the_life_and_tryals_of_gentleman_pirate

North Carolina’s Outer Banks “had a reputation as a place of refuge from the law, a harbor for smugglers, wreckers, and pirates.”130 Coming off a tumultuous several days in the Charles Town harbor, Bonnet and the rest of the pirate consort would have welcomed a short reprieve in Carolina, with fresh water and some relaxation on the sandy shores of the islands throughout the region. The reprieve, however, would not come.

The next morning, all of the ships—the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the Revenge, the Adventure, and the found sloop—headed into Topsail Inlet. While entering the inlet, the Queen Anne’s Revenge ran aground. Thatch sent his quartermaster, William Howard, to fetch the Adventure to come to his assistance.

As the Adventure turned back toward the Queen Anne’s Revenge, it also ran aground “about Gunshot” from the Queen Anne’s Revenge. Both the Queen Anne’s Revenge and the Adventure were wrecked, their hulls breached and taking on water.

The crews from each wrecked ship went aboard the Revenge and the other sloop, with Thatch taking command on the unnamed sloop.

Rumors swirled that Thatch had purposefully caused his flagship to run aground. Bonnet’s boatswain, Ignatius Pell, later testified at a trial before the vice-admiralty court that “Thatch caused [it] to be done.”131

Exhausted from the whirlwind and the turmoil of the last year and a half, Bonnet took a small boat and made his way to Bath Town in North Carolina to surrender himself to Governor Charles Eden.

Nine months prior, on September 5, 1717, King George I of Great Britain issued “A Proclamation for the Suppressing of Pyrates,” briefly outlining a strategy for ending piracy in the Americas. Published in The London Gazette in September 1717, the proclamation provided that any pirate who surrendered himself to one of the “Principal Secretaries of State in Great Britain or Ireland, or to any Governor or Deputy Governor of any of [Great Britain’s] Plantations beyond the Seas,” on or before September 5, 1718, would have the king’s “gracious Pardon, of, and for such, his or their Pyracy, or Piracies, by him or them committed” before January 5, 1718.132

To encourage the pirates to accept the king’s pardon, the proclamation included first a show of force, insisting that the king and the Privy Council had “appointed such a Force” as they judged “sufficient for suppressing the said Pyrates,” followed by an order, whereby the king did

strictly charge and command all our Admirals, Captains, and other Officers at Sea, and all our Governors and Commanders of any Forts, Castles, or other Places in our Plantations, and all other our Officers Civil and Military, to seize and take such of the Pyrates, who shall refuse or neglect to surrender themselves accordingly.133

The proclamation finished by issuing bounties for any pirate who failed to surrender by September 5, 1718: 100 pounds for every commander or captain, 40 pounds for every lieutenant, master, boatswain, carpenter and gunner, 30 pounds for every “inferior officer,” and 20 pounds for every other crew member.

The proclamation offered a more significant incentive for existing pirates to turn in their captains—200 pounds, if the captain were “brought to Justice, and be convicted of the said Offence.”

Governor Charles Eden, who was now authorized to issue these acts of grace on behalf of the king, had been appointed governor of North Carolina by the lords proprietors in July 1713.

Little is known, apparently, about Eden’s prior leadership experience or connection to the proprietors.134 Nonetheless, Eden “proved an excellent choice,”135 and “is remembered as governing for the ‘ease and happiness of ye people’ and returning the colony to ‘a flourishing Condition.’”136 Significant historical focus and speculation, however, would be placed on Eden’s interactions with Bonnet and the other pirates, in particular Eden’s later interactions with Thatch.

After receiving his certificate of pardon, Bonnet was absolved of his piratical crimes and looked, at least temporarily, for legal means of continuing his adventure. England, allied with France and Holland, was now at war with Spain, and Major Bonnet saw the opportunity to secure a letter of marque permitting him and the crew of the Revenge to go privateering against the Spaniards.

When Bonnet returned to Topsail Inlet, he found that Thatch “broke up the Company,” and he and his crew were gone. “[Thatch] came aboard [the Revenge], and demanded all our Arms, and took our best Hands, and all our Provision, and all that we had,” described Ignatius Pell, including all the money “in Gold and Silver, to the Value of one thousand Pounds Sterling Money; and by others of them, to the Value of fifteen hundred Pounds Sterling Money,”137 small arms, and any other valuables out of the Revenge and Queen Anne’s Revenge, “and left [them].”138

For some of those remaining with Thatch, including David Herriot, whose Adventure Thatch had just wrecked, Thatch promised “a Boat, and a few Hands to go to some inhabited Place in North Carolina, or to Virginia . . . as some Satisfaction for his said Sloop.”139

But Blackbeard did not make good on his promise and instead marooned Herriot and sixteen other men on a small, sandy island ”a League distant from the Main; on which Place there was no Inhabitant, nor Provisions.” Thatch had “cheated most of his Crew of their Share of the Riches they had taken.”

According to Herriot, “Twas generally believed the said Thatch run his Vessel aground on purpose to break up the Companies and to secure what Moneys and Effects he had got for himself and such other of them as he had most Value for.”140 Ignatius Pell, another eyewitness, later testified that “the Ship was run ashore and lost, which Thatch caused to be done.” This sentiment spread throughout the colonies.

The Boston News-Letter soon carried a report from North Carolina on July 14 that Thatch had surrendered himself for purposes of a pardon, and that the pirates had “on purpose . . . Run their Ship ashore at Topsail inlet, and also a sloop which are lost.”141

For centuries, the exact location of the Queen Anne’s Revenge was unknown. But on November 21, 1996, a search team from the private research firm Intersal, Inc., operating under a permit from the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, found a cluster of cannons and anchors on the seabed near historic Beaufort Inlet.

In 1997, archaeologists began exploring, documenting, and recovering archaeological remains of the Queen Anne’s Revenge off the coast near Beaufort. Sufficient artifacts were recovered from the site—including a bronze bell, a sounding weight, an English blunderbuss barrel, a lead cannon apron, and two cannonballs—to affirmatively identify the shipwreck as the Queen Anne’s Revenge, and research continues today.

The marooned men remained on the isolated island for two nights and one day, “and expected to perish,” until Major Bonnet, happening to get intelligence of their being there by two of the pirates that had left Thatch’s crew, sent his boat and brought all seventeen aboard Bonnet’s sloop. This gave Bonnet about “fifty of the oldest Pirates” aboard the Revenge, and Blackbeard had set off with about thirty more.

Major Bonnet told the rescued sailors, including David Herriot, what he had told his entire company, that “his Intentions was to go to St. Thomas’s, and there take a commission against the Spaniards, hearing there was a War between the Emperor and Spain.”142 Bonnet specifically promised Herriot that he would give “his Passage thither [to St. Thomas], but could not pay him any Wages,” which Herriot “gladly accepted of.”143

Bonnet’s entire crew consented to the new venture, and they made preparations to sail to St. Thomas.

130 “North Carolina 1718: The Year of the Pirates”

131 Trial Transcript

132 King George I of Great Britain. “1717, September 5. A Proclamation for Suppressing of Pirates,” in British royal proclamations relating to America, 1603-1783, edited by Great Britain Sovereigns and Clarence Saunders Brigham, 176-177. New York: B. Franklin, 1911.

134 “North Carolina 1718: The Year of the Pirates”

137 The Information of David Herriot and Ignatius Pell

138 Trial Transcript

139 The Information of David Herriot and Ignatius Pell

140 The Information of David Herriot and Ignatius Pell

141 Boston News-Letter, no. 744, July 14-21, 1718.

142 The Information of David Herriot and Ignatius Pell