Pirate Hunter of the Caribbean

by David Cordingly

  Charles Vane continued to pose a threat. Following his hasty departure from Nassau he had roved around the Bahamas. He had captured two sloops and a brigantine and then headed for South Carolina. According to the Boston News-Letter he had taken eight vessels off the Carolina coast while in command of a brigantine of 12 guns and ninety men.12 He was accompanied by Charles Yeats, who was in a large sloop of 8 guns with a crew of twenty men, but Yeats had then deserted him and sent a message to the Governor of South Carolina that he and his crew wished to surrender and take advantage of the King’s Pardon, ‘which being granted, they all came up and received certificates’.13

  On 30 August the large merchant ship Neptune and three other vessels set sail from Carolina bound for London. What happened next was recorded in a long and complicated deposition which John King, the commander of the Neptune, swore before Rogers several months later.14 Four hours out from the American coast the merchant vessels were intercepted by Vane’s brigantine, which came alongside Captain King’s Neptune ‘with a black flag flying, and after having fired several guns, demanded him to strike’.15 Vane put prize crews on board each of the merchantmen and led them to Green Turtle Key. There the pirates careened the brigantine and proceeded to plunder their prizes. The arrival of a sloop with bad news from New Providence prompted the pirates to maroon and attempt to destroy the Neptune by cutting away her masts and rigging and then firing a gun down into her hold.

  Meanwhile Hornigold and Cockram had located Vane but had decided that he was too powerful for them to risk an attack. They kept him under observation and when he sailed away they put in an appearance. They told King that they would go back to New Providence and return with more sloops so that they could recover his cargo. Eventually King and his ship and most of his cargo were rescued and brought into Nassau. It was around this time that Vane sent word to Rogers that he intended to visit him and burn his guardship in revenge for the Governor having sent two sloops after him.

  This was his final act of defiance. In November his refusal to attack a French warship led his crew to vote him out of his command. John Rackam, his quartermaster, replaced him as commander of the brigantine and sailed away, leaving Vane in a sloop with the remnants of his crew. In the winter or early spring of 1719 Vane ran into a storm and was shipwrecked on a deserted island off the Bay of Honduras. He was later captured, and was hanged in Jamaica.16

  Rogers had heard nothing from Hornigold for three weeks. ‘I was afraid he was either taken by Vane or [had] begun his old practice of pirating again which was the general opinion here in his absence.’17 He was therefore delighted when Hornigold returned, bringing with him the sloop which had been trading with Vane at Green Turtle Key. A few weeks later Rogers despatched Hornigold and Cockram on another pirate-hunting expedition and this time they intercepted a pirate sloop off the coast of Exuma, which lay to the south of Nassau. A brief fight took place in which three of the pirates were killed but the remaining ten men were brought back to Nassau and delivered up to the Governor. On 24 December 1718 Rogers despatched the first of his letters to James Craggs the Younger, who was Secretary of State for the South and his main contact in London. In his letter he expressed his full confidence in the behaviour of the two reformed pirate captains. In particular, ‘I am glad of this new proof Capt Hornigold had given the world to wipe off the infamous name he has hitherto been known by, though in the very acts of piracy he committed most people speak well of his generosity.’18

  The pirates captured by Hornigold presented Rogers with some problems. The first was to find a suitable place to confine the prisoners because there was no jail on the island and a shortage of soldiers to guard them. This problem was addressed by imprisoning them on board the guardship Delicia out in the harbour. A more serious problem was that Rogers did not believe he had the legal powers to order a trial for piracy. There was also a danger that ‘should any fear be shewn on our part, it might animate several now here, to invite the pirates without to attempt a rescue of these in custody’. Given the number of former pirates around, as well as those who had rejected the royal pardon and were on ships in the vicinity, there was every likelihood that they might combine together to mount a rescue attempt. Rogers was also aware that if he diverted too many soldiers or sailors to act as guards the all-important work on the fortifications would be jeopardised.

  A private meeting of Rogers’ senior officers and legal advisers on 28 November 1718 noted that the Government of Carolina had recently executed twenty-two pirates, and decided that Rogers’ instructions and directions as Governor, Captain-General and Vice-Admiral did give him the authority to order a trial. The meeting reached the conclusion that ‘We are entirely of opinion his Majesty will approve of the necessity for the Governor’s judicial proceeding with these pirates, by a trial in the best manner we can according to law; and do verily believe the speediest execution for those who shall be found guilty, will conduce most to the welfare of this Government.’19 The stage was set for an event of high drama which would have repercussions across the Caribbean.

  10

  Hanged on the Waterfront

  The trial of the ten men accused of mutiny and piracy took place on Tuesday 9 and Wednesday 10 December 1718 at a special Admiralty Sessions sitting in accordance with an Act of Parliament which had been passed in 1700.1 Before that date all pirates captured in the British colonies had had to be sent back to London to be tried under the jurisdiction of the High Court of Admiralty. If found guilty the pirates were hanged at Execution Dock on the Thames waterfront near the Tower of London. The ‘Act for the More Effectual Suppression of Piracy’ ended the requirement to send the accused men back to England and enabled Admiralty Courts to be held overseas. These courts were usually presided over by the colonial governor sitting with a judge and six or seven local merchants, planters or the captains, lieutenants or warrant officers of British warships in the vicinity. They had the authority to impose the death sentence. There had been very few pirate trials in the colonies during the War of the Spanish Succession but from 1717 a number of pirate trials were held at Boston, Massachusetts; Charleston, South Carolina; James Town, Jamaica; Newport, Rhode Island; and Williamsburg, Virginia. It was usual for the pirates to be hanged on the waterfront and the dead bodies of the more notorious pirates were displayed on gibbets set up at a harbour entrance as a warning to sailors.

  Woodes Rogers presided over the trial at Nassau and was assisted by William Fairfax, who acted as Judge of the Admiralty, and by six others, including Robert Beauchamp, Thomas Walker and Captain Wingate Gale, the commander of the Delicia. The setting of the trial was grandly described as ‘his Majesty’s Guard-Room in the City of Nassau’. We know from a later description that the guard room was a simple timber building which had been erected within the walls of the fort. It had been built on the orders of Rogers soon after his arrival. It measured thirty-six feet in length and was nineteen feet wide and sixteen feet high. It cannot have been a very solid structure because it was totally demolished in a hurricane in 1729.2

  The ten accused men were brought into the room and ordered to stand at the bar while the lengthy accusation against them was read out. They were aged between eighteen and forty-five and were a mixed bunch of seamen. The oldest of them, William Cunningham, had been a gunner with Blackbeard. William Lewis, aged thirty-four, was a former prizefighter. Thomas Morris, twenty-two, was described as an incorrigible youth. He would prove defiant and unrepentant to the end.

  The formal accusation against the men was couched in such tortuous legal language that it must have been almost incomprehensible to them. The most serious charge was that most of them had ‘lately received the benefit of his Majesty’s most gracious pardon, for your former offences and acts of robbery and piracy’ but, ‘not having the fear of God before your eyes, nor any regard to your oaths of allegiance to your Sovereign, nor to the performance of loyalty, truth and justice; but being instigated and deluded by the Devil’, had been persuaded ‘to retur
n to your former unlawful evil courses of robbery and piracy’.3 This preamble was followed by a detailed description of their offences. In brief they were accused of mutiny on board three vessels at anchor at Green Key; they had combined together to rob the cargoes of the vessels and had sailed away with one of the vessels; and they had marooned five men on Green Key, a deserted island seventy miles south of New Providence. On being asked how they intended to plea, all of them pleaded not guilty. The witnesses for the prosecution included all five of the men who had been marooned, with the addition of Captain Greenaway, the commander of one of the vessels, who provided the clearest description of what had taken place.

  According to Greenaway, the schooner Batchelor’s Adventure and the sloops Mary and Lancaster were anchored at Green Key on 6 October when the mutiny took place. Greenaway had rowed across to the schooner to inform her commander that he intended to sail that night. He had been confronted by Phineas Bunce, who had ordered him down into the cabin and told him he was a prisoner. Dennis Macarty then ‘presented a pistol at this deponent’s breast, and told him if he spoke a word he was a dead man’.4 Bunce, the leader of the mutiny (subsequently killed when the mutineers were intercepted by Hornigold), told Greenaway that most of the crew of the Mary were on his side and he was taking command of the vessel. Five of the sailors refused to join Bunce and they were put ashore on Green Key. Greenaway was not marooned with them because the mutineers thought that because he was a Bermudian he would be able to swim back to one of the anchored vessels. He was therefore made a prisoner while they plundered his vessel. As they sailed away they warned Greenaway that he must remain where he was for twenty-four hours. Greenaway ignored this direction and set sail for New Providence the next morning. He was sighted by the pirates, who took him back to Green Key and cut away the mast of his vessel and scuttled it. While they were doing this Greenaway escaped and hid on the island until the pirates departed.

  The other witnesses provided additional information. During the mutiny Bunce had demanded and drunk two bottles of beer and had struck a man with his cutlass. And John Hipps, Captain Greenaway’s boatswain (and now one of the prisoners at the bar), had been forced to join the pirates by threats that he would otherwise be beaten and marooned on a deserted island. After hearing all the evidence the court adjourned for lunch. At 3 p.m. the trial continued and the afternoon was devoted to hearing the defence of the prisoners. A number of witnesses spoke in favour of Hipps and confirmed that he had been compelled to join the pirates and that he intended to desert them at the first opportunity. The other prisoners could offer little or nothing in their defence. Macarty had been heard to say that ‘he was sorry for his unadvisedness, which might bring great troubles on his poor wife, having a small child’.5

  The court assembled at ten o’clock the next morning. The prisoners were brought in and each was asked if he had anything further to say in his defence. Hipps again produced witnesses to speak in his favour, but the eighteen-year-old George Bendall had been heard to say that he wished he had become a pirate sooner because he thought it a pleasant life. The evidence for and against the prisoners was then debated and considered. All except Hipps were unanimously found guilty. It was agreed that judgement on Hipps should be delayed till the following week. The remaining nine prisoners were then informed that they had been found guilty of mutiny, felony and piracy. Their names were read out and the awful words of the death sentence were pronounced. They were to be ‘carried to prison from whence you came, and from thence to the place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck till you are dead, dead, dead; and God have mercy on your souls’.6 Rogers, as president of the court, announced that their execution would take place in two days’ time at 10 a.m.

  Early on the morning of 12 December each of the pirates was asked if he had anything to confess which might be a ‘load upon their spirits’ but none of them had anything to declare. At ten o’clock they were released from their irons. The Provost Marshal pinioned their hands and ordered the guards to take them up to the ramparts of the fort, which looked out across the harbour and the sea beyond. In the presence of about 100 soldiers and supporters of the Governor a service was held with prayers and psalms selected at the prisoners’ request. When the service was finished the pirates were taken down a ladder to the ground at the foot of the walls, where a gallows had been erected. A black flag had been hoisted above the gallows and below was a temporary stage resting on three large barrels. The condemned men climbed another ladder to get on the stage and the hangman fastened a noose around each man’s neck. Three-quarters of an hour passed while some more psalms were sung and the men were allowed to take a final drink and say any last words. John Augur, aged forty, who had spent many years in command of vessels at Jamaica, appeared extremely penitent. He was unwashed, unshaven and wearing his old clothes. He had been given a small glass of wine on the ramparts which he drank ‘with wishes for the good success of the Bahama Islands and the Governor’.

  William Golding and William Ling also behaved in a penitent manner and George Bendall was sullen. By contrast the 28-year-old Dennis Macarty had changed his clothes and wore long blue ribbons at his wrists, knees and on his cap in the manner of a prizefighter. He appeared cheerful and defiant. Up on the ramparts he had declared that there was a time when the many brave fellows on the island would not have allowed him to die like a dog ‘and at the same time pulled off his shoes, kicking them over the parapet of the fort, saying he had promised not to die with his shoes on’.7 Three of the others were equally defiant. Thomas Morris, aged twenty-two, wore ribbons like Macarty but in his case they were red ribbons. ‘We have a new governor,’ he said, ‘but a harsh one.’ And he wished that he had been a greater plague to the islands than he had been. William Lewis, thirty-four, who had actually been a prizefighter, appeared unconcerned about his imminent death and asked for liquor to drink with his sufferers on the stage and with the onlookers. William Dowling, twenty-four, who was reputed to have lived a wicked life and spent much time among the pirates, had confessed that he had murdered his mother before he left Ireland. His behaviour on the stage was described as ‘very loose’.

  At the last moment, just as the condemned men were expecting the order for the hanging to be given, Rogers asked for young George Rounseval to be untied and led off the stage. He was the son of ‘loyal and good parents at Weymouth in Dorsetshire’, and Rogers, who had been born and raised in that county, must have felt some sympathy for him.8 He later wrote on his behalf to London in the hope that the royal pardon could be extended to him. As soon as Rounseval was clear of the gallows the barrels holding up the stage were hauled away, ‘upon which, the stage fell, and the prisoners were suspended’.

  The hangings at Nassau have become one of the best-known and most often quoted events in the history of the pirates of this period.9 This is partly because full details of the trial and execution of these pirates have been preserved, but also because it was one of the landmarks in the British Government’s campaign against piracy. It marked the end of Nassau and the island of New Providence as a base for the pirates and it was a clear signal to the hundreds of pirates still operating in the Caribbean that the Bahamas were no longer a free zone for piracy. Rogers still had many setbacks and misfortunes ahead of him but the pirates were no longer a major problem. It would be for other colonial governors and the Royal Navy to track down and bring to trial the pirates who had dispersed. Some had headed south to the Windward Passage and the eastern Caribbean, some to the east coast of North America and a few to the west coast of Africa.

  Three weeks before the hangings at Nassau another key event in the campaign against the pirates had taken place among the mudbanks and shallows of Ocracoke Inlet off North Carolina. This was the death of Blackbeard. His career as a pirate leader had lasted no more than two years and yet in that time he had established a reputation which eclipsed those of all other pirates of his day. His exploits were reported in the newspapers and subsequently inspire
d eighteenth- and nineteenth-century plays and melodramas and later several Hollywood movies.10 He continues to be the subject of books and documentary films, the interest in him no doubt boosted by the discovery in 1996 of the remains of a ship which is almost certainly the Queen Anne’s Revenge. Unlike with pirates such as Charles Vane, Edward Low and Bartholomew Roberts, there is no evidence to show that Blackbeard or his crew killed or wounded anyone during their attacks on shipping, nor is there any record of his torturing his victims. His fame seems to have been largely due to the violent and dramatic circumstances of his death and the vivid account of his brief life and ferocious appearance which appears in Captain Johnson’s General History of the Pyrates. We know from several sources that Blackbeard had a long black beard but it is Johnson who supplies the other memorable details about him. According to Johnson, he would go into battle with three brace of pistols hanging in holsters from a sling round his shoulders and would stick lighted matches under his hat ‘which appearing on each side of his face, his eyes naturally looking fierce and wild, made him altogether such a figure, that imagination cannot form an idea of a fury from hell to look more frightful’.11

  It is Johnson who tells us that Blackbeard married a young girl of sixteen, this being his fourteenth wife, and that after he had lain with her at night it was his custom to force her to prostitute herself with five or six of his crew while he watched. And Johnson also has the story of Blackbeard drinking one night with Israel Hands and two others in his cabin. Unobserved by them, he draws and cocks two pistols under the table, blows out the candle, crosses his hands and fires, shooting Israel Hands through the knee. When asked why he did this his only answer is to swear at them and tell them ‘that if he did not now and then kill one of them, they would forget who he was’.12