The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down

by Colin Woodard

  The other men were not convinced by Liddell's argument. "What are you come out for?" one of them barked at him. "To look upon one another and return with your fingers in your mouth?" Jennings chimed in that he would be aboard the French ship that very night, but that his Barsheba "must not go only to be taken." If he went alongside the larger St. Marie, "we would probably be sunk," he declared. They would need to surprise the French ship and board her from their boats. Captains Ashworth and Carnegie agreed.

  Liddell made a last ditch effort to save the situation. The Cocoa Nut's owners had sent him to dive the Spanish wrecks, not to engage in out-and-out piracy. Unless the St. Marie could be shown to be a pirate or to be carrying English goods illegally, the privateers had no grounds to seize her. He implored his colleagues to delay the attack until morning, offering to personally board the St. Marie to see if they could "make a lawfull prize of her." Liddell found himself outvoted, and made it clear he would have no part in this act of piracy.

  Liddell's men watched enviously as the crews of the Barsheba and Mary gathered arms and prepared the boats for an assault. Finally his quartermaster announced he was joining them, abandoning Liddell with upward of a dozen men. It was going to be a risky venture rowing two miles across the bay to engage a heavily armed ship from small boats. At sunset something happened that changed the odds entirely.

  ***

  As Bellamy and Williams escaped into the wind, they watched the English privateers board Captain Young's sloop for the inevitable consultation between captains. What happened next puzzled them. Young was clearly a legitimate trader, but instead of letting him go, the privateers put a prize crew aboard and took her along with them. Hidden amid the reefs and mangroves, they watched the little flotilla anchor at the entrance to Bahía Honda. The men in the periaguas began to realize that the men operating these sloops were not acting like sheriffs at all.

  Around seven P.M., as the tropical sun set over the mellowing horizon, they rowed past Carnegie's and Young's sloops and among the Barsheba, Mary, and Cocoa Nut. Bellamy and Williams, who were aboard the same sailing canoe, hailed the captain of the Barsheba. Jennings, Vane, Bellamy, and Williams all laid eyes on one another for the first time. They needed each other, they realized, to capture this great French prize.

  A little before ten o'clock, the Barsheba and Mary hauled up their anchors as their officers led a cheer: "All for one and one for all." The men let out a hurrah and somebody foolishly fired a musket. Whoever did that should be cut down, some of the men said, not wishing to place the St. Marie on alert.

  Then amidst the flickering light of the sloops' lanterns, the privateers saw a most unusual thing. Bellamy's and Williams's great canoes rowed among the sloops, their crews stripped naked, pistols and cutlasses in their hands, like a pack of savages. The Barshebas men threw a bowline out to one of the periaguas; the crew of the Mary tossed theirs to the other. Bellamy's and Williams's canoes proceeded across the bay, their men straining at their oars, each canoe towing a sloop-of-war packed with heavily armed men.

  They must have made a terrible sight to Captain d'Escoubet and the bewildered men aboard the St. Marie: two Indian-style war canoes filled with naked, wild-looking men tearing across the water, the sloops-of-war in tow. D'Escoubet had been suspicious of the English sloops from the start, and had even hidden a chest of treasure ashore, for fear they might attack. Even so, he was unprepared. As the periaguas closed in, Bellamy's men let go of the sloops and charged directly at his ship. "Where are you going?" one of Escoubet's men yelled at the men in the canoes. "Aboard, where do you think?!" came the reply, followed by a fusillade of musket shot. A blast of fire let loose from the Barsheba, and a cannonball tore over Escoubet's head. He was outnumbered by at least six to one. Escoubet ordered a number of his men aboard his dory, which then tried to make it ashore. One periagua overtook and captured them, while the men from the other charged onto her decks. From the second periagua, Bellamy warned the Frenchmen that if they resisted, they would all be slaughtered. Escoubet surrendered. His men hadn't fired a single musket.

  For Sam Bellamy, it was a lesson in the value of terror. They had taken a well-armed, but lightly manned frigate, without harming the crew, ships, or cargo. They'd gone into battle looking like they were capable of anything and, as a result, they hadn't had to do anything at all. For Bellamy, it was a lesson on how to conduct piracy: that fear can be the most powerful of weapons.

  As the Barsheba and Mary came to anchor alongside their prize, Jennings's men joined in the search of the St. Marie's holds and the interrogation of her men. Charles Vane, hotheaded and violence prone, may have shaken hands and shared rum with Bellamy and Williams. This was not the sort of fellow Bellamy and Williams needed in their crew. They intended to fight smart, harm few, and score big.

  The next morning, April 4, 1716, Jennings began questioning the French crew. Escoubet later reported that the English "tormented the crew to [such an] inhumane degree" and in "the vilest manner," forcing them to reveal where they had hid 30,000 pieces of eight (£7,500) ashore. Jennings also kept the St. Marie, appointing Carnegie as her master, and giving Escoubet and his men Carnegie's wayward Discovery instead. The pirates had captured a ship, treasure, and cargo worth 700,000 French livres or £30,300. Jennings also forced the French captain to write a letter to Lord Hamilton in Jamaica, absolving the privateers of any wrongdoing. "I must acquaint your Excellency that those gentlemen treated me very civilly and were very willing to give me so much per month for the hire or freight of my vessel," Escoubet wrote. The privateers only "took my vessel because she was fit for the expedition they were going on."

  While the pirates and privateers busied themselves with dividing the plunder and transferring cargo and personnel from one ship to another, a large sailing canoe arrived in Bahía Honda. Its crew innocently made their way up to St. Marie, asking for Captain d'Escoubet. On board were a French merchant officer and eighteen men who had been sent from Mariel, twenty miles farther up the coast, where their vessel, the sloop Marianne, lay at anchor. They had come to trade with Escoubet, but found themselves prisoners of the English instead. Jennings "inflicted punishments" on his new captives, who, after "several torments," agreed to lead them back to their vessel. Jennings held a conference with Bellamy and Williams, who agreed to send one of their canoes to Mariel with the Discovery to capture this second French vessel.

  The following morning, Bellamy's two periagua crews split up. One headed to Mariel with Carnegie. Bellamy and Williams stayed behind with the other to make sure their newfound colleagues didn't try to cheat them out of their share of the plunder on the St. Marie. A few hours later, the Cocoa Nut weighed anchor and headed out in the opposite direction; Liddell wanted nothing to do with these piracies and was headed back to Jamaica minus twenty-three members of his crew.

  Jennings and his men waited in Bahía Honda, hoping their colleagues would soon return with another prize. A day and night passed, and in the morning light a pair of sloops was seen passing by the harbor entrance. One, the prisoners from Mariel confirmed, was their vessel, the Marianne. The other, an armed sloop of ten guns, flew a black flag. Jennings and Vane recognized it immediately. It was the great sloop of Captain Benjamin Hornigold.

  ***

  Hornigold had stayed at New Providence for two months after Jennings's departure, no doubt seething at the shoddy treatment he'd received at the privateer's hands and hoping to even the score.

  Meanwhile, the outlaw population of Nassau was increasing by the day. Some fifty men had abandoned the sloops working on the nearby Spanish wrecks, most of them after waves of Spanish reinforcements arrived in February and early March. These men, resident John Vickers would later report, were committing "great disorders ... plundering the inhabitants, burning their houses, and ravishing their wives." The wreckers were led by Thomas Barrow, formerly a mate on a Jamaican brigantine who had run off with a cache of valuables said to have belonged to "a Spanish marquis." Barrow had no vessel of
his own, but swaggered about the island, claiming to be "Governor of Providence" and promising to "make it a second Madagascar." Dozens of logwood cutters arrived every week from Campeche, attracted by inflated tales of Spanish treasure, turning to piracy upon their arrival. Others came from New England, South Carolina, and Jamaica: unemployed seamen, indentured servants, criminals on the run, even a few escaped slaves from Cuba, Hispaniola, and beyond. Ordinary settlers grew increasingly fearful, and many of them were quietly making plans to leave. Others—prostitutes, smugglers, and arms dealers—were pouring in. New Providence had turned into an outlaw state.

  Hornigold had started the Bahamas' burgeoning pirate republic, but between Barrow's wreckers and Hamilton's privateers, he must have felt his leadership of the Flying Gang was starting to slip. After all, unlike the privateers, his 200 crewmen didn't serve under legally sanctioned contracts that gave most of the plunder to the owners and captains. Apart from a few forced men, service aboard the pirate vessels was essentially voluntary. Most of the islands' pirates were mariners who long suffered abuse and exploitation in the navy and merchant marine. They had no intention of replicating that system, but rather turning it on its head. They took to electing their captains and, if dissatisfied with their selections, could vote to impeach them as well. The Flying Gang pirates gave their captains absolute authority while in combat, but most other decisions were made democratically in a general council of the crew, including where to go, what to attack, which prisoners to retain or set free, and how to punish transgressions within their companies. Hornigold and other pirate captains ate the same food as their men and had to share their cabins. The crew kept their authority further in check by electing another official, the quartermaster, who ensured that food, plunder, and assignments were doled out equitably. Captains typically received only 50 percent more plunder than an ordinary sailor, as opposed to perhaps 1400 percent more on a privateer. If the men trusted their leader and were satisfied with his performance, they would follow him to the bitter end. If not, they might depose him in the blink of an eye. Hornigold needed to show results, or his tenure as a pirate leader might soon be over.

  With Thatch aboard, he set course for the sparsely settled coast of northeastern Cuba, which straddled the shipping lanes connecting Havana and the Spanish Main, New Orleans, and France. Along those poorly patrolled shores, prizes were waiting.

  Hornigold made his way through the Straits of Florida, probably giving Havana a wide berth, and made landfall on Cuba around April 8, near the secluded harbor of Mariel. Sitting at anchor was a large merchant sloop flying French colors. This was the Marianne of Santo Domingo, en route from Hispaniola to the swampy French hamlet of New Orleans under the command of a French naval officer, Ensign Le Gardew. He had stopped to send a packet of mail to Havana and, while there, Le Gardew heard that his colleague, Captain d'Escoubet of the St. Marie, was just down the shore. Eager to trade provisions and advice, Le Gardew sent half his crew down to Bahía Honda in the ship's boat. Undercrewed and lightly armed, she was no match for the Benjamin, with her ten guns and 200 men. Le Gardew promptly surrendered, and Hornigold took possession of the sloop and £12,500 in cargo. A prize crew was put aboard, and the two sloops made their way down the coast, perhaps hoping to take the St. Marie, as well.

  At the entrance of Bahía Honda, a flotilla of English privateers had beaten them to the punch. Hornigold could see that one of them was that thorn in his side Henry Jennings.

  ***

  When Jennings gave the order for all vessels to weigh anchor and chase after Hornigold, Bellamy and Williams were aboard the St. Marie, their periagua tied astern. They helped the prize crew raise the French ship's anchors and watched as the Barsheba and Mary raced off. By the time the St. Marie was underway, the rest of the fleet had already passed out of sight. Opportunity, the two men could see, had come knocking.

  As the St. Marie pulled out of the harbor, Bellamy and Williams gave the signal. Their men rose up in unison, surprising Jennings's prize crew and the French prisoners, and seized control of the ship. While some of Bellamy's men held their captives at gunpoint, the others quickly hauled their periagua alongside and threw sacks and chests of coins aboard. Keeping an eye on the Barsheba and Mary, six or eight miles off, Bellamy and Williams got their men aboard the canoe as well and rowed off into the wind. Their take: 28,500 pieces of eight (£7,125). To put it in perspective, the annual income of an early eighteenth-century merchant captain was about £65.

  Meanwhile, Jennings, Vane, and the other men aboard the Barsheba knew they were never going to catch up to Hornigold and the Marianne. They could also see that the St. Marie had fallen dangerously far behind. Better to return to Bahía Honda, Jennings noted, than lose our own prize. At his signal, the Barsheba and Mary swung around. An hour or two later they approached the St. Marie. Her crew hailed them, clearly distraught. Bellamy's men had risen against them and made off with everything, they said. Murmurs of discontent spread through the Barsheba. Jennings had lost much of their plunder. The furious privateer ordered his men to seize the other periagua and, as the Mary's carpenter, Joseph Eels, later recalled, had it "cut to pieces," apparently along with any of Bellamy's men who were aboard it at the time. During this rage, Jennings also ordered the hapless Captain Young's sloop burnt to the waterline.

  Sometime later, his anger spent, Jennings gave out new orders. The fleet would sail for Nassau to divide up what remained of their spoils.

  ***

  After the heist, Bellamy and Williams caught up with Hornigold. The pirates met face-to-face off the coast of Cuba. Hornigold must have been pleased to learn that the men in the canoes had managed to steal Jennings's treasure from right under his nose. He could use men like these. Bellamy and Williams, after the pirate articles were read, joined the crew of the Benjamin.

  Mariners appreciate competence, and Bellamy must have inspired a great deal of it, for despite his youth, Hornigold appointed Bellamy as the captain of the newly captured Marianne, ahead of several older men in his own crew including Edward Thatch and his quartermaster, William Howard. Bellamy presumably manned the Marianne with his periagua crew of twenty or thirty, plus some thirty to forty of Hornigold's men. He and Williams now had a well-built ocean-going sloop at their disposal, a chest of treasure in the hold, and the most infamous English pirate of the day as their consort. All they needed were some cannon to arm their new raider.

  For a week or more, they continued prowling the eastern end of Cuba, waiting to intercept Spanish or French traffic coming through the Yucatán Channel. But instead of a rich prize, they came across yet another pirate.

  Olivier La Buse, captain of the armed sloop Postillion, joined the pirate squadron. La Buse and Hornigold made peculiar allies. La Buse and most of his crew were French, while Hornigold still saw himself as a patriot, carrying on a righteous war against England's enemies. La Buse and his men were bona fide pirates, happy to plunder anybody for a profit. Somehow, the French corsair and the English captains agreed to work together, cementing a transnational relationship that would last for many years.

  It's likely that Bellamy had something to do with this arrangement. The young man wasn't fighting for Britain, he was fighting against the system: captains, shipowners, kings, the whole lot, and not a few of Hornigold's own company felt the same way. If Hornigold objected to sailing with the French pirate, his men overruled him. The Postillion, armed with eight guns, would be sailing with them.

  Not long afterward, the three pirates—Hornigold, Bellamy, and La Buse—spotted a merchant ship coming across the Yucatán Channel from the direction of Campeche. This turned out to be an English ship bound for Holland with a load of logwood: a friendly vessel, not a prize. Unlike Hornigold, La Buse and Bellamy had no compunction about sacking an English ship. A vote was taken, and Hornigold's men again overruled him. While Bellamy and the unarmed Marianne held back, La Buse and Hornigold secured the prize. A crew was sent aboard to search and sail the ship. They took what o
dds and ends seemed useful—drink, coins, provisions, spare parts, a skilled crewman or two—and after eight or ten days let her go on her way, probably at Hornigold's insistence.

  A few days later, at the eastern tip of Cuba, they made a capture everyone could be happy with: two Spanish brigantines loaded with cocoa, which they captured without firing a shot. After looting the vessels, they sailed to Isla de los Piños, where they found three or four English sloops topping off water and firewood supplies. The hulls of the pirate vessels needed cleaning, so the pirates announced to the masters of the small sloops that their vessels were to be commandeered to help with the careening process. Hornigold may have found an unpleasant surprise on the underside of the Benjamin. The shipworms appeared to have done her serious damage, something requiring the services of a proper shipyard to remedy. Hornigold began contemplating the disposal of his great sloop, the possession of which had caused so much alarm among the law-abiding citizenry of New Providence.

  The careening completed, the pirates continued along the southern shore of Cuba, bound for the Windward Passage. La Buse knew of some good hideouts along the shores of sparsely populated French Hispaniola, and directed the fleet in that direction. Hispaniola was well placed for raiding commerce coming in and out of the Caribbean. A lair was found and agreed on, and the pirates resolved to work together to sack as many vessels as possible.

  Hornigold wanted to get rid of the Benjamin first, and sometime around the end of May 1716 resolved to sail to Nassau for that purpose. The Benjamin was loaded up with bulky cargoes to sell to the Bahamas' growing cadre of unscrupulous smugglers. Bellamy and Williams may have come along as well in the interest of securing cannon for the Marianne. Hornigold, Thatch, and at least 150 others left La Buse, agreeing to return in a few weeks' time.

  ***

  On April 22,1716, Henry Jennings's privateering fleet arrived in Nassau's expansive harbor. It was quite a sight: the St. Marie, now equipped with thirty-two guns, escorted by Jennings's own ten-gun Barsheba and Ashworth's ten-gun Mary. It was the most powerful naval force New Providence had seen since Henry Avery had shown up with the Fancy twenty years earlier.