Leaving Honduras, the pirates sailed about the neighbouring seas, taking prizes at their will and reaping a rich harvest. Finally, they came to anchor off the bar at Charlestown, Carolina, where they continued their depredations, capturing many ships, one of them a brigantine full of negro slaves. Blackbeard’s sojourn off Charlestown was nothing more or less than a blockade, and a very effective one; no ship dared try to enter or leave the port, and the whole trade of the town was at a standstill, while day by day Teach was adding to the number of his prizes.
Finding that he stood in need of a medicine-chest, Teach decided that the best way to get it was to apply to the Governor of Charlestown. Confident that he held the trump cards in the game, the pirate sent Richards and two or three other men into Charlestown, sending with them one named Marks, whom they had taken prisoner on one of the ships.
The pirates landed, swaggered into the town, bearded the authorities brazenly, and in none too courteous manner told them that they wanted medicines, and that the council of Carolina must provide them. If they were not forthcoming, and if the envoys were not allowed to return unmolested, then Teach threatened that he would burn every one of the large number of ships he had captured, would kill every man found on them, and send their heads to the governor.
Mr. Marks interviewed the council, and Richards and his companions sauntered about the town flaunting the people, who dared not lay a finger upon them! The council, in a quandary, argued about the matter amongst themselves; but as the lives of so many people were at stake (by the way, one of their own number, Mr. Samuel Wragg, was a prisoner to Teach), they soon came to the conclusion that, however disgraceful it might be, there was nothing to be done but meet the pirates’ demands. So when the sloop went back it carried a medicine-chest worth nearly four hundred pounds!
Teach, true to his word, set the prisoners free, rifled the ships of a small fortune, and then sailed away to North Carolina. Here Blackbeard put into execution a little plot. He had succeeded in gathering a fine harvest of riches, and felt that it was a shame to have to share it with so many folk. He therefore decided to get rid of some of them. Running his own vessel ashore, while Israel Hands (in the plot with him) ran one of the sloops ashore as well, the precious pair rowed out to the third sloop with forty men, took possession of her, and marooned seventeen of her crew on a small deserted island well away from the coast. Fortunately for them, Major Bonnet, at this time in command of another sloop, came up two days later and took them off; otherwise they would have perished.
Having got rid of some of the crew, Teach now landed and, accompanied by twenty of his men, called on the governor of North Carolina, not with the intention of plundering him, but for the purpose of surrendering under the clement proclamation. Governor Charles Eden gave him his pardon, and the pirate, now fairly wealthy, soon became friends with him; so much so that when Blackbeard cast covetous eyes upon one of the ships he had captured some time before, the governor called the Court of the Vice-Admiralty, which condemned the vessel as a prize taken from the Spaniards by Captain Teach. This was straining things rather, seeing that Teach had never held a commission in the King’s navy! No doubt Governor Eden made something out of the deal.
Teach’s idea in getting the ship was that he felt the time ripe for resuming the old life; and he felt that, with a friend at court, he would have a much easier time of it. So in June, 1718, after having married a young girl of sixteen (his fourteenth wife, a dozen still being alive!), Blackbeard put to sea, shaping his course for the Bermudas. He had a rollicking time for several months, taking rich prizes, terrorising the captains who traded thereabouts, and going back to North Carolina occasionally to square things up with the governor, who was now so far in the ditch that Teach felt strong enough to be saucy to him—just to teach him his place!
No matter what protests were entered at North Carolina, no matter how many angry captains appealed to the governor for redress and protection, nothing was done; and Teach held sway. Things assumed such a pass that a deputation of captains was sent to the Governor of Virginia, to request that steps should be taken against Teach. In the James River were two men-o’-war, the Lima and the Pearl, and two sloops were manned by sailors from the warships under command of Lieutenant Maynard, of the Pearl. Then, after a proclamation offering rewards for the apprehension, dead or alive, of the pirates, the sloops set out for where the pirates were at anchor in the Okercok inlet, in the James River. Maynard had taken the precaution to stop all vessels from going up the river, lest news of his coming should be given the pirates. Governor Eden, aware of the expedition, sent four pirates from Bath Town to warn Teach what was afoot. The pirate, however, had had several other warnings, which he refused to believe, and he took the news the governor sent him with a grain of salt. The result was that Maynard was able to get within sight of the pirate vessels without hindrance. And then Teach believed!
Roaring out orders to the twenty-five men on board, he quickly cleared for action, determined to show fight. Then, when all was ready, he calmly sat down to supper and a carousal, knowing that the shoals were too dangerous for Maynard to attempt cutting him out till daylight came.
Hardly waiting for the sun to rise, Maynard next morning sent a boat ahead to take soundings in the intricate channel, and drew near to the pirate ship. Within gunshot, he was subjected to a heavy fire by Teach, who, when the sloops hoisted the King’s colours and raced at him with sail and oar, cut cable and tried to make a running fight of it. He brought all his big guns to bear upon the sloops, but these pushed on through the hail of shot, and, having no guns mounted, kept up a rain of small-arm fire. They hung on like leeches, dodged the pirate, and made him dodge to such an extent that Teach was at his wit’s end what to do, and at last ran ashore. Maynard’s sloop was of deeper draught than the pirate, and could not get near until the ballast was flung overboard and the water-casks staved in. Then, lightened considerably, she was able to get close enough to Teach to make him uncomfortable.