North Carolina.
There still remained for them, however, an excellent place of refuge in the neighbourhood. In the year 1700 Edward Randolph reported that the population of North Carolina consisted of smugglers, runaway servants, and pirates. There is no doubt that for the latter it furnished a favourite hiding-place.
Swarms of pirates.
For some years after 1700 the vigorous measures of South Carolina kept her own coast comparatively safe, but the snake was as yet only scotched. Swarms of buccaneers, though far thinner than of old, were still harboured in the West Indies, and when occasion was offered they came out of their dens. In 1715, when South Carolina was nearly exhausted from her great Indian war, with crops damaged and treasury empty and military gaze turned toward the frontier and away from the coast, the pirates swarmed there again, with numbers swelled by rovers and bandits turned adrift by the peace of Utrecht in 1713. James Logan, Secretary of Pennsylvania, reported in 1717 that there were 1,500 pirates on our coasts, with their chief headquarters at Cape Fear and New Providence, from which points they swept the sea from Newfoundland to Brazil. For South Carolina there was ground of alarm lest wholesale pillage of rice cargoes should bring ruin upon the colony. But that year 1717 saw the arrival of the able governor Robert Johnson, who was destined, after some humiliation, to suppress the nuisance of piracy.
New Providence redeemed.
The next year, 1718, was the beginning of the end. In midsummer an English fleet, under Woodes Rogers, captured the island of New Providence, expelled the freebooters, and established there a strong company of law-abiding persons. Henceforth New Providence became a smiter of the wicked instead of their hope and refuge. It was like capturing a battery and turning it against the enemy. One of its immediate effects, however, was to turn the whole remnant of the scoundrels over to the North Carolina coast, where they took their final stand. For a moment the mischief seemed to have increased. One deed, in particular, is vivid in its insolence.
Blackbeard, the “Last of the Pirates.”
Among these corsairs one of the boldest was a fellow whose name appears in court records as Robert Thatch, though some historians write it Teach. He was a native of Bristol in England, and his real name seems to have been Drummond. But the soubriquet by which he was most widely known was “Blackbeard.” It was a name with which mothers and nurses were wont to tame froward children. This man was a ruffian guilty of all crimes known to the law, a desperate character who would stick at nothing. For many years he had been a terror to the coast. In June, 1718, he appeared before Charleston harbour in command of a forty-gun frigate, with three attendant sloops, manned in all by more than 400 men. Eight or ten vessels, rashly venturing out, were captured by him, one after another, and in one of them were several prominent citizens of Charleston, including a highly respected member of the council, all bound for London. When Blackbeard learned the quality of his prisoners, his fertile brain conceived a brilliant scheme. His ships were in need of sundry medicines and other provisions, whereof a list was duly made out and entrusted to a mate named Richards and a party of sailors, who went up to Charleston in a boat, taking along one of the prisoners with a message to Governor Johnson. The message was briefly this, that, if the supplies mentioned were not delivered to Blackbeard within eight-and-forty hours, that eminent commander would forthwith send to Governor Johnson, with his compliments, the heads of all his prisoners.
South Carolina government over-awed.
It was a terrible humiliation, but the pirate had calculated correctly. Governor and council saw that he had them completely at his mercy. They knew better than he how defenceless the town was; they knew that his ships could batter it to pieces without effective resistance. Not a minute must be lost, for Richards and his ruffians were strutting airily about the streets amid fierce uproar, and, if the mob should venture to assault them, woe to Blackbeard’s captives. The supplies were delivered with all possible haste, and Blackbeard released the prisoners after robbing them of everything they had, even to their clothing, so that they went ashore nearly naked. From one of them he took $6,000 in coin. After this exploit Blackbeard retired to North Carolina, where it is said that he bought the connivance of Charles Eden, the governor, who is further said to have been present at the ceremony of the pirate’s marriage to his fourteenth wife.[312]