Scarcely had the smoke and flame of the burning vessel vanished from their view, when another sail was descried. She proved to be the Endeavor, from Bristol. She was robbed of everything valuable. Another vessel soon underwent the same fate. It was the Young, from Leith.
Stede Bonnet was no sailor. He had no acquaintance with navigation. He, however, employed a skilled seaman to manage the ship in obedience to his commands as owner of the whole concern. After this short and very successful cruise on the Virginia coast, he ordered the sloop to be taken to the shores of New England. As they were passing the eastern end of Long Island, they met a vessel bound from one of the New England colonies to the West Indies. It was promptly plundered.
Stede Bonnet stood in for Gardiner’s Island, where he landed with a portion of his crew. He behaved in a very gentlemanly way, addressing all whom he met courteously, making many purchases and paying liberally for all he took. He then directed his course to South Carolina, and ran up and down before the harbor of Charleston. Two vessels, entering the harbor, he seized almost at the same time. One was a sloop from Barbadoes, laden with rum, sugar, and negroes. The other was a brigantine from New England. The hold of the Revenge was already packed full of plunder; and they had no room for the negroes. Taking, therefore, such few articles as they needed, they landed the crew and the negroes on an island, and wantonly ran the Barbadoes sloop ashore and set her on fire. The New England brigantine they plundered of all the money on board and such other articles of value as they needed, and let her go.
While on this cruise they met, in rogues’ companionship, another piratic ship, commanded by a desperado, an Englishman, by the name of Edward Teach. From the mass of hair which covered his face he was known by the name of Blackbeard. His beard came up to his eyes, was intensely black, and so long that he was accustomed to braid it and twist it with ribbons into cues, or tails, which he would hang over his ears. It is said that in aspect he was a revolting monster. This villain had captured a large and very strongly built East-Indian ship, upon which he had mounted forty heavy guns. With this powerful armament he swept the seas, bidding defiance to all assailants. Upon one occasion he encountered a British man-of-war of thirty guns. After sustaining an action of some hours, the man-of-war fled before him, and took shelter in the harbor of Barbadoes, under protection of the guns of the fort.
As Teach continued his triumphant cruise, he came across Bonnet’s piratic sloop. Finding that Bonnet understood nothing of maritime affairs, he, without difficulty, got up a conspiracy among his men, deposed him, and placed one of his own crew, a man by the name of Richards, in command of the Revenge. Thus he had two vessels with which to prosecute his lawless career. He took the deposed captain on board his own ship, saying to him with a sarcastic smile:
“I perceive, my dear sir, that you are not used to the cares and fatigues of commanding a vessel, and I will relieve you from them. It will be much pleasanter for you to live at your ease in my cabin. There you will have no duty to perform, and can follow your own inclinations.”
The career of this most ferocious of pirates was so strange that we must leave Stede Bonnet for a time, and devote a chapter to that fiend in human form, called Blackbeard.
CHAPTER VI.
The Adventures of Edward Teach, or Blackbeard.
Seizure of the Protestant Cæsar.—The Piratic Squadron.—Villany of the Buccaneers.—The Atrocities of Blackbeard.—Illustrative Anecdotes.—Carousals on Shore.—Alleged Complicity with the Governor.—Hiding-place near Ocracoke Inlet.—Arrangements for his Capture.—Boats sent from two Men-of-war.—Bloody Battle.—The Death of the Pirate.—His Desperate and Demoniac Character.