They soon after plundered a Jamaica vessel, and two ships from Barbadoes, detaining all the best men, and from a Guinea galley they stole some gold dust, elephants' teeth, and forty slaves.
In 1717, they put into Santa Cruz to clean and refit with a small piratical fleet of five vessels, warping up a little creek, very shallow, but guarded by rocks and sands. They then erected a battery of four guns on the island, and another of two guns near the road, while a sloop with eight guns protected the mouth of the channel.
In November, 1716, the commander-in-chief of all the Leeward islands sent a sloop to Barbadoes for the Scarborough, of thirty guns and 140 men, to inform her of the pirate. The captain had just buried twenty men, and having forty sick could scarcely put out to sea. However, putting on a bold heart, he left his sick behind and beat up for recruits at all the islands he passed. At Antigua he took in twenty soldiers, at Nevis ten, and the same number at St. Christopher's.
Unable to find the pirate, he was on the point of putting back, when a boat from Santa Cruz informed him of a creek where he had seen a vessel enter. The Scarborough instantly sailed to the spot and discovered the pirates, but the pilot refused to enter. The pirates all this while fired red-hot shot from the shore; but at length the ship anchored alongside the reef and cannonaded the vessels and batteries. The sloop in the channel soon sank, and the larger vessel was much punished, but the Scarborough, fearing the reef, stood off and on for a day or two and blockaded the creek. The pirates, endeavouring to warp out and slip away, ran aground, and, seeing the Scarborough again standing in, fired the ship and ran ashore, leaving twenty negroes to perish. Nineteen escaped in a sloop, and the captain and twenty other negroes fled to the woods, where it is supposed they perished, as they were never heard of again.
Captain Charles Vane, our next Viking, is known as one of the men who helped to steal the silver which the Spaniards had fished up from their sunk galleons in the gulf of Florida.
When Captain Rogers with his two men-of-war conquered Providence, and pardoned all the pirates who submitted, Vane slipped his cable, fired a prize in the harbour, hoisted the black flag, and, firing a broadside at one of the men-of-war, sailed boldly away. Capturing a Barbadoes vessel, he manned it with twenty-five hands, and, unloading an interloper of its pieces of eight, careened at a key, and spent some time in a revel.
In the next cruise they captured some Spanish and New England vessels, and one laden with logwood. The crew of the latter they compelled to throw the lading overboard, intending to turn her into a pirate vessel, but in a fit of caprice suddenly let the men go and the ship with them. The prize captain, offended at Vane's arrogance, left him, and surrendered himself and 90 negroes to the governor of Charlestown, receiving a free pardon. Vane saluted the runaway with a broadside as he left, and lay wait for some time for him, but without success. Soon after this two armed sloops started in pursuit of Vane, and, failing in the capture, attacked and took another pirate vessel that was clearing at Cape Fear.
In an inlet to the northward Vane met Blackbeard, and saluted him, according to piratical etiquette, with a discharge of his shotted guns. Off Long Island he attacked a vessel that proved to be a French man-of-war, and gave chase; Vane was for flight, but many of the men, in spite of the enemy's weight of metal and being twice their force, were for boarding. A pirate captain in all cases but that of fighting was controlled by a majority, but in this case had an absolute power; Vane refused to fight, and escaped.
The next day Vane was branded by vote as a coward and deposed, and Rackham, his officer, elected captain. Vane and the minority were turned adrift in a sloop. Putting into the bay of Honduras, Vane captured another sloop, and fitted it up as a pirate vessel, and soon after captured two more. Vane was soon after shipwrecked on an island near Honduras, and most of his men drowned; he himself being supported by the turtle fishermen. While in this miserable state, a Jamaica vessel arrived, commanded by a Buccaneer, an old acquaintance, to whom he applied to help him. The man refused, declaring Vane would intrigue with his men, murder him, and run off as a pirate. On Vane expressing scruples about stealing a fisherman's boat from the beach, the Buccaneer declared that if he found him still there on his return he would take him to Jamaica and hang him.
Soon after his friend's departure a vessel put in for water, and, not knowing Vane to be a pirate, took him on board as a sailor. On leaving the bay the Buccaneer met them and came on board to dine. Passing to the cabin he spied Vane working in the hold, and asked the captain if he knew that that was Vane, the notorious pirate. The other then declared he would not have him, and the Buccaneer, sending his mate on board with at loaded pistol, seized Vane and took him to Jamaica, where he was soon after hung.