“I have sent you four of your men. They are all I can meet with about town. Be upon your guard.”
Blackbeard, one of the most reckless and determined of desperadoes, put his vessel in posture for defence. He had with him then a crew of but twenty-five men. Seeing the approach of the sloops, and anticipating a battle with the morning’s dawn, he spent the night in drunken carousals. Lieutenant Maynard, in command of the expedition, found the water too shoal and the channel too intricate for him to reach the ship that night. Under cover of the darkness he sent out a boat to mark the way.
The morning was cloudless and calm. There was scarcely a breath of wind; and not a ripple was to be seen on the mirrored surface of the Sound. There was no escape for the pirate. The gentle breath which swept the waters was fair. The sloops spread their sails, and with lusty arms at the oars bore down upon the pirate. As they approached, Blackbeard stood upon his deck, and with revolting oaths, which we shall omit, interlarding his speech, shouted out:
“You villains, who are you, and what do you want?”
“Our colors show,” Lieutenant Maynard replied, “that we are no pirates.”
“Send your boat on board,” exclaimed Blackbeard, “that I may learn who you are.”
“I have no boat to spare,” Maynard responded; “but as soon as I can reach you with my sloops, I will come on board myself.”
Blackbeard took a tumbler of raw brandy. As he poured the burning fluid down his throat he exclaimed in tones of rage and in that fearful profanity with which his every utterance was mingled, that if they fell into his hands they should receive no quarter.
“I expect no quarter,” Maynard responded, “neither do I ask for any.”
The gunwale of Maynard’s sloop, which took the lead, was scarcely a foot high. The men on the deck were entirely exposed. Blackbeard poured in upon them a broadside of grape-shot. The carnage was awful. Twenty men, by that one discharge, were either killed or wounded. Maynard, apprehensive of another discharge, ordered all the survivors immediately into the hold, he alone remaining on deck, at the helm. The men were directed to have their swords and pistols ready for a rush in boarding, the moment the command should be given.