Blackbeard

by Craig Cabell

  Codd’s ship had little of interest for Blackbeard as they were carrying indentured servants and so was allowed to continue her voyage into Philadelphia. Further attacks took place according to the Boston News Letter reports: ‘Two Snows, outward bound, Spofford leaden with stave for Ireland and Budger of Bristol and the Sea Nymph leaden with Wheat for Oporto.’ At the time Blackbeard was cruising near the mouth of the Delaware River when these vessels were taken as they headed out to sea. The reports also stated that a sloop from Madeira was attacked, one Peter Peters commanding, while another sloop, ‘One Grigg Master, bound hither for London’, another from Madeira heading for Virginia was attacked and then ‘they took a sloop from Antigua, belonging to New York’.76

  All of these attacks took place in the Delaware Bay according to the reports in the Boston News Letter, which also stated that Blackbeard kept the Sea Nymph and turned it into a pirate ship. Blackbeard then took three more ships, one of which was commanded by Captain Goelet, a fast sloop from Curacao whose holds were half-full with cocoa. According to the newspaper report the pirates threw the cargo overboard and kept this sloop for themselves, putting all the crew, passengers and other prisoners into the Sea Nymph which was much slower.

  So what of Bonnet? Our information on him comes from the same source published in the Boston News Letter where there is a paragraph in which Bonnet is mentioned:

  On board the Pirate Sloop is Major Bennet, but has no Command, he walks about in his Morning Gown, and then to his Books, of which he has a good Library on Board, he was not well of his wounds that he received by attacking a Spanish Man of War, which kill’d and wounded thirty to forty men. After which putting into Providence the place of Rendezvous for the Pirates, they put the afore said Captain Teach onboard for this cruise.

  So if we replace Bennet with Bonnet we have a report that puts Bonnet on board with Blackbeard.

  If we take the information from the article at face value then the story of the Spanish man-of-war was true, but there are problems with dates as Konstam explains in his book. Captain Johnson suggests that Blackbeard and Bonnet met around December 1717, while Lee suggests they met in March 1717. However, the article in the Boston News Letter was filed on 24 October and it stated that Codd had been taken some twelve days earlier. This would mean that it is likely that Bonnet’s story about encountering the Spanish man-of-war is a fabrication and that it sounded better than him just meekly surrendering to Blackbeard: ‘Faced with someone as intimidating as Blackbeard, it is little wonder that he allowed himself to become a passenger on his own sloop.’77

  So what is the significance of Bonnet to Teach? Why would the notorious and ruthless pirate allow another pirate to walk about his deck in his morning coat and have his own library and have nothing whatever to do with the running of his own ship? Lee states that these two men went into the captain’s cabin and got on very well, ‘the two men apparently proved congenial, since great laughter was soon heard’.78

  Konstam states that Bonnet was to all intents and purposes a prisoner on his own ship. So why didn’t Blackbeard just dump him; if he was of no value why not just lock him up? If we look at Blackbeard as the supreme spin-doctor, a man steadily building his reputation, then having Bonnet around and apparently free to walk the deck and read his books shows that Blackbeard was in complete control – in essence complete control of Bonnet’s fate.

  Most historians agree that within weeks of being captured Bonnet was mumbling to anyone who would listen that he would give up piracy and go and live a simple life because he was becoming increasingly worried about Blackbeard’s actions. So we could say that Bonnet was the perfect eye-witness for Blackbeard – a literate man who could accurately describe the actions of the pirate to whomever would listen. Perhaps Blackbeard might have been thinking that Bonnet could be a useful spokesman for him at some point?

  Chapter 6

  Flagship

  On the far side of the Atlantic a ship was leaving port. The date was 24 March 1717 and La Concorde commanded by Captain Pierre Dosset was sailing from Nantes for the last time. It had made two previous transatlantic voyages, one in 1713 and one in 1715. The first voyage carried around 500 slaves from the West Coast of Africa to Martinique and 456 of them were sold, while the fate of the remainder is not known. On the second voyage, the cargo of slaves was sold to owners in and around Leogane, a French colony in what is now Haiti.79

  There are two versions surrounding the origins of La Concorde. The first states that the ship was built around 1710, that it was used to protect British interests during the War of Spanish Succession and was captured by French privateers a year later and was refitted as an armed escort that was part of a squadron that attacked the town of Rio de Janeiro. At the end of hostilities the ship became an armed merchant vessel.80

  The second version, and the one most historians go with, is that the ship, already named La Concorde, was built in the river port of Nantes as a French naval frigate. It served as an escort for a convoy bound for the naval port of Brest. The ship sailed for the West African coast, then across the Atlantic to Martinique, Tobago and Hispaniola. After a couple of captures, she returned to Nantes, and at the end of the war, she was abandoned.81

  The ship eventually ended up in the possession of the Montaudoin family. This influential family conducted its business in and around Nantes, the centre of the French slave trade.82 They had made their fortune in the profitable selling of slaves and not only owned the ship but also all of its cargo, and that included the men, women and children being transported.

  Captain Dosset filed a report on the capture of his ship to the French authorities in Martinique. There the manager of public affairs, Charles Mesnier, compiled his own detailed report which he sent back to his superiors in France. Dosset’s report states that La Concorde was 200 to 300 tons, making it a large ship for its time. Ships during the early part of the eighteenth century were weighed by the amount of cargo they could carry rather than the amount of water they displaced in the sea as they are today. Measuring the tonnage of a ship by the cargo it could carry was based on two principal trades of medieval times, that of grain and wine, and was of primary importance when it came to taxes and port duties.

  La Concorde was refitted by the Montaudoin family with two vital criteria in mind, neither of which was comfort for either the crew or the slaves, but would have been of great interest to a pirate. ‘She began life as a privateer,’ Konstam states in his book. ‘A clean, fast hull, ample cargo capacity, and three masts, providing a maximum press of sail for a vessel of her size.’

  Storage space was crucial. The more slaves that could be crammed into the hold, the higher the profits would be at the markets on the other side of the ocean. Conditions on board these ships for the slaves would have been appalling and the conditions for the crew not much better. Modern rush-hour trains by comparison would seem positively spacious. For pirates, a large storage space like that of La Concorde would be ideal for holding large amounts of plunder between ports that were open to dealing with them. Also the massive size of the ship as a whole could threaten crews of smaller vessels into surrendering their cargoes without much of a struggle.

  That brings us to the second criteria – speed. It was expected that a few of the slaves would die on the long voyage and the more the number of deaths could be reduced by a swifter voyage, the more the potential for profits. Also, for a pirate, speed was essential when chasing other vessels.

  The final voyage of La Concorde saw Dosset in command of this impressive ship with his second-in-command Lieutenant François Ernaut.

  On 8 July 1717 the ship, armed with sixteen cannon and manned by a crew of seventy-five, arrived at the port of Whydah. This was a thriving coastal port of West Africa known today as Benin, and in 1717 it was one of the hubs of the African slave trade which it had supported for 300 years. In this flat country human sacrifice was normal, and holidays were celebrated with public beheadings of slaves and captured warriors. Despite
this, there were still plenty of slaves available to maintain this area’s reputation as the Slave Coast. Around this region, the Royal African Company had once enjoyed a monopoly but that control had vanished in 1698 when it became just one of several.83

  From Whydah the ship collected around 500 captured Africans: a mixture of men, women and even children. Their futures, assuming they survived the transatlantic voyage, would be serving whichever owner chose to purchase them in the New World.84

  The voyage across the Atlantic was arduous. Even without the dangers of attack there were many other hazards, chief of which was disease. Because conditions on board were so poor and there was no hygiene to speak of, diseases like scurvy and dysentery were rampant. Survival was hindered by people’s lack of understanding on how to prevent disease and how to cure it. Once disease prevention became more and more widespread, people understood how to prevent scurvy, for example, and the death rates on long voyages declined. Proper nutrition was far from understood and in those days, the preservation of meat was maintained by dousing it in salt.85

  Biscuit was another form of food, as were beans. Biscuits were hard and brittle, could last a long time in the hold of a ship and could be eaten either whole or crushed into powder to mix with other rotting foods. These were difficult to eat when your teeth were decaying from lack of care or from scurvy.86

  We know from the reports of Dosset and his lieutenant that during the crossing of this stretch of the Atlantic Ocean sixteen crewmen and sixty-one slaves died, mostly from scurvy or dysentery. Judging by the appalling conditions the slaves would have endured, their higher death toll in numbers is not surprising. What is interesting is that, in percentage terms, a higher percentage of the crew perished than the slaves – 21 per cent against 12 per cent in favour of the slaves. Out of the remaining crew, another thirty-six were suffering from scurvy and dysentery. That left twenty-three able-bodied crew members. Considering more than one person would be needed to man each cannon for the rapid fire needed in a direct attack (pumping the powder, loading the ball, lighting the shot, controlling the recoil), they were not enough and there was no chance that La Concorde would have been able to resist an attack by a pirate.

  Crews were always terrified of not only losing their cargo, but also their ship. The fear of being tossed overboard, abandoned on some desert island or being taken hostage and tortured was always prevalent in their minds, but for slavers it was even worse. The crews of those ships were afraid of the slaves rising up against them and overwhelming them, which is the reason why, in many cases, slave ships had barriers constructed between the waist of the ship and the quarterdeck, turning the ship’s stern into a mini fortress should the slaves revolt. Common practice was to have guards posted on the quarterdeck with small-arms when the slaves were brought up from the hold to be washed or exercised. Also common practice was mounting swivel cannon on the quarterdeck, loaded with grapeshot so that their range of fire would be inwards and facing the middle of the ship, should the slaves revolt.87

  La Concorde, with her reduced crew and much-reduced defensive capability, was heading for the Caribbean island of Martinique. Apart from the early inhabitants being tribes of Arawak and Carib Indians, the island had spent the majority of its inhabited history under the control of France. The plan was to unload and sell the human cargo and perhaps some of the other cargo, reload with sugar and return to France. This triangular-shaped voyage of Europe to Africa to the Caribbean to Europe was common. Most of the slaves that could be sold would then be put to work on the sugar cane fields of Martinique, Guadeloupe or Saint Dominique.

  The date when Blackbeard sighted La Concorde was 28 November 1717. This is given to us in the French documents and so uses the calendar applicable to France. If we compare this to the calendar being used in Britain at the time, that same date would be 17 November 1717.88

  In the account left by Charles Mesnier, the Administrator of Martinique, regarding the capture of La Concorde, he tells us that the ship was just 60 miles from its destination, at 14° 27 north latitude when it was intercepted by two sloops:

  Two boats of English pirates, one of 12 and the other of 8 guns armed with 250 men controlled by Edouard Titche, English, was removed by these pirates with 455 negroes who remained with him – the aforementioned Dosset with his crew to the Grenadines onto the island of Becoya [Bequia], near Grenade [Grenada].89

  By the time Blackbeard captured La Concorde, he was in command of a small fleet of vessels which explains the report of the two pirate sloops attacking Dosset’s vessel.

  Some historians suggest that both sloops came up on either side of the large slaver and opened fire. Lee, in his book Blackbeard the Pirate, states that the two sloops ‘came with such speed upon the merchantman that her captain was unable to manoeuvre her into battle position’. He claims that before Dosset could do anything both sloops fired broadsides into his ship, killing half his crew and terrifying the remainder into surrender.90

  However, there could be another reason why Dosset did not put up much of a fight: he had the two swivel guns that were mounted on either side of the ship covering the waist of the ship pointing inwards. They were only 60 miles away from Fort de France, the harbour at Martinique. For slave vessels the landfall was a vulnerable time as it provided opportunities for slaves to escape, so covering this offloading with guns was always a prudent idea. This means that these swivel guns were not part of the main armament for firing broadsides outwards to enemy vessels but were for firing inwards into the waist of their own ship to put down any rebellion.91

  Whether or not Dosset knew about Blackbeard before his ship was captured is something about which we can only speculate. However, we can safely assume that he knew about pirates operating in the waters he was heading into, and while they would have been a big concern to him, his greatest was a revolt by slaves during the unloading process. He also must have been very anxious about the depleted number of his crew and was likely trying to get to port as quickly as possible.

  After this capture and with Dosset’s report to Mesnier who then sent a detailed report back to Paris, Blackbeard’s reputation had increased by leaps and bounds. With two pirate ships coming in on either side of him firing their guns, it’s highly doubtful that any of Dosset’s remaining crew would have stood their ground and fought back, even if he’d ordered them to. The cargo didn’t belong to Dosset, so losing it would have cost him nothing and with his depleted crew and inability to resist he had no other choice but to surrender.

  It wouldn’t have taken Blackbeard long to realise that his new prize was a fine catch indeed. It was the perfect ship for his growing status and reputation. It seems he had more interest in the ship than in the cargo, though certainly some of the cargo he may have kept for himself. Items like the gold dust the ship was known to be carrying would have found their way into his possession. As for the human cargo, we can only presume that Blackbeard retained some of the more capable as part of his own crew. He now had a larger ship and so needed a larger crew.92 The remainder of the slaves would very soon find themselves back in captivity and on the auction block.93

  In most slave ships the hold was subdivided to stop slaves from mixing together, but they did not suit a pirate ship and it is likely that Blackbeard had the dividers completely removed in order to make a large open hold. This meant that all the crew could see that none of their comrades were receiving any larger shares of captured booty. Even pirates had a code, and while they would happily steal from anyone, they would not steal from each other.

  We don’t know exactly what Blackbeard did to reconfigure the ship from being a slaver into a fast pirate ship, though in his account of Captain Bartholomew Roberts Johnson describes what Roberts and his crew did to turn a large slave ship, the Onslow, owned by the Royal African Company into the Royal Fortune:

  They fell to making such alterations as might fit her for a sea rover, pulling down her bulkheads, and making her flush, so that she became, in all respects, as co
mplete a ship for their purpose as any they could have found.

  It’s highly likely that Blackbeard did the same. This much larger storage area in the open hold meant that Blackbeard and his crew could continue plundering with impunity until the hold was overflowing and they put into a friendly port to sell their ill-gotten gains. However, the conversion from slaver to fast pirate warship was a big job and would take several days.

  There were standard things that could be done relatively quickly, such as knocking down most of the internal bulkheads to create large open spaces in the forecastle, behind the quarterdeck and on any lower decks. The idea behind this was to reduce the risk of flying splinters during a fight, as well as preventing the captain or the quartermaster from placing themselves above their crew which was in keeping with the egalitarian way in which pirate crews operated. Nevertheless, Stede Bonnet was different and Blackbeard had him transferred from the Revenge over to his new flagship, complete with his morning coat and his library.

  Usually, the quarterdeck and poop deck were used for cabin space and as a gun deck but opening these up provided a much larger space for the crew as well as for stores. Bartholomew Roberts tore down the entire superstructure on the upper deck of the Onslow so that he had a flush deck from bow to stern without any kind of impediment getting in the way in order to accommodate larger pirate crews than those of the merchantmen. This also needed more space so the pirates could easily board their captured prizes as they came alongside. The unimpeded upper deck also meant that the pirates could cram as much firepower onto the vessel as possible.94

  In order to squeeze out every ounce of speed from their captured ships, pirates would also redesign the sails so they would have as much of an edge on their prey as possible. Blackbeard increased the amount of cannon on the new ship up to approximately forty guns, though there is some debate about this number. The more accepted amount, supported by officials in colonial offices, puts the figures at either twenty-six or thirty-six.