The captain had always the great cabin to himself, and was often voted parcels of plate and china. Any sailor, however, might use his punch-bowl, enter his room, swear at him, and seize his food, without his daring to find fault, or contest his rights. The captain was generally chosen for being "pistol proof," and in some cases had as privy council a certain number of the elder sailors, who were called "lords."

The captain's power was uncontrollable in time of chase or battle: he might then strike, stab, or shoot anybody who disobeyed his orders. The fate of the prisoner depended much upon the captain, who was oftener inclined to mercy than his crew.

Their flags were generally intended to strike terror. Roberts's was a black silk flag, with a white skeleton upon it, with an hour-gla.s.s in one hand, and cross-bones in the other, underneath a dart, and a heart dripping blood. The pennon bore a man with a flaming sword in one hand, standing on two skulls, one inscribed A.B.H. (a Barbadian's head), and the other, A.M.H. (a Martiniquian's head).

EDWARD TEACH, _alias_ Blackbeard, was born in Bristol, and at a seaport town all daring youths turn sailors. He soon became distinguished for daring and courage, but did not obtain any command till 1716, when a Captain Benjamin Hornigold gave him the command of a sloop, and became his partner in piracy, till he surrendered.

In the spring of 1717, the pair sailed from their haunt in New Providence towards the Spanish main, and taking by the way a shallop from the Havannah, laden with flour, supplied their own vessels. From a ship of Bermuda they obtained wine, and from a craft of Madeira they got considerable plunder.

Careening on the Virginian coast, they returned to the West Indies, and capturing a large French Guinea-man, bound for Martinique, Teach went aboard as captain, and started for a cruise. Hornigold, returning to New Providence, surrendered to proclamation, and gave himself up to Governor Rogers.

Blackbeard had in the mean time mounted his prize with forty guns, and christened her the _Queen Anne's Revenge_. Cruising off St. Vincent, he captured the _Great Allan_, and having plundered her, and set the men on sh.o.r.e, fired the ship, and let her drift to sea.

A few days after, Teach was attacked by the _Scarborough_ man-of-war, who, finding him well manned, retired to Barbadoes, after a cannonade of some hours. On his way to the mainland, Teach was joined by Major Bonnet, a gentleman planter, turned pirate, who joined with him, commanding a sloop of ten guns. Finding he knew nothing of naval affairs, Teach soon deposed him, and took him on board his own ship, on pretext of relieving him from the fatigues and cares of such a post, wishing him, as he said, to live easy and do no duty.

While taking in water near the Bay of Honduras, they surprised a sloop from Jamaica, which surrendered without a blow, striking sail at the first terror of the black flag. The men they took on board Teach's vessel, and manned it for their own use.

At Honduras they found a ship and four sloops, some from Jamaica, and some from Boston. The Americans deserted one vessel, and escaped on sh.o.r.e, and the pirates burnt it in revenge. The other vessel they also burnt, because some pirate had been lately hung at Boston. The three sloops they allowed to depart.

Taking turtles at the Grand Caiman's islands, they sailed to the Havannah, and from the Bahamas went to Carolina, capturing a brigantine and two sloops. For six days they lay off the bar of Charlestown, taking many vessels, and a brigantine laden with negroes. The people of Carolina, who had not long before been visited by the pirate Vane, were dumb with terror. No vessel dared put out, and the trade of the place stood still. To add to these misfortunes, a long and expensive war with the natives, only just concluded, had much impoverished the colony.

Teach detained all the ships and prisoners, and being in want of medicines, sent a boat's crew of men ash.o.r.e, with one of the prisoners, to ask the governor to supply him with the drugs. The pirates were insolent in their demands, and, swearing horribly, vowed, if any violence was offered to them, that their captain would murder all the prisoners, send their heads to the governor, and then fire the vessels and slip cable. These rude amba.s.sadors swaggered through the streets, insulting the inhabitants, who longed to seize them, but dared not, for fear of endangering the town. The governor did not deliberate long, for one of his brother magistrates was in the murderer's hands, and at once sent on board a chest, worth about 400, which the pirates returned with in triumph. Blackbeard then released the prisoners, having first taken about 1500 out of the ships, besides provisions.

From the bar of Charlestown the kingly villains sailed to North Carolina, where Teach broke up the partnership, objecting to any division of money, preferring all the risk and all the profit. Running into an inlet to clean, he purposely grounded his ship, and Hands, another captain, coming to his a.s.sistance, ran ash.o.r.e by his side. He then with forty men took possession of the third vessel, and marooned seventeen other men upon a sandy island, about a league from the main, where neither herb grew nor bird visited. Here they would have perished, had not Major Bonnet taken them off two days after.

Teach then surrendered himself, with twenty of his men, to the Governor of North Carolina, and received certificates and pardons from him, having soon crept into his favour. Through the governor's permission, the _Queen Anne's Revenge_, though avowedly the property of English merchants, was forfeited by an Admiralty Court, as a Spaniard, and declared the property of Teach. Before setting out again to sea Blackbeard married his fourteenth wife, twelve more being still alive.

The governor, who seems to have been half a pirate, and wholly a rogue, performed the ceremony.

In June, 1718, he steered towards Bermudas, and meeting several English vessels, plundered them of provisions. He also captured two French vessels, one of which was loaded with sugar and cocoa, and bound to Martinico. The loaded vessel he brought home, and the governor, calling a court, condemned it as a derelict, and divided the plunder with Teach, receiving sixty hogsheads of sugar as his dividend, and his secretary twenty. For fear the vessel might still be claimed, Teach declared it was leaky, and burnt her to the water's edge.

He now spent three or four months in the river, lying at anchor in the coves, or sailing from inlet to inlet, bartering his plunder with any ship he met, giving presents to the friendly, and ransacking those who resisted. His nights he spent in revelries with the planters, to whom he made presents of rum and sugar, sometimes, when he grew moody, laying them under contribution, and even bullying his confederate, the villainous governor.

The plundered sloops, finding no justice could be obtained in Carolina, determined with great secresy to send a deputation to the Governor of Virginia, and to solicit a man-of-war to destroy the pirates.

The governor instantly complied with their request. The next Sunday a proclamation was read in every church and chapel in Virginia, and by the sheriffs at their country houses. For Blackbeard's head 100 was offered, if brought in within the year, for his lieutenant's 20, for inferior officers 10, and for the common sailors 10. The _Pearl_ and _Lime_, men-of-war, lying in St. James's river, manned a couple of small sloops, supplied by the governor. They had no guns mounted, but were well supplied with small arms and ammunition. The command was given to Lieutenant Robert Maynard, of the _Pearl_, a man of courage and resolution.

On the 7th of November the Lieutenant sailed from Picquetan, and on the evening of the 21st reached the mouth of the Ollereco inlet, and sighted the pirates. Great secresy was observed: all boats and vessels met going up the river were stopped to prevent Blackbeard knowing of their approach. But the governor contrived to put him on his guard, and sent back four of his men, whom he found lounging about the town.

Blackbeard, frequently alarmed by such reports, gave no credit to the messenger, till he saw the sloops. He instantly cleared his decks, having only twenty-five of his forty men on board. Having prepared for battle with all the coolness of an old desperado, he spent the night in drinking with the master of a trading sloop, who seemed to be in his pay.

Maynard, finding the place shoal and the channel intricate, dropped anchor, knowing there was no reaching the pirate that night. The next morning early he weighed, sent his boat ahead to sound, and, coming within gunshot of Teach, received his fire. The lieutenant then, boldly hoisting the king's colours, made at him with all speed of sail and oar, part of his men keeping up a discharge of small arms. Teach then cut cable and made a running fight, discharging his big guns. In a little time the pirate ran aground, and the royal vessel drawing more water anch.o.r.ed within half a gunshot. The lieutenant then threw his ballast overboard, staved all his water, and then weighed and stood in for the enemy.

Blackbeard, loudly cursing, hailed him. "D---- you villains, who are you? From whence come you?" The lieutenant replied, "You see by our colours we are no pirates." Teach bade him send a boat on board that he might know who he was. Maynard answered that he could not spare his boat, but would soon board with his sloop. Whereupon Blackbeard, drinking to him, cried, "Devil seize my soul if I give you quarter or take any." Maynard at once replied, "He should neither give nor take quarter."

By this Blackbeard's sloop floated, and the royal boats were fast approaching.

The sloops being scarcely a foot high in the waist, the men were exposed as they toiled at the sweeps. Hitherto few on either side had fallen.

Suddenly Blackbeard poured in a broadside of grape, and killed twenty men on board one ship and nine on board the other; his vessel then fell broadside to the sh.o.r.e to keep its one side protected, and the disabled sloop fell astern. The Virginia men still kept to their oars, however exposed, because otherwise, there being no wind, the pirate would certainly have escaped.

Maynard finding his own sloop had way, and would soon be on board, ordered his men all down below, for fear of another broadside, which would have been his total destruction. He himself was the only man that kept the deck, even the man at the helm lying down snug; the men in the hold were ordered to get their pistols and cutla.s.ses ready for close fighting, and to come up the companion at a moment's signal. Two ladders were placed in the hatchway ready for the word. As they boarded, Teach's men threw in grenades made of case-bottles, filled with powder, shot, and slugs, and fired with a quick match. Blackbeard, seeing no one on board, cried out, "They are all knocked on the head except three or four, and therefore I will jump on board and cut to pieces those that are still alive."

Under smoke of one of the fire-pots he leaped over the sloop's bows, followed by fourteen men. For a moment he was not heard, during the explosion, nor seen for the smoke. Directly the air cleared Maynard gave the signal, and his men, rising in an instant, attacked the pirates with a rush and a cheer.

Blackbeard and the lieutenant fired the first pistols at each other, and then engaged with sabres till the lieutenant's broke. Stepping back to c.o.c.k his pistol, Blackbeard was in the act of cutting him down, when one of Maynard's men gave the pirate a terrible gash in the throat, and the lieutenant escaped with a small cut over his fingers.

They were now hotly engaged, Blackbeard and his fourteen men--the lieutenant and his twelve. The sea grew red round the vessel. The ball from Maynard's first pistol shot Blackbeard in the body, but he stood his ground, and fought with fury till he received twenty cuts and five more shot. Having already fired several pistols (for he wore many in his sash), he fell dead as he was c.o.c.king another. Eight of his fourteen companions having now fallen, the rest, much wounded, leaped overboard and called for quarter, which was granted till the gibbet could be got ready.

The other vessel now coming up attacked the rest of the pirates, and compelled them to surrender. So ended a man that in a good cause had proved a Leonidas.

With great guns the lieutenant might have destroyed him with less loss, but no large vessel would have got up the river, so shallow, that, small as it was, the sloop grounded a hundred times. The very broadside, although destructive, saved the lives of the survivors, for Blackbeard, expecting to be boarded, had placed a daring fellow, a negro named Caesar, in the powder room, with orders to blow it up at a given signal.

It was with great difficulty that two prisoners in the hold dissuaded him from the deed when he heard of his captain's death.

The lieutenant cutting off Blackbeard's head, hung it at his boltsprit end, and sailed into Bath Town to get relief for his wounded men. In rummaging the sloop, the connivance of the governor was detected; the secretary, falling sick with fear, died in a few days, and the governor was compelled to refund the hogsheads.

When the wounded men began to recover, the lieutenant sailed back into James's river, with the black head still hanging from the spar, and bringing fifteen prisoners, thirteen of whom were hung.

Of the two survivors, one was an unlucky fellow captured only the night before the engagement, who had received no less than seventy wounds, but was cured of them all and recovered. The other was the master of the pirate sloop, who had been shot by Blackbeard, and put on sh.o.r.e at Bath Town. His wound he received in the following way: One night, drinking in the cabin with the mate, a pilot, and another sailor, Blackbeard, without any provocation, drew out a small pair of pistols and c.o.c.ked them under the table. The sailor, perceiving this, said nothing, but got up and went on deck. The pistols being ready, Blackbeard blew out the candle, and, crossing his hands under the table, discharged the pistols. The master fell shot through the knee, lamed for life, the other bullet hit no one. Being asked the meaning of this cruelty, Blackbeard answered, by swearing that if he did not kill one of them now and then, they would forget who he was.

This man was about to be executed, when a ship arrived from England with a proclamation prolonging the time of pardon to those who would surrender. He pleaded this, was released, and ended his days as a beggar in London.

It is a singular fact that many of Blackbeard's captors themselves eventually turned pirates.

Teach derived his nickname from his long black beard, which he twisted with ribbons into small tails, and turned about his ears. This beard was more terrible to America than a comet, say his historians. In time of action he wore a sling over his shoulders, with three brace of pistols hanging to it in holsters like bandoliers. He then stuck lighted matches under his hat, and this, with his natural fierce and wild eyes, gave him the aspect of a demon.

His frolics were truly satanic, and only madness can furnish us with any excuse for such crimes. Pre-eminent in wickedness, he was constantly resorting to artifices to maintain that pre-eminence. One day at sea, when flushed with drink, "Come," said he, "let us make a h.e.l.l of our own, and try how long we can bear it." He then, with two or three others, went down into the hold, and, closing up all the hatches, lighted some pots of brimstone, and continued till the men, nearly suffocated, cried for air and pushed up the hatches. Blackbeard triumphed in having held out longest.

The night before he was killed, as he was drinking, one of his men asked him, if anything should happen to him, if his wife knew where he had buried his money. He answered that n.o.body but himself and the devil knew where it was, and the longest liver should have all.

These blasphemies had filled the crew with superst.i.tious fears, and perhaps unnerved their arms in the last struggle. The survivors declared that, once upon a cruise, a man was found on board more than the crew, sometimes below and sometimes above. No one knew whence he came and who he was, but believed him to be the devil, as he disappeared shortly before their great ship was cast away.

In Blackbeard's journal were found many entries ill.u.s.trating the fear and misery of a pirate's life. For instance--

"3rd June, all rum out; our company somewhat sober; rogues a plotting; great talk of separation; so I looked sharp for a prize. 5th June, took one with a great deal of liquor on board, so kept the company hot, d---- hot; then all things went well again."

Some sugar, cocoa, indigo, and cotton were found on board the pirate sloops, and some in a tent on the sh.o.r.e. This, with the sloop, sold for 2500. The whole was divided amongst the crews of the _Lime_ and _Pearl_, the brave captors getting no more than their dividend, and that very tardily paid, as such things usually are by English governments.

CAPTAIN ENGLAND began life as mate of a Jamaica sloop, and being taken by a pirate named Winter, before Providence was turned into a freebooter fortress, became master of a piratical vessel. He soon became remarkable for his courage and generosity.

When Providence was taken by the English, England sailed to the African coast, a hot place, but not too hot for him, like the sh.o.r.es of the main. He here took several ships, among others the _Cadogan_, bound from Bristol to Sierra Leone--Skinner, master. Some of England's crew had formerly served in this ship, and, having proved mutinous, had been mulcted of their wages and sent on board a man of war, from whence deserting to a West Indian sloop, they were taken by pirates, and eventually joined England and started for a cruise.

As soon as Skinner struck to the black flag, he was ordered on board the pirate. The first person he saw was his old boatswain, who addressed him with a sneer of suppressed hatred. "Ah, Captain Skinner," said he, "is that you? the very man I wished to see. I am much in your debt, and will pay you now in your own coin."

The brave seaman trembled, for he knew his fate, and shuddered as an ox does when it smells the blood of a slaughter-house. The boatswain, instantly shouting to his companions, bound the captain fast to the windla.s.s. They then, amidst roars of cruel laughter, pelted him with gla.s.s bottles till he was cut and gashed in a dreadful manner. After this, they whipped him round the deck till they were weary, in spite of his prayers and entreaties. At last, vowing that he should have an easy death, as he had been a good master to his men, they shot him through the head. England then plundered the vessel and gave it to the mate and the crew of murderers, and they sailed with it till they reached death's door, and the port whose name is terrible.

Taking soon after a ship called the _Pearl_, England fitted her up for his own use, and re-christened her the _Royal James_. With her they took several vessels of various nations at the Azores and Cape de Verd Islands.

In 1719 the rovers returned to Africa, and, beginning at the river Gambia, sailed all down the torrid coast as far as Cape Corso. In this trip they captured the _Eagle Pink_, six guns, the _Charlotte_, eight guns, the _Sarah_, four guns, the _Wentworth_, twelve guns, the _Buck_, two guns, the _Castanet_, four guns, the _Mercury_, four guns, the _Coward_, two guns, and the _Elizabeth_ and _Catherine_, six guns. Three of these vessels they let go, and four they burnt. Two they fitted up as pirates, and calling them the _Queen Anne's Revenge_ and the _Flying King_, many of the prisoners joined their bands.