Speaker 1: Chapter twenty five of Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts.
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Speaker 1: and Pirates of Our Coasts by Frank Richard Stockton, chapter
Speaker 1: twenty five, Bonnet again to the front. It must not
Speaker 1: be supposed that the late commander of the Revenge continued
Speaker 1: to be satisfied as he sat in the cabin of
Speaker 1: Blackbeard's vessel and made the entries of the day's sailing
Speaker 1: in various performances. He obeyed the orders of his usurping
Speaker 1: partner because he was obliged to do so, but he
Speaker 1: did not hate Blackbeard any the less because he had
Speaker 1: to keep quiet about it. He accompanied his pirate chief
Speaker 1: on various cruises, among which was the famous expedition to
Speaker 1: the harbor of Charlestown, where Blackbeard traded mister Wragg and
Speaker 1: his companions for medicines. Having a very fine fleet under him,
Speaker 1: Blackbeard did a very success tessful business for some time,
Speaker 1: but feeling that he had earned enough for the present,
Speaker 1: and that it was time for him to take one
Speaker 1: of his vacations. He put into an inlet in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: where he disbanded his crew. So long as he was
Speaker 1: on shore, spending his money and having a good time,
Speaker 1: he did not want to have a lot of men
Speaker 1: about him who would look to him to support them
Speaker 1: when they had spent their portion of the spoils. Having
Speaker 1: no further use for Bonnet, he dismissed him also, and
Speaker 1: did not object to his resuming possession of his own vessel.
Speaker 1: If the Green Pirate chose to go to sea again
Speaker 1: and perhaps drown himself and his crew, it was a
Speaker 1: matter of no concern to Blackbeard. But this was a
Speaker 1: matter of very great concern to Steed Bonnet, and he
Speaker 1: proceeded to prove that there were certain branches of the
Speaker 1: piratical business in which he was an adept and second
Speaker 1: to none of his fellow practitioners. He wished to go
Speaker 1: pirating again, and saw a way of doing this which
Speaker 1: he thought would be far superior to any of the
Speaker 1: common methods. It was about this time that King George
Speaker 1: of England, very desirous of breaking up piracy, issued a
Speaker 1: proclamation in which he promised pardon to any pirate who
Speaker 1: would appear before the proper authorities, renounce his evil practices
Speaker 1: and take an oath of allegiance. It also happened that
Speaker 1: very soon after this proclamation had been issued, England went
Speaker 1: to war with Spain. Being a man who kept himself
Speaker 1: posted in the news of the world so far as
Speaker 1: it was possible, Bonnet saw in the present state of
Speaker 1: affairs a very good chance for him to play the
Speaker 1: part of a wolf in sheep's clothing, and he proceeded
Speaker 1: to begin his new piratical career by renouncing piracy, so
Speaker 1: leaving the revenge in the inlet. He journeyed overland to Bath,
Speaker 1: and there he signed pledges, took oaths, and did everything
Speaker 1: that was necessary to change himself from a pirate captain
Speaker 1: to a respectable commander of a duly authorized British privateer.
Speaker 1: Returning to his vessel with all the papers in his
Speaker 1: pocket necessary to prove that he was a loyal and
Speaker 1: law abiding subject of Great Britain, he took out regular
Speaker 1: clearance papers for Saint Thomas, which was a British naval
Speaker 1: station and where he declared he was going in order
Speaker 1: to obtain a commission as a privateer. Now the wily
Speaker 1: Bonnet had everything he wanted except a crew. Of course,
Speaker 1: it would not do for him and his present respectable
Speaker 1: capacity to go about enlisting unemployed pirates. But at this
Speaker 1: point fortune again favored him. He knew of a desert
Speaker 1: island not very far away, where Blackbeard, at the end
Speaker 1: of his last cruise, had marooned a large party of
Speaker 1: his men. This heartless pirate had not wanted to take
Speaker 1: all of his followers into port because they might prove
Speaker 1: troublesome and expensive to him, and so he had put
Speaker 1: a number of them on this island to live or die,
Speaker 1: as the case might be. Bonnet went over to this island, and,
Speaker 1: finding the greater part of these men still surviving, he
Speaker 1: offered to take them to Saint Thomas in his vessel
Speaker 1: if they would agree to work the ship to port.
Speaker 1: This proposition was of course joyfully accepted, and very soon
Speaker 1: the Revenge was manned with a complete crew of competent desperaca.
Speaker 1: All these operations took a good deal of time, and
Speaker 1: at last, when everything was ready for Bonnet to start
Speaker 1: out on his piratical cruise, he received information which caused
Speaker 1: him to change his mind and to set forth on
Speaker 1: an errand of a very different kind. He had supposed
Speaker 1: that Blackbeard, whom he had never forgiven for the shameful
Speaker 1: and treacherous manner in which he had treated him, was
Speaker 1: still on shore enjoying himself. But he was told by
Speaker 1: the captain of a small trading vessel that the old
Speaker 1: pirate was preparing for another cruise, and that he was
Speaker 1: then in okracoke Inlet. Now Bonnet folded his arms and
Speaker 1: stamped his feet upon the quarter deck. The time had
Speaker 1: come for him to show that the name of his
Speaker 1: vessel meant something. Never before had he had an opportunity
Speaker 1: for revenging himself on anybody, But now that hour had arrived,
Speaker 1: he would revenge himself upon Blackbeard. The implacable Bonnet sailed
Speaker 1: out to sea in a truly warlike frame of mind.
Speaker 1: He was not going forth to prey upon unresisting merchantmen.
Speaker 1: He was on his way to punish a black hearted pirate,
Speaker 1: a faithless scoundrel who had not only acted knavishly toward
Speaker 1: the world in general, but had behaved most disloyally and
Speaker 1: disrespectfully toward a fellow pirate chief. If he could once
Speaker 1: run the revenge alongside the ship, of the perfidious Blackbeard,
Speaker 1: he would show him what a green hand could do.
Speaker 1: When Bonnet reached Okracoke Inlet, he was deeply disappointed to
Speaker 1: find that Blackbeard had left that harbor, but he did
Speaker 1: not give up the pursuit. He made hot chase after
Speaker 1: the vessel of his pirate enemy, keeping a sharp lookout
Speaker 1: in hopes of discovering some signs of him. If the
Speaker 1: enraged Bonnet could have met the ferocious Blackbeard face to face,
Speaker 1: there might have been a combat which would have relieved
Speaker 1: the world of two atrocious villains, and Captain Maynard would
Speaker 1: have been deprived of the honor of having slain the
Speaker 1: most famous pirate of the day. Bonnet was a good
Speaker 1: soldier and a brave man, and although he could not
Speaker 1: sail a ship, he understood the use of the sword
Speaker 1: even better, perhaps than Blackbeard. And there is good reason
Speaker 1: to believe that if the two ships had come together,
Speaker 1: their respective crews would have allowed their captains to fight
Speaker 1: out their private quarrel without interference. For pirates delight in
Speaker 1: a bloody spectacle, and this would have been to them
Speaker 1: a rare diversion of the kind. But Bonnet never overtook Blackbeard,
Speaker 1: and the great combat between the rival pirates did not
Speaker 1: take place. After vainly searching for a considerable time for
Speaker 1: a trace or sight of Blackbeard, the baffled Bonnet gave
Speaker 1: up the pursuit and turned his mind to other objects.
Speaker 1: The first thing he did was to change the name
Speaker 1: of his vessel. If he could not be revenged, he
Speaker 1: would not sail in the revenge. Casting about in his
Speaker 1: mind for a good name, he decided to call her
Speaker 1: the Royal James. Having no intention of respecting his oaths
Speaker 1: or of keeping his promises, he thought that as he
Speaker 1: was going to be disloyal, he might as well be
Speaker 1: as disloyal as he could, and so he gave his
Speaker 1: ship the name assumed by the son of James the Second,
Speaker 1: who was a pretender to the throne and was then
Speaker 1: in France plotting against the English government. The next thing
Speaker 1: he did was to change his own name, for he
Speaker 1: thought this would make matters better for him if he
Speaker 1: should be captured after entering upon his new criminal career.
Speaker 1: So he called himself Captain Thomas, by which name he
Speaker 1: was afterwards known. When these preliminaries had been arranged, he
Speaker 1: gathered his crew together and announced that instead of going
Speaker 1: to Saint Thomas to get a commission as a privateer,
Speaker 1: he had determined to keep on in his old manner
Speaker 1: of life, and that he wished them to understand that
Speaker 1: not only was he a pirate captain, but that they
Speaker 1: were a pirate crew. Many of the men were very
Speaker 1: much surprised at this announcement, for they had thought it
Speaker 1: a very natural thing for the green Hand Bonnet to
Speaker 1: give up pirating after he had been so thoroughly snubbed
Speaker 1: by Blackbeard, and they had not supposed that he would
Speaker 1: ever think again of sailing under a black flag. However,
Speaker 1: the crew's opinion of the green Hand Captain had been
Speaker 1: a good deal changed. In his various cruises, he had
Speaker 1: learned a good deal about navigation and could now give
Speaker 1: very fair orders, and his furious pursuit of Blackbeard had
Speaker 1: also given him a reputation for reckless bravery, which he
Speaker 1: had not enjoyed before. A man who was chafing and
Speaker 1: fuming for a chance of a hand to hand conflict
Speaker 1: with the greatest pirate of the day must be a
Speaker 1: pretty good sort of a fellow, from their point of view. Moreover,
Speaker 1: their strutting and stalking captain so recently balked of his
Speaker 1: dark revenge, was a very savage looking man, and it
Speaker 1: would not be pleasant either to try to persuade him
Speaker 1: to give up his piratical intention, or to decline to
Speaker 1: join him in carrying it out. So the whole of
Speaker 1: the crew, minor officers and men, changed their minds about
Speaker 1: going to Saint Thomas, and agreed to hoist the skull
Speaker 1: and crossbones, and to follow Captain Bonnet wherever he might lead.
Speaker 1: Bonnet now cruised about in grand style and took some
Speaker 1: prizes on the Virginia coast, and then went up into
Speaker 1: Delaware Bay, where he captured such ships as he wanted,
Speaker 1: and acted generally in the most domineering and insolent fashion. Once,
Speaker 1: when he stopped near the town of Loose, in order
Speaker 1: to send some prisoners ashore, he sent a message to
Speaker 1: the officers of the town to the effect that if
Speaker 1: they interfered with his men when they came ashore, he
Speaker 1: would open fire upon the town with his cannon and
Speaker 1: blow every house into splinters. Of course, the citizens, having
Speaker 1: no way of defending themselves, were obliged to allow the
Speaker 1: pirates to come on shore and depart unmolested. Then after this,
Speaker 1: the blustering captain captured two valuable sloops, and, wishing to
Speaker 1: take them along with them without the trouble of transferring
Speaker 1: their cargoes to his own vessel, he left their crews
Speaker 1: on board and ordered them to follow him wherever he went.
Speaker 1: Some days after that, when one of the vessels seemed
Speaker 1: to be sailing at too great a distance, Bonnet quickly
Speaker 1: let her captain know that he was not a man
Speaker 1: to be trifled with, and sent him the message that
Speaker 1: if he did not keep close to the Royal James,
Speaker 1: he would fire into him and sink him to the bottom.
Speaker 1: After a time, Bonnet put into a North Carolina port
Speaker 1: in order to repair the Royal James, which was becoming
Speaker 1: very leaky. And seeing no immediate legitimate way of getting
Speaker 1: planks and beams enough with which to make the necessary repairs,
Speaker 1: he captured a small sloop belonging in the neighborhood and
Speaker 1: broke it up in order to get the material he
Speaker 1: needed to make his own vessel seaworthy. Now, the people
Speaker 1: of the North Carolina coast very seldom interfered with pirates,
Speaker 1: as we have seen, and it is likely that Bonnet
Speaker 1: might have stayed in port as long as he pleased
Speaker 1: and repaired and refitted his vessel without molestation, if he
Speaker 1: had bought and paid for the planks in timber he required.
Speaker 1: But when it came to boldly seizing their property, that
Speaker 1: was too much even for the people of the region,
Speaker 1: and complaints of Bonnet's behavior spread from settlement to settlement,
Speaker 1: and it very soon became known all down the coast
Speaker 1: that there was a pirate in North Carolina who was
Speaker 1: committing depredations there, and was preparing to set out on
Speaker 1: a fresh cruise. When these tidings came to Charlestown, the
Speaker 1: citizens were thrown into great agitation. It had not been
Speaker 1: long since Blackbeard had visited their harbor and had treated
Speaker 1: them with such brutal insolence, and there were bold spirits
Speaker 1: in the town who declared that if any effort by
Speaker 1: them could prevent another visitation of the pirates, that effort
Speaker 1: should be made. There was no naval force in the
Speaker 1: harbor which could be sent out to meet the pirates
Speaker 1: who were coming down the coast. But mister William Rhett,
Speaker 1: a private gentleman of position in the place, went to
Speaker 1: the governor and offered to fit out, at his own expense,
Speaker 1: an expedition for the purpose of turning away from their
Speaker 1: city the danger which threatened it. End of Chapter twenty five,