands of the Outer Banks.”
“Then I will charter, at my own expense, a pair of nimble sloops of much shallower draught that will meet your specifications—once you have again consulted your charts, of course. The rented vessels will be placed at your disposal.”
The two officers looked at one another again, this time with raised brows. “You’re willing to outfit a pair of sloops at your own expense to catch Blackbeard and his crew?” asked Brand.
You don’t know the half of it, he thought. I would give my left arm to see this sea robber and his motley crew swing from the gallows. I despise the man and everything he represents. “Put it this way, gentlemen. I will do whatever it takes to see that the job is properly done. If we don’t put a stop to Blackbeard and his gang of miscreants now, then we will only have ourselves to blame when the Outer Banks are turned into an armed pirate fortress, a new Madagascar or Nassau.”
“Very well, Captain Gordon and I agree to man, arm, and supply the sloops procured by yourself and place them under our command. I take it that meets with your approval, Captain.”
“Yes, absolutely,” said Gordon.
“I can also offer you and your men an extra incentive,” said Spotswood. “Since this will be a dangerous mission into enemy territory, so to speak, I believe you and your crews should be given appropriate compensation.”
Brand gave a chivalrous smile. “You’ll get no argument from Captain Gordon and myself on that score,” he said. “What are ye prepared to offer?”
“In addition to the possibility of claiming some of Blackbeard’s treasure, I am prepared to offer you a special bounty for the capture or killing of the pirate and his crew members.”
“A special bounty?”
“Yes, as an added incentive to the crews of the two sloops, I will see to it that the Colony of Virginia pays a bounty for the pirates, dead or alive. Consider it a variation on the established naval policy of paying out money for captured vessels. I have a draft copy of what I propose right here.” He reached into his foldover leather satchel, withdrew a piece of foolscap, and handed it to Brand. “I have prepared this Act to Encourage the Apprehending and Destroying of Pirates. I will submit the proclamation tomorrow and have it ratified by the legislature. It refers to information elicited at the recent trial of Howard, emphasizing that the pirates threaten revenge on the shipping of this colony for the death sentence of the quartermaster and that it is for these reasons the governor and Council think it absolutely necessary that some speedy and effectual measures be taken for breaking the knot of robbers prowling our local waters. As you can see, the reward amounts you and your men would receive for your services are listed in the draft proclamation.”
The naval captain read the proposed proclamation aloud. “‘For Edward Thache, commonly called Captain Thache, or Blackbeard, one hundred pounds. For every other commander of a pirate ship, sloop, or vessel, forty pounds; for every lieutenant, master or quartermaster, bosun, or carpenter, twenty pounds; for every other inferior officer, fifteen pounds, and for every private man taken on board such ship. sloop, or vessel, ten pounds.’”
“I’m liking this plan more and more as we speak,” said Brand, a gleam of avarice in his eyes.
“Aye, it’s good to know that if we catch the pirates, we will be properly rewarded for our efforts,” agreed Captain Gordon.
Spotswood concurred with a vigorous nod. “Yes well, if it all goes according to plan, the endeavor will prove not only patriotic but profitable for all of us as well as the Crown.”
“And if it doesn’t go according to plan?” asked Gordon.
“I don’t want to even contemplate that prospect, gentlemen. As you well know, there is no margin for error here. Together, we will either be saviors or laughingstocks in the eyes of our countrymen and history. I, gentlemen, do not intend for us to be the latter.”
The room went tensely silent. “Don’t worry, Governor,” said Brand after several anxious seconds had passed. “We won’t let you down.”
“No, gentlemen, you must not let the Crown down.”
And with that he sent them on their way to make their preparations.
CHAPTER 62
GOVERNOR’S PALACE
WILLIAMSBURG
NOVEMBER 12, 1718
THREE MINUTES LATER, he stood at the window watching the two naval officers walking across the Palace Green, their dress swords swinging at their sides. His plan was falling perfectly into place. But contrary to what he had said to Brand and Gordon, he knew there would be plenty of obstacles ahead. For his plan was not merely to destroy Blackbeard; he had to also topple his political nemesis Governor Eden along with Tobias Knight.
He knew perfectly well that, despite the veneer of legitimacy afforded him by the trial of William Howard and by Governor Johnson’s actions, his plan was still patently illegal. After all, neither he nor his newly recruited naval officers had the authority to invade another colony. And as he had noted to Brand and Moseley, Blackbeard was, legally speaking, a citizen who had broken no laws and was in good standing. He had been pardoned by Governor Eden for his previous piracies, had applied for and received legal approval to salvage the French vessel captured near Bermuda from that same governor, and he had yet to be indicted for any crime. Spotswood knew he was essentially seeking to kidnap the resident of one colony and transport him to another to face legal action. But he was not bothered by the overt illegality of his scheme. He had already made up in his mind a month ago that he was going to go after Thache without reservation, by taking action first and seeking approval from the Board of Trade and lords proprietors later. He wanted the notorious Blackbeard—and Governor Eden too—so badly that he could taste it.
The most important thing he had going for him was precedent, though it was not precedent of a legal nature. Other colonial governors had taken aggressive action against pirates without being granted specific authority from the Board of Trade or Admiralty to do so—and they had not been accused of wrongdoing. Indeed, the most recent example had taken place in North Carolina itself. South Carolina’s governor had taken matters into his own hands by sending out Colonel Rhett’s anti-piracy patrol from Charles Town that had cornered and captured Stede Bonnet and his crew in the Cape Fear River. Then there was Governor Keith of Pennsylvania. The threat posed by the Atlantic rogues was considered serious enough that he had fitted o
ut two sloops, commanded by Captains Raymond and Taylor, to patrol the waters off the Delaware Capes, in the hope of intercepting either Vane, Bonnet, or Blackbeard. And finally there was Woodes Rogers. With the backing of powerful British warships, he was currently extirpating New Providence and every other island of the Bahamas of the nest of vermin, thereby destroying the pirates’ base once and for all. In extremis, Spotswood knew he could always maintain that he was only following the example of these three colonial governors.
True, he was taking advantage of Governor Eden and his weak colony, but he didn’t care. If Eden lacked the teeth to arrest or eliminate sea bandits within his own borders, then Spotswood would do the job for him. He had no respect or patience for the governor or his fledgling proprietary dominion. He viewed such colonies run by titled men of wealth in London as inferior to Crown colonies run on behalf of the monarchy, like Virginia, and he hoped his actions would expose the ineffectiveness and moral turpitude of the Carolinian proprietary system. But what truly nettled him most of all was that his counterpart to the south didn’t merely seem to tolerate the pirates, he appeared to actively support them in their endeavors and even socialize with them.
Spotswood could never see himself receiving a share of the plunder from a pirate, and he couldn’t understand how Eden, a wealthy British loyalist from a prestigious family, could debase himself by associating with pirates. He himself would never consider striking a deal with such outlaws, pardoned or not, and he certainly would never provide a pirate with a safe haven close to his colony’s main township. After all, pirates were the morally corrupt villains of all nations, men who belonged to no country and, therefore, had no real rights under the law. Proprietary governments could not be trusted to offer legitimate pardon to these rogues, who must be continually watched lest they return to their wicked ways as soon as their money was spent.
He knew his plan to invade North Carolina using the threat of violence went far beyond the official authority vested in him when he first assumed office on behalf of the earl of Orkney. But he was on a mission to destroy two men—Blackbeard and Eden—and in his mind legal niceties did not apply to cutthroats and their supporters. More importantly, if things went according to plan, his political stock would rise and he would be given a clean slate with his Council and the House of Burgesses. The law clearly stated that he could only intervene in the affairs of another colony in case of distress to its plantations and only through the written approval of the governor of the affected colony. Eden, of course, had made no such request, but Spotswood didn’t care. He was willing to take the gamble based on the precedents set by Governors Johnson, Keith, and Woodes Rogers and based upon what he viewed as Eden’s complicity and corruption with Blackbeard.
He knew that he would not only be meddling in the affairs of another colony, but would be doing so using military force, which Eden and the lords proprietor would view as tantamount to invasion. But again, he did not care because all he cared about was the end, not the means with which he arrived there. The news of Colonel Rhett and his men hunting down previously pardoned but recidivist pirates across the South Carolina border into their northern neighbor and engaging them in a bloody and decisive battle consumed his imagination. The truth was he was bitterly disappointed he had not been the first governor to authorize such a heroic and righteous punitive expedition against the pirates.
Ludwell was right about his motives. He was using an outside threat and the prospect of military force to distract the Virginia people and his political opponents from his much-criticized policies and to personally profit. He also knew that by inserting himself into North Carolina’s affairs, he was taking grave risk. Only if Blackbeard and his pirates were caught or killed could he achieve victory. While his actions would no doubt be condemned by Eden and some of his superiors in London, with success even his detractors would have to concede that he had eliminated the nearby pirate threat and that Eden couldn’t keep his own house in order. That, in turn, would enhance the possibility of a Virginian takeover, which was Spotswood’s foremost priority. Since taking his oath as governor, he had been eager to extend his control and influence over Virginia’s southern border, which he had never considered to be far enough south. In fact, he had long secretly harbored plans to annex North Carolina and fold it into Virginia—an event that would dramatically increase his power and make him an even richer man under the Crown.
Ultimately, Spotswood knew he had little to lose and much to gain from his scheme against Blackbeard and his fellow pirates—unless it somehow all went to hell. Failure meant he would play straight into the hands of his adversaries in the Governor’s Council and House of Burgesses, and the calls for his removal would be impossible for Governor George Hamilton, the earl of Orkney, and the Board of Trade to ignore.
His Achilles’ heel was the whole legal question. Taking steps to apprehend Blackbeard was one thing, but what would happen when Brand and his naval force actually caught the pirate? Most likely, the rogue would be arrested on North Carolina soil or on the high seas, and then transported back to Williamsburg in chains to stand trial. All Spotswood needed was another colonial rabble-rouser like William Howard’s lawyer John Holloway for his whole anti-piracy crusade to be exposed for what it really was: a distraction, and a highly illegal one at that, to disguise his own culture of corruption and profiteering nurtured during his eight years of oversight of the colony on behalf of the in-absentia Hamilton. Without the permission of His Majesty allowing him to conduct pirate trials within the jurisdiction of Virginia, he was vulnerable to attack from his political enemies at home and Byrd in London for overstepping his charter. His one advantage was that he was Virginia’s Vice-Admiralty representative, which would allow him to control the legal process. Unlike in normal court cases, there was no requirement for proceedings heard under British naval law to be put to trial by jury. As the Admiralty’s representative, Spotswood could, therefore, manipulate the trial to his advantage by selecting the venue and panel that would sit on the Vice-Admiralty Court, which would allow him to stage-manage the proceedings as he had when he had stacked the case against William Howard.
But he could worry about the legal consequences of his actions further down the road. The first step was to engage Blackbeard and capture or kill the rogue along with his crew. For Captain Ellis Brand and the British Royal Navy, it would be an expedition fraught with peril. But the prospect of success was intoxicating. Spotswood was only too aware of what the heroes of Charles Town, Governor Johnson and Colonel William Rhett, had accomplished by engaging and capturing Bonnet two months earlier. Such a coup had been accomplished once—and it could be done again. But more importantly, the government of North Carolina had lodged no backlash of protest against Johnson for invading his neighboring colony in September.
And yet, Spotswood couldn’t help but feel that, even if the plan was successful and Thache and his crew were vanquished, he would come under heavy fire from many quarters for his decision to invade North Carolina. That’s why to justify his interceding in its affairs, he had to prove that his aggressive actions were necessary to protect the Crown’s interests. That meant proving that Eden was a criminal who had knowingly received stolen goods from the pirates as payment in return for ignoring their illicit activities. But Spotswood was not prepared to challenge Eden to his face, or to accuse him of impropriety without unimpeachable proof. That was the problem: he knew that such proof would be hard to come by. In fact, he could only hope that by the time Blackbeard and his crew were captured or killed, hard evidence would emerge demonstrating collusion between the pirate and Eden, as his fellow conspirator Edward Moseley, who was equally desperate to bring down Eden, had told him there would be. What he and Moseley were banking on was that there would be incriminating documents linking the Eden administration to Blackbeard. At the same time, Spotswood knew that once he interceded in the affairs of Eden and his neighboring colony, he would lay himself open to countercharges of irresponsibly overstepping
his legal mandate as the governor of Virginia.
All the same, the game was afoot and there was no turning back now. He was not a man to be trifled with and his mind was made up. He would eliminate the nest of vipers at Bath Town or Ocracoke, or in the Pamlico Sound in between, thereby ending the threat posed by Blackbeard once and for all. And in the process, he would expose Governor Eden and his North Carolina minions as complicit in piracy, demonstrating that they were an embarrassment and disloyal to the Crown. And when it was all over and done and the smoke had cleared, he would emerge victorious and be a part of history.
Just like the noble English knights of old.
CHAPTER 63
KIQUOTAN ROADS, VIRGINIA
NOVEMBER 17, 1718
AT 15:02 HOURS, First Lieutenant Robert Maynard, first officer of the warship HMS Pearl, swept his glass over the languid, murky tidewaters of the James River. With his survey complete, he gave orders to raise anchor and get his designated flagship Jane and its consort sloop Ranger under way. The two shallow-draught civilian vessels had been hired out by Governor Spotswood to hunt down Blackbeard. At Maynard’s command, seamen’s voices were raised, lines yanked free, and sails hoisted. The cream-colored sheets of canvas flapped in the squally Virginia breeze as the two trading vessels now refitted for war took to the wind like spry colts and navigated downriver towards Chesapeake Bay. For colors, the vessels flew the British Royal Naval ensign, a field of red with the Union Jack in the upper left corner, at the stern; a commission pendant on the single mast; and a Union flag on the bowsprit’s jackstaff.
The lieutenant stood on the quarterdeck of the Jane, his first-mate and other key officers at his side. He wore a blue coat with brass buttons, gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight, and a modicum of gold braid trimming his sleeves. The oldest officer on station in the American colonies at the age of thirty-four, the Royal Navy veteran was anxious to distinguish himself in action against the notorious pirate and thereby gain himself his coveted captaincy. But he was also anxious for the chance to seize pirate treasure and the reward of one hundred pounds being offered by the governor for the pirate’s head, as well as the various lesser sums for Blackbeard’s subordinate officers and crew members. The capture of Edward Thache and his freebooters offered him a chance to make his own mark upon history and garner some much-needed income to supplement the meager pay granted him by his parsimonious king.
Blackbeard- The Birth of America Page 47
