Just about this time the royal proclamation, to which we have referred, came out, offering pardon to all pirates who would surrender themselves, excepting Kidd and Avery. The crew of this ship of buccaneers decided to take advantage of this proclamation.
The West-Indian group, called the Bahamas, consists of several hundred islands of various magnitudes. One of these, San Salvador, was the first land, in the New World, which was discovered by Columbus. The most important of the group, from its excellent harbor, and its situation in reference to Florida, is New Providence. The island was originally settled by the English in 1629. It was captured by the Spaniards, and the English were expelled, in the year 1641. The merciless Spaniards murdered the governor, and committed many other great outrages. Again, in the year 1666, the thunders of British broadsides echoed along its shores, and the banners of England were again unfurled over its mountains and fertile vales. Forty-seven years passed away, over this war-cursed globe, when, in 1703, a united fleet of French and Spanish ships expelled the English, and, neglecting to take military possession of the island, it became a rendezvous for pirates, where scenes of revelry, sensuality, and crime were perpetrated which no pen can describe.
Thus for eighty years Heaven looked down upon its enormities. It was then again formally ceded to the English, and has since remained in their possession. At the time of which we are writing, England held the island, and a British governor was in command there. The buccaneers, with their purses well filled with gold, the result of their cruises as freebooters, ran into the harbor of New Providence. They made their surrender to the governor, and received the royal pardon.
Frank had been but a short time among them. Her purse was not a heavy one. It is not known that she added anything to it during her short and compulsory cruise on board the buccaneer. Her money was soon expended. The British governor at New Providence was at that very time fitting out several armed vessels to cruise against the Spaniards, as privateersmen. He was eager to enlist any of the bold buccaneers who could be lured to enter that service. Nothing could be more congenial to the wishes of these desperate men. Frank, being out of employment, enlisted as privateersman, on board of one of these Government ships.
CHAPTER XIII.
Anne Bonny, the Female Pirate.
Rackam the Pirate.—Anne Bonny his Wife.—Reasons for Assuming a Boy’s Dress.—Infamous Character of Rackam.—Anne falls in Love with Mary.—Curious Complications.—The Duel.—Chivalry of Frank.—The Capture.—The Trial.—Testimony of the Artist.—Death of Mary Read.—Rackam Dies on the Scaffold.
There was upon the island of New Providence, at that time, a very consummate villain by the name of Rackam. He had been captain of a pirate ship, and shared his cabin with his wife, a very depraved woman, who was disguised in boy’s clothes. She apparently discharged the duties of a cabin-boy. This Captain Rackam had taken advantage of the king’s proclamation, had surrendered himself as a pirate, and had received a pardon.
Eagerly he enlisted, with his wife in man’s garb, as a messmate, in one of the governor’s privateers. No one on board the ship was aware of the sex of his companion. She was truly his wife, and her real name was Anne Bonny. She had been a rude, ungovernable girl, and her parents were so displeased that she should have married such a worthless wretch as Rackam was known to be, that they would no longer recognize her. Having nothing to live upon, she assumed a sailor’s dress, and they both shipped for New Providence. He doubtless intended there to resume the career of a pirate.
Rackam and Anne Bonny enlisted on board the same ship. Here then there were two women in male attire, neither of whom had any suspicion of the real sex of the other. No one could associate with such companions as those of Mary Read, or encounter the influences to which she was constantly exposed, without becoming in some degree corrupted.