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

by Colin Woodard

  Bonnet did not try to escape from the Royal James when the company returned to piracy. The pirates planned to continue on to St. Thomas after hurricane season had passed, so he may have held out hope that he could still become a legitimate privateer in the service of Denmark.

  On September 27, 1718, the two South Carolina pirate-hunting sloops under Colonel William Rhett found the Royal James at anchor behind Cape Fear. The pirates were outnumbered by nearly two to one, Rhett having the sloops Henry (eight guns, seventy men) and Sea Nymph (eight guns, sixty men) against Bonnet's ten-gun, forty-five-man sloop. Rhett lost the element of surprise, though, when he ran aground and was forced to take on the pirates in a full-on naval battle. Bonnet's company raised anchor and attempted to run straight between the South Carolinian sloops to the open sea. Instead, all three sloops ran aground, the Royal James and Henry within short range of each other. The pirates had the advantage as the Royal James happened to list on the starboard side so that her raised rail protected the pirates during the musket battle that followed. Colonel Rhett's Henry, by contrast, listed to port, exposing her entire deck to the pirates' fire. The two parties exchanged fire for the next five hours until the rising tide lifted the Henry free. Still immobilized and facing the Henry's cannon, the pirates surrendered. Nine died as the result of wounds received in the battle, as did fourteen of Colonel Rhett's men.

  Bonnet, who had survived unscathed, was brought into Charleston on October 3 and placed in armed custody, to the considerable joy of some, but not all, of the colony's inhabitants. He was the first prominent pirate captain to be captured by British authorities.

  ***

  By late July 1718, Blackbeard decided it was time to get back to work. He and his men had been involved in minor thefts: Witnesses reported that he was "insulting and abusing the masters of all trading sloops and taking from them what goods or liquors he pleased." In their drunken revelries, he and his men had committed "some disorders" in Bath itself, according to North Carolina Governor Charles Eden, who perhaps encouraged Blackbeard to take his men to sea for a time. Governor Eden had already granted Blackbeard undisputed ownership of the Spanish prize sloop in which he had come from Beaufort; now he signed customs papers clearing him to take the sloop—which Blackbeard unoriginally renamed Adventure—to St. Thomas, where he could keep his men occupied as privateers if he so desired. As it turns out, he didn't.

  Instead of going to St. Thomas, Blackbeard and his men apparently sailed up the Delaware River, 250 miles north, where he quietly went ashore at Philadelphia to sell some select treasures. Pennsylvania Governor William Keith later reported that Blackbeard had been seen on the city's streets, and that he was well known among many people there because of visits to the city years earlier while serving as a mate on a Jamaican vessel. In the early 1840s a number of elderly Philadelphians would tell historian John Watson that in their youth they or their relatives had encountered Blackbeard and members of his crew, one of whom had been "an old black man" who lived with the family of the brewer George Gray. According to their accounts, Blackbeard visited a store at 77 High Street where "he bought freely and paid well." He also was said to frequent a High Street inn, always wearing "his sword by his side." Nobody dared arrest him for fear that his crew would come ashore "and avenge his cause by some midnight assault."

  By the second week of August, the pirates having accomplished their business, the Adventure slipped out of Delaware Bay and into the open sea. It was time to refill their coffers far from their familiar stomping grounds. They sailed straight into the Atlantic, in the direction of Bermuda, looking for foreign ships whose crews would be unlikely to be able to finger them for their crimes. They may have taken some vessels along the well-traveled sailing route from Philadelphia, but their first documented captures were on August 22, 1718, to the east of Bermuda. The victims were a pair of French ships, one heavily laden, the other largely empty, on their way home to France from Martinique. The French put up a fight, damaging the Adventure and wounding some of her men, but were ultimately overwhelmed by the pirates. Blackbeard's crew transferred all of the cargoes to one ship, which they kept, and all the French crewmen to the other, which was sent on its way. As Blackbeard began sailing back to North Carolina, he had no idea how much trouble this incident was to bring him.

  Around September 12, they anchored their prize behind the sandy mass of uninhabited Ocracoke Island and began to unrig her, stripping the valuable masts, spars, and lines, and unloading the cargoes of sugar and cocoa. Blackbeard refused to allow anyone to board his vessels, a passing mariner later reported, "except a doctor to cure his wounded men," who claimed to have been injured when a cannon shifted in rough seas.

  Leaving both vessels at Ocracoke on the afternoon of the thirteenth, Blackbeard and four black sailors headed up the Pamlico to Bath in one of their boats. He carried sweetmeats, loaf sugar, a bag of chocolate, and some mysterious boxes found aboard the French ship, all presents for Governor Eden's next-door neighbor, Tobias Knight, North Carolina's chief justice and His Majesty's collector of customs. According to his four black crewmen, Blackbeard arrived at Knight's plantation "about twelve or one o'clock in the night," gave Knight his gifts, and went into the house with him "till about an hour before the break of day," at which point he ordered the men to head back down to Ocracoke. Three miles down the Pamlico River, Blackbeard noticed a periagua tied up at the landing of an isolated farmhouse with two men and a boy aboard. Blackbeard decided to plunder this trading canoe, and ordered his men to row alongside.

  William Bell, the owner of the periagua, had spent the night at John Chester's landing and had seen Blackbeard's boat pass by earlier that evening. Bell's crew consisted only of his young son and an Indian servant, so when the five pirates came alongside his boat, he knew resistance would be difficult. At first, Blackbeard simply asked if Bell had anything to drink, to which Bell answered that "it was so dark he could not well see to draw any" from the cask. Blackbeard turned to one of his black sailors, who handed him a sword. He then jumped into the periagua and commanded Bell "to put his hands behind him in order to be tyed" and "swearing damnation seize him, he would kill [Bell] if he did not tell him truly where the money was." Bell, who was from Currituck, near the Virginia border, did not recognize Blackbeard and demanded to know who he was. "Thache [sic] replied that he came from Hell and he would carry him presently [there]," Bell was able to tell authorities, despite having been foolish enough to have grabbed Thatch and tried to force him from the periagua. Blackbeard called to his men, who quickly subdued Bell. They then rowed the periagua out to the middle of the river with them and plundered her of pistols, brandy, a box of clay pipes, £66 in cash, and "a silver cup of remarkable fashion." Blackbeard then threw Bell's oars and sails overboard and, in retribution for his resistance, beat him with the flat end of his sword until it broke. Blackbeard continued on his way to Ocracoke. Bell must have gotten replacement oars at Chester's landing, because two hours later he was at Tobias Knight's house in Bath to report the crime. Knight, Bell would later testify in court, listened patiently and filed a report, but never mentioned that the perpetrators had spent the night at his house.

  On September 24, Blackbeard sailed up to Bath in the Adventure, where he reported to Governor Eden, under oath, that the French "ship and goods were found by him as a wreck at sea." When an arch pirate comes to one's door, claiming to have "found" a vessel floating in the middle of the ocean, filled with valuables and sufficiently seaworthy to be sailed some 700 miles back to North Carolina, one might have grounds to be suspicious. Eden and Blackbeard apparently had an understanding. The governor promptly declared the French ship to be Blackbeard's property by right of salvage, and a large parcel of sugar from the wreck somehow found its way into Chief Justice Knight's barn and hid itself under a pile of hay. Eden also gave Blackbeard permission to promptly burn the French ship as a hazard to navigation, conveniently eliminating any physical evidence that piracy had taken place.

&n
bsp; With the governor and chief justice in his pocket, North Carolina was shaping up to be a safer pirate lair than the Bahamas ever were. Blackbeard never would have guessed that the governor of another colony would have the audacity to invade.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  HUNTED

  September 1718–March 1720

  ALEXANDER SPOTSWOOD, the governor of Virginia, had been keeping tabs on Blackbeard for months. He had received intelligence of his intentional grounding of the Queen Anne's Revenge, his accepting the pardon from Governor Eden, and the subsequent depredations on trading vessels in the humid creeks of North Carolina. Spotswood had collaborated with the captain of one of the two naval frigates in Virginia, Captain Ellis Brand of HMS Lyme, to send spies into North Carolina "to make particular inquiry after the pirates." He had even seized Blackbeard's old quartermaster, William Howard, who had taken the king's pardon and was hanging around Hampton Roads under the pretence that he could not explain how he had acquired the £50 in his pocket or the two African slaves in his company. On these questionable legal grounds, Spotswood and Captain Brand had Howard forced aboard the Lyme and then incarcerated in Williamsburg's tidy brick jail. By interrogating Howard and debriefing his spies, Spotswood had assembled a detailed picture of what Blackbeard was up to, where he spent his time, and how he had bought the protection of the senior-most officials in North Carolina. In late October, he decided to act.

  Spotswood would later argue that Blackbeard represented a threat to Virginia's commerce, and that his presence encouraged others to piracy. All of this was true, but was not the real reason for Spotswood's decision to move against the pirate. Like politicians before and since, Spotswood intended to launch a military expedition abroad to divert public attention from his own improprieties at home.

  Spotswood governed the second most powerful colony on the American seaboard after Massachusetts, with a population of 72,500 whites and 23,000 blacks. It was entirely different from that northern colony. Virginia was a land of plantation manors surrounded by tobacco fields and the hovels of their servants and slaves. Each plantation had its own pier and served as a factory unto itself, its employees and human chattel producing most requisite products and services on site. As a result, there were hardly any towns or cities to speak of, the planters conducting much of their business at rural landings, churches, courthouses, and weekly markets. Even the capital, Williamsburg, was little more than an administrative center, a campus of elegant government buildings set near the brick buildings of the College of William and Mary. For most of the year Williamsburg had a population of little over 1,000: administrators, craftsmen, teachers, and students. When the colony's aristocratic legislators met at the grand brick Capitol, Williamsburg came alive. Its inns, boarding houses, and taverns were packed to the bursting point, while enthusiastic audiences gathered to watch productions at British America's only theater, a two-year-old structure on the east side of the carefully landscaped Palace Green.

  In recent years, the legislators came together to criticize Governor Spotswood and the culture of corruption he had nurtured during the eight years he had overseen the colony. They drafted an official complaint over how "he lavishes away the country's money" on the nearly completed Governor's Palace, with its opulently appointed dining rooms, carved marble mantelpieces, formal orchards, gardens, and entry gates. Others were incensed at Spotswood's corrupt land dealings. He would eventually transfer 85,000 acres of public land to himself via blind trusts, in an area which came to be known as Spotsylvania County. Most legislators opposed his imperious claim to control the appointment of all priests and high officials in the Anglican Church, the official religion of the colony. In 1717, the legislature had successfully petitioned the king to repeal some of Spotswood's economic regulations and was now working to remove him from office altogether.

  With so many enemies at his door, it was in strict secrecy that Spotswood met with Captain Brand of the Lyme and Captain George Gordon of HMS Pearl in early October of 1718. He asked their assistance in ridding the Americas of Blackbeard, once and for all.

  ***

  In Nassau, Woodes Rogers was also preparing to confront pirates. On September 14, 1718, he received word that Charles Vane was at Green Turtle Cay, near Abaco, 120 miles north of Nassau. Facing a Spanish invasion and bereft of manpower or Royal Navy support, Rogers knew his only hope was to take a chance on the leaders of the pro-pardon pirate camp.

  Benjamin Hornigold and John Cockram responded to the governor's call and agreed to become pirate hunters. Rogers outfitted a sloop for them—probably Hornigold's Bonnet—and dispatched them to gather intelligence and, if possible, confront Vane. They left Nassau four days later. Nobody saw them again for weeks.

  While awaiting Hornigold's return, Rogers tried to put Nassau's defenses in order. Nassau's governing council agreed to impose martial law, setting up "a very strick't watch" and ordering the island's subjects and their slaves to help repair the fortress. Practically every night, however, pirates stole boats and fled the island, hoping to join Vane. Rogers estimated that 150 had abandoned him between the end of July and late October. As the days turned to weeks, Rogers began to fear that Hornigold "was either taken by Vaine or [had] begun his old practice of pirating again." Most islanders concurred. But three weeks after his departure, Hornigold's sloop sailed back into the harbor with a prize and a handful of pirate captives.

  Hornigold told everyone how he and Cockram had spent most of the time hiding out near Green Turtle Cay, observing Vane and waiting for an opportunity to ambush him when away from his main force. Unfortunately, that chance never presented itself, and Hornigold and Cockram judged Vane's company too powerful to take on directly. In addition to his pirate brigantine, Vane had the Neptune and Emperor with him, the two ships he had captured at the Charleston bar, and his party spent most of their time plundering these ships and careening their vessels. After nearly three weeks had elapsed, the pirates said good-bye to the captive crews of the Neptune and Emperor, "wishing them a good voyage home," but as they sailed from the anchorage they spotted another sloop coming in. This, Hornigold was able to report, was the thirty-ton sloop Wolf, which had sailed out of Nassau a few days earlier with Rogers's permission to hunt sea turtles. In reality, the Wolf's captain, a pardoned pirate named Nicholas Woodall, was smuggling ammunition, supplies, and intelligence to Vane. Vane dropped anchor and consulted with Woodall, who gave him a detailed description of Rogers's activities and defenses. Vane, perhaps hoping his fellow pirates had risen up against the governor, was apparently disappointed. When one of the captives asked the pirates what news they had of Nassau, they replied, "none good," and told them not to ask too many questions. The pirates, "being very much disturbed with the news," voted to maroon the captives and destroy the Neptune by hacking down her masts and rigging and then firing a gun "double loaded with shot" straight into her hold. Vane's pirates left the harbor in the brigantine and the Wolf, at which point Hornigold sailed in to give the captives provisions and to let them know that help had arrived. That night, Hornigold sailed out in pursuit of the pirates and, a few days later, intercepted the Wolf and brought her with him to Nassau.

  Hornigold's capture of the Wolf boosted Rogers's morale. "Captain Hornigold having proved honest," Rogers wrote his superiors in London, "disobliged his old friends ... divides the people here, and makes me stronger than I expected." Unsure of his authority to try Woodall, Rogers kept him in irons and sent him back to England on the next outward-bound ship. With the change in seasons, the weather also improved, and Rogers's people began recovering from their sickness. A convoy of trading sloops left the island to trade with friendly contacts in Cuba, from whom they hoped to secure additional supplies. With the fort almost complete and one of the leading pirates on his side, Rogers felt a growing sense of security.

  On November 4, Rogers received word that the crews of all four trading sloops he had sent to Cuba had gone pirate and were intending to join Vane. The renegades were said
to be at Green Turtle Cay, however, and might still be caught. Rogers again turned to Hornigold and Cockram, who sailed to the island and engaged the recidivists in an all-out battle. The pirates-turned-pirate hunters came back to Nassau on November 28 with ten prisoners—including Blackbeard's former gunner, William Cunningham—and the corpses of three more. Rogers was ecstatic. "I am glad of this new proof [that] Captain Hornigold has given the world to wipe off the infamous name he has hereto been known by," he wrote the British secretary of state, "though in the very acts of piracy he committed most people spoke well of his generosity."

  The pirate prisoners presented a challenge, as Rogers lacked the men to ensure they stayed locked up. Trying and executing them in Nassau might spark an uprising. He called a secret session of his governing council, which now included the former chief justice, Thomas Walker, and laid out the options. More than anything, the councilors worried that Vane, tipped off by his numerous informants, might attempt to free the captives. "If any fear be shown on our part," they resolved, "it might animate several [pirates] now here to incite the pirates without to attempt the rescue of those in custody. Therefore ... to prevent the designs of Vane the pirate," the council concluded they should "as soon as possible ... bring the prisoners to trial." Lacking a jail, Rogers had the ten prisoners chained aboard the Delicia before setting about what he knew was to be a risky confrontation with the island's pirate sympathizers.