Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts Part 11

Bonnet again to the Front

It must not be supposed that the late commander of the _Revenge_ continued to be satisfied, as he sat in the cabin of Blackbeard's vessel and made the entries of the day's sailing and various performances. He obeyed the orders of his usurping partner because he was obliged to do so, but he did not hate Blackbeard any the less because he had to keep quiet about it. He accompanied his pirate chief on various cruises, among which was the famous expedition to the harbor of Charles Town where Blackbeard traded Mr. Wragg and his companions for medicines.

Having a very fine fleet under him, Blackbeard did a very successful business for some time, but feeling that he had earned enough for the present, and that it was time for him to take one of his vacations, he put into an inlet in North Carolina, where he disbanded his crew. So long as he was on sh.o.r.e spending his money and having a good time, he did not want to have a lot of men about him who would look to him to support them when they had spent their portion of the spoils. Having no further use for Bonnet, he dismissed him also, and did not object to his resuming possession of his own vessel. If the green pirate chose to go to sea again and perhaps drown himself and his crew, it was a matter of no concern to Blackbeard.

But this was a matter of very great concern to Stede Bonnet, and he proceeded to prove that there were certain branches of the piratical business in which he was an adept, and second to none of his fellow-pract.i.tioners. He wished to go pirating again, and saw a way of doing this which he thought would be far superior to any of the common methods. It was about this time that King George of England, very desirous of breaking up piracy, issued a proclamation in which he promised pardon to any pirate who would appear before the proper authorities, renounce his evil practices, and take an oath of allegiance. It also happened that very soon after this proclamation had been issued, England went to war with Spain. Being a man who kept himself posted in the news of the world, so far as it was possible, Bonnet saw in the present state of affairs a very good chance for him to play the part of a wolf in sheep's clothing, and he proceeded to begin his new piratical career by renouncing piracy. So leaving the _Revenge_ in the inlet, he journeyed overland to Bath; there he signed pledges, took oaths, and did everything that was necessary to change himself from a pirate captain to a respectable commander of a duly authorized British privateer. Returning to his vessel with all the papers in his pocket necessary to prove that he was a loyal and law-abiding subject of Great Britain, he took out regular clearance papers for St. Thomas, which was a British naval station, and where he declared he was going in order to obtain a commission as a privateer.

Now the wily Bonnet had everything he wanted except a crew. Of course it would not do for him, in his present respectable capacity, to go about enlisting unemployed pirates, but at this point fortune again favored him; he knew of a desert island not very far away where Blackbeard, at the end of his last cruise, had marooned a large party of his men. This heartless pirate had not wanted to take all of his followers into port, because they might prove troublesome and expensive to him, and so he had put a number of them on this island, to live or die as the case might be. Bonnet went over to this island, and finding the greater part of these men still surviving, he offered to take them to St. Thomas in his vessel if they would agree to work the ship to port. This proposition was of course joyfully accepted, and very soon the _Revenge_ was manned with a complete crew of competent desperadoes.

All these operations took a good deal of time, and, at last, when everything was ready for Bonnet to start out on his piratical cruise, he received information which caused him to change his mind, and to set forth on an errand of a very different kind. He had supposed that Blackbeard, whom he had never forgiven for the shameful and treacherous manner in which he had treated him, was still on sh.o.r.e enjoying himself, but he was told by the captain of a small trading vessel that the old pirate was preparing for another cruise, and that he was then in Ocrac.o.ke Inlet. Now Bonnet folded his arms and stamped his feet upon the quarter-deck. The time had come for him to show that the name of his vessel meant something. Never before had he had an opportunity for revenging himself on anybody, but now that hour had arrived. He would revenge himself upon Blackbeard!

The implacable Bonnet sailed out to sea in a truly warlike frame of mind. He was not going forth to prey upon unresisting merchantmen; he was on his way to punish a black-hearted pirate, a faithless scoundrel, who had not only acted knavishly toward the world in general, but had behaved most disloyally and disrespectfully toward a fellow pirate chief. If he could once run the _Revenge_ alongside the ship of the perfidious Blackbeard, he would show him what a green hand could do.

When Bonnet reached Ocrac.o.ke Inlet, he was deeply disappointed to find that Blackbeard had left that harbor, but he did not give up the pursuit. He made hot chase after the vessel of his pirate enemy, keeping a sharp lookout in hopes of discovering some signs of him. If the enraged Bonnet could have met the ferocious Blackbeard face to face, there might have been a combat which would have relieved the world of two atrocious villains, and Captain Maynard would have been deprived of the honor of having slain the most famous pirate of the day.

Bonnet was a good soldier and a brave man, and although he could not sail a ship, he understood the use of the sword even better, perhaps, than Blackbeard, and there is good reason to believe that if the two ships had come together, their respective crews would have allowed their captains to fight out their private quarrel without interference, for pirates delight in a b.l.o.o.d.y spectacle, and this would have been to them a rare diversion of the kind.

But Bonnet never overtook Blackbeard, and the great combat between the rival pirates did not take place. After vainly searching for a considerable time for a trace or sight of Blackbeard, the baffled Bonnet gave up the pursuit and turned his mind to other objects. The first thing he did was to change the name of his vessel; if he could not be revenged, he would not sail in the _Revenge_. Casting about in his mind for a good name, he decided to call her the _Royal James_. Having no intention of respecting his oaths or of keeping his promises, he thought that, as he was going to be disloyal, he might as well be as disloyal as he could, and so he gave his ship the name a.s.sumed by the son of James the Second, who was a pretender to the throne, and was then in France plotting against the English government.

The next thing he did was to change his own name, for he thought this would make matters better for him if he should be captured after entering upon his new criminal career. So he called himself Captain Thomas, by which name he was afterwards known.

When these preliminaries had been arranged, he gathered his crew together and announced that instead of going to St. Thomas to get a commission as a privateer, he had determined to keep on in his old manner of life, and that he wished them to understand that not only was he a pirate captain, but that they were a pirate crew. Many of the men were very much surprised at this announcement, for they had thought it a very natural thing for the green-hand Bonnet to give up pirating after he had been so thoroughly snubbed by Blackbeard, and they had not supposed that he would ever think again of sailing under a black flag.

However, the crew's opinion of the green-hand captain had been a good deal changed. In his various cruises he had learned a good deal about navigation, and could now give very fair orders, and his furious pursuit of Blackbeard had also given him a reputation for reckless bravery which he had not enjoyed before. A man who was chafing and fuming for a chance of a hand-to-hand conflict with the greatest pirate of the day must be a pretty good sort of a fellow from their point of view. Moreover, their strutting and stalking captain, so recently balked of his dark revenge, was a very savage-looking man, and it would not be pleasant either to try to persuade him to give up his piratical intention, or to decline to join him in carrying it out; so the whole of the crew, minor officers and men, changed their minds about going to St. Thomas, and agreed to hoist the skull and cross-bones, and to follow Captain Bonnet wherever he might lead.

Bonnet now cruised about in grand style and took some prizes on the Virginia coast, and then went up into Delaware Bay, where he captured such ships as he wanted, and acted generally in the most domineering and insolent fashion. Once, when he stopped near the town of Lewes, in order to send some prisoners ash.o.r.e, he sent a message to the officers of the town to the effect that if they interfered with his men when they came ash.o.r.e, he would open fire upon the town with his cannon, and blow every house into splinters. Of course the citizens, having no way of defending themselves, were obliged to allow the pirates to come on sh.o.r.e and depart unmolested.

Then after this the bl.u.s.tering captain captured two valuable sloops, and wishing to take them along with him without the trouble of transferring their cargoes to his own vessel, he left their crews on board, and ordered them to follow him wherever he went. Some days after that, when one of the vessels seemed to be sailing at too great a distance, Bonnet quickly let her captain know that he was not a man to be trifled with, and sent him the message that if he did not keep close to the _Royal James_, he would fire into him and sink him to the bottom.

After a time Bonnet put into a North Carolina port in order to repair the _Royal James_, which was becoming very leaky, and seeing no immediate legitimate way of getting planks and beams enough with which to make the necessary repairs, he captured a small sloop belonging in the neighborhood, and broke it up in order to get the material he needed to make his own vessel seaworthy.

Now the people of the North Carolina coast very seldom interfered with pirates, as we have seen, and it is likely that Bonnet might have stayed in port as long as he pleased, and repaired and refitted his vessel without molestation if he had bought and paid for the planks and timber he required. But when it came to boldly seizing their property, that was too much even for the people of the region, and complaints of Bonnet's behavior spread from settlement to settlement, and it very soon became known all down the coast that there was a pirate in North Carolina who was committing depredations there and was preparing to set out on a fresh cruise.

When these tidings came to Charles Town, the citizens were thrown into great agitation. It had not been long since Blackbeard had visited their harbor, and had treated them with such brutal insolence, and there were bold spirits in the town who declared that if any effort by them could prevent another visitation of the pirates, that effort should be made.

There was no naval force in the harbor which could be sent out to meet the pirates, who were coming down the coast; but Mr. William Rhett, a private gentleman of position in the place, went to the Governor and offered to fit out, at his own expense, an expedition for the purpose of turning away from their city the danger which threatened it.

Chapter XXVI

The Battle of the Sand Bars

When that estimable private gentleman, Mr. William Rhett, of Charles Town, had received a commission from the Governor to go forth on his own responsibility and meet the dreaded pirate, the news of whose depredations had thrown the good citizens into such a fever of apprehension, he took possession, in the name of the law, of two large sloops, the _Henry_ and the _Sea-Nymph_, which were in the harbor, and at his own expense he manned them with well-armed crews, and put on board of each of them eight small cannon. When everything was ready, Mr.

Rhett was in command of a very formidable force for those waters, and if he had been ready to sail a few days sooner, he would have had an opportunity of giving his men some practice in fighting pirates before they met the particular and more important sea-robber whom they had set out to encounter. Just as his vessel was ready to sail, Mr. Rhett received news that a pirate ship had captured two or three merchantmen just outside the harbor, and he put out to sea with all possible haste and cruised up and down the coast for some time, but he did not find this most recent depredator, who had departed very promptly when he heard that armed ships were coming out of the harbor.

Now Mr. Rhett, who was no more of a sailor than Stede Bonnet had been when he first began his seafaring life, boldly made his way up the coast to the mouth of Cape Fear River, where he had been told the pirate vessel was lying. When he reached his destination, Mr. Rhett found that it would not be an easy thing to ascend the river, for the reason that the pilots he had brought with him knew nothing about the waters of that part of the coast, and although the two ships made their way very cautiously, it was not long after they had entered the river before they got out of the channel, and it being low tide, both of them ran aground upon sand bars.

This was a very annoying accident, but it was not disastrous, for the sailing masters who commanded the sloops knew very well that when the tide rose, their vessels would float again. But it prevented Mr. Rhett from going on and making an immediate attack upon the pirate vessel, the topmasts of which could be plainly seen behind a high headland some distance up the river.

Of course Bonnet, or Captain Thomas, as he now chose to be called, soon became aware of the fact that two good-sized vessels were lying aground near the mouth of the river, and having a very natural curiosity to see what sort of craft they were, he waited until nightfall and then sent three armed boats to make observations. When these boats returned to the _Royal James_ and reported that the grounded vessels were not well-loaded trading craft, but large sloops full of men and armed with cannon, Bonnet (for we prefer to call him by his old name) had good reason to fold his arms, knit his brows, and strut up and down the deck.

He was sure that the armed vessels came from Charles Town, and there was no reason to doubt that if the Governor of South Carolina had sent two ships against him the matter was a very serious one. He was penned up in the river, he had only one fighting vessel to contend against two, and if he could not succeed in getting out to sea before he should be attacked by the Charles Town ships, there would be but little chance of his continuing in his present line of business. If the _Royal James_ had been ready to sail, there is no doubt that Bonnet would have taken his chance of finding the channel in the dark, and would have sailed away that night without regard to the cannonading which might have been directed against him from the two stranded vessels.

But as it was impossible to get ready to sail, Bonnet went to work with the greatest energy to get ready to fight. He knew that when the tide rose there would be two armed sloops afloat, and that there would be a regular naval battle on the quiet waters of Cape Fear River. All night his men worked to clear the decks and get everything in order for the coming combat, and all night Mr. Rhett and his crews kept a sharp watch for any unexpected move of the enemy, while they loaded their guns, their pistols, and their cannon, and put everything in order for action.

Very early in the morning the wide-awake crews of the South Carolina vessels, which were now afloat and at anchor, saw that the topmasts of the pirate craft were beginning to move above the distant headland, and very soon Bonnet's ship came out into view, under full sail, and as she veered around they saw that she was coming toward them. Up went the anchors and up went the sails of the _Henry_ and the _Sea-Nymph_, and the naval battle between the retired army officer who had almost learned to be a sailor, and the private gentleman from South Carolina, who knew nothing whatever about managing ships, was about to begin.

It was plain to the South Carolinians that the great object of the pirate captain was to get out to sea just as soon as he could, and that he was coming down the river, not because he wished to make an immediate attack upon them, but because he hoped to slip by them and get away. Of course they could follow him upon the ocean and fight him if their vessels were fast enough, but once out of the river with plenty of sea-room, he would have twenty chances of escape where now he had one.

But Mr. Rhett did not intend that the pirates should play him this little trick; he wanted to fight the dastardly wretches in the river, where they could not get away, and he had no idea of letting them sneak out to sea. Consequently as the _Royal James_, under full sail, was making her way down the river, keeping as far as possible from her two enemies, Mr. Rhett ordered his ships to bear down upon her so as to cut off her retreat and force her toward the opposite sh.o.r.e of the river.

This manoeuvre was performed with great success. The two Charles Town sloops sailed so boldly and swiftly toward the _Royal James_ that the latter was obliged to hug the sh.o.r.e, and the first thing the pirates knew they were stuck fast and tight upon a sand bar. Three minutes afterward the _Henry_ ran upon a sand bar, and there being enough of these obstructions in that river to satisfy any ordinary demand, the _Sea-Nymph_ very soon grounded herself upon another of them. But unfortunately she took up her permanent position at a considerable distance from her consort.

Here now were the vessels which were to conduct this memorable sea-fight, all three fast in the sand and unable to move, and their predicament was made the worse by the fact that it would be five hours before the tide would rise high enough for any one of them to float. The positions of the three vessels were very peculiar and awkward; the _Henry_ and the _Royal James_ were lying so near to each other that Mr.

Rhett could have shot Major Bonnet with a pistol if the latter gentleman had given him the chance, and the _Sea-Nymph_ was so far away that she was entirely out of the fight, and her crew could do nothing but stand and watch what was going on between the other two vessels.

But although they could not get any nearer each other, nor get away from each other, the pirates and Mr. Rhett's crew had no idea of postponing the battle until they should be afloat and able to fight in the ordinary fashion of ships; they immediately began to fire at each other with pistols, muskets, and cannon, and the din and roar was something that must have astonished the birds and beasts and fishes of that quiet region.

As the tide continued to run out of the river, and its waters became more and more shallow, the two contending vessels began to careen over to one side, and, unfortunately for the _Henry_, they both careened in the same direction, and in such a manner that the deck of the _Royal James_ was inclined away from the _Henry_, while the deck of the latter leaned toward her pirate foe. This gave a great advantage to Bonnet and his crew, for they were in a great measure protected by the hull of their vessel, whereas the whole deck of the _Henry_ was exposed to the fire of the pirates. But Mr. Rhett and his South Carolinians were all brave men, and they blazed away with their muskets and pistols at the pirates whenever they could see a head above the rail of the _Royal James_, while with their cannon they kept firing at the pirate's hull.

For five long hours the fight continued, but the cannon carried by the two vessels must have been of very small calibre, for if they had been firing at such short range and for such a length of time with modern guns, they must have shattered each other into kindling wood. But neither vessel seems to have been seriously injured, and although there were a good many men killed on both sides, the combat was kept up with great determination and fury. At one time it seemed almost certain that Bonnet would get the better of Mr. Rhett, and he ordered his black flag waved contemptuously in the air while his men shouted to the South Carolinians to come over and call upon them, but the South Carolina boys answered these taunts with cheers and fired away more furiously than ever.

The tide was now coming in, and everybody on board the two fighting vessels knew very well that the first one of them which should float would have a great advantage over the other, and would probably be the conqueror. In came the tide, and still the cannons roared and the muskets cracked, while the hearts of the pirates and the South Carolinians almost stood still as they each watched the other vessel to see if she showed any signs of floating.

At last such signs were seen; the _Henry_ was further from the sh.o.r.e than the _Royal James_, and she first felt the influence of the rising waters. Her masts began to straighten, and at last her deck was level, and she floated clear of the bottom while her antagonist still lay careened over on her side. Now the pirates saw there was no chance for them; in a very short time the other Carolina sloop would be afloat, and then the two vessels would bear down upon them and utterly destroy both them and their vessel. Consequently upon the _Royal James_ there was a general disposition to surrender and to make the best terms they could, for it would be a great deal better to submit and run the chance of a trial than to keep up the fight against enemies so much superior both in numbers and ships, who would soon be upon them.

But Bonnet would not listen to one word of surrender. Rather than give up the fight he declared he would set fire to the powder magazine of the _Royal James_ and blow himself, his ship, and his men high up into the air. Although he had not a sailor's skill, he possessed a soldier's soul, and in spite of his being a dastardly and cruel pirate he was a brave man. But Bonnet was only one, and his crew numbered dozens, and notwithstanding his furiously dissenting voice it was determined to surrender, and when Mr. Rhett sailed up to the _Royal James_, intending to board her if the pirates still showed resistance, he found them ready to submit to terms and to yield themselves his prisoners.

Thus ended the great sea-fight between the private gentlemen, and thus ended Stede Bonnet's career. He and his men were taken to Charles Town, where most of the pirate crew were tried and executed. The green-hand pirate, who had wrought more devastation along the American coast than many a skilled sea-robber, was held in custody to await his trial, and it seems very strange that there should have been a public sentiment in Charles Town which induced the officials to treat this pirate with a certain degree of respect simply from the fact that his station in life had been that of a gentleman. He was a much more black-hearted scoundrel than any of his men, but they were executed as soon as possible while his trial was postponed and he was allowed privileges which would never have been accorded a common pirate. In consequence of this leniency he escaped and had to be retaken by Mr. Rhett. It was so long before he was tried that sympathy for his misfortunes arose among some of the tender-hearted citizens of Charles Town whose houses he would have pillaged and whose families he would have murdered if the exigencies of piracy had rendered such action desirable.

Finding that other people were trying to save his life, Bonnet came down from his high horse and tried to save it himself by writing piteous letters to the Governor, begging for mercy. But the Governor of South Carolina had no notion of sparing a pirate who had deliberately put himself under the protection of the law in order that he might better pursue his lawless and wicked career, and the green hand, with the black heart, was finally hung on the same spot where his companions had been executed.

Chapter XXVII

A Six Weeks' Pirate

About the time of Stede Bonnet's terminal adventures a very unpretentious pirate made his appearance in the waters of New York. This was a man named Richard Worley, who set himself up in piracy in a very small way, but who, by a strict attention to business, soon achieved a remarkable success. He started out as a scourge upon the commerce of the Atlantic Ocean with only an open boat and eight men. In this small craft he went down the coast of New Jersey taking everything he could from fishing boats and small trading vessels until he reached Delaware Bay, and here he made a bold stroke and captured a good-sized sloop.

When this piratical outrage was reported at Philadelphia, it created a great sensation, and people talked about it until the open boat with nine men grew into a great pirate ship filled with roaring desperadoes and cutthroats. From Philadelphia the news was sent to New York, and that government was warned of the great danger which threatened the coast. As soon as this alarming intelligence was received, the New Yorkers set to work to get up an expedition which should go out to sea and endeavor to destroy the pirate vessel before it could enter their port, and work havoc among their merchantmen.

It may seem strange that a small open boat with nine men could stir up such a commotion in these two great provinces of North America, but if we can try to imagine the effect which would be produced among the inhabitants of Staten Island, or in the hearts of the dwellers in the beautiful houses on the sh.o.r.es of the Delaware River, by the announcement that a boat carrying nine desperate burglars was to be expected in their neighborhood, we can better understand what the people of New York and Philadelphia thought when they heard that Worley had captured a sloop in Delaware Bay.

The expedition which left New York made a very unsuccessful cruise. It sailed for days and days, but never saw a sign of a boat containing nine men, and it returned disappointed and obliged to report no progress.