Mary Read

Mary Read was an English pirate born outside of London circa 1690, famously one of only two women convicted of piracy in the early 18th Century.

Read was bastard-born to a widow of a sailor who had died at sea. To preserve her dignity, Read's mother moved to the countryside so as to hide her bastard child from those who knew her. Read had had an elder brother, Mark, a year older who had died in infancy. Read's mother dressed her as a boy to disguise the girl as her brother in order to continue receiving financial support from her late husband's mother. Upon presenting the child, the old woman was fooled and offered to adopt the child from her, but Read's mother claimed parting would break her heart, and so instead the grandmother gave Read's mother a crown a week as maintenance until she died when Read was thirteen.

Read completely assumed the identity of her brother Mark, and apparently having a masculine bearing and making a convincing boy, found employment on a ship before joining the British Army. During the War of the Spanish Succession, Read fell in love with a Flemish soldier, and using their military wages and gifts from well-wishing comrades, moved to the Netherlands and opened an inn named 'De drie hoefijzers' (The Three Horseshoes).Read's husband died in obscure circumstances not long after they were married, and with the Peace of Ryswick being concluded, the military custom their inn had relied on dried up, and so with her life in the Netherlands ruined, she readopted her male persona and enlisted in the Dutch military. However, with the war over there was no room for advancement, so Read quit the service and found work on a ship bound for the West Indies.

The ship was taken by pirates, and being the only 'Englishman' aboard, Read was pressed into their crew. Later, Read and the crew she served in took the king's pardon, but later enlisted as a privateer in a war against the Spanish. No sooner had this crew set sail than they, with Read among them, turned on their captain and resumed their old trade.
In 1720, she joined Calico Jack's crew, still disguised as a man. She revealed herself to Rackham's lover Anne Bonny, who having taken Read for a handsome young lad, sought to make his better acquaintance. Read was forced to disappoint Bonny by revealing that she was a woman, and so as to quiet the jealous Jack Rackham, revealed herself to him also.

Read took a lover among those pressed into Rackham's crew, whose name is lost to history. However it is known that he quarrelled with one of the pirates, and one challenged the other to a duel ashore. Read was afraid for her lover's life, and so made a point of quarrelling with the same pirate, and also challenged him to a duel ashore, two hours sooner than he was to face her lover. She fought him with sword and pistol, and killed him on the spot. Later at her trial, Read would not give up her lover's identity, but would only say he was an honest man pressed into the pirate crew and they had both resolved to find an honest livelihood at the first opportunity.

Later that year, while hosting an off-shore rum party, Rackham's crew were attacked by pirate hunter Captain Jonathan Barnet, who disabled Rackham's ship with a broadside. Rackham and most of his crew fled into the hold, probably dead drunk, leaving only Read, Bonny and one unnamed other to fight the hunters. Read allegedly fired angrily into the hold where the crew were hiding and killed one for cowardice.

The crew was overwhelmed and arrested, and Read and the others were taken to Spanish Town, Jamaica and convicted of piracy. However as Read was pregnant, she was granted a stay of execution, known as 'pleading the belly' to postpone her hanging.

Read died of a fever in prison, and was buried on the 28th of April, 1721, aged c.30.

Henry Avery, The Pirate King

No pirate was ever so well known in his day as Captain Avery of the Fancy, who has been the inspiration for many pirate myths and characters. Operating in the last years of the 17th Century, Avery and his fleet terrorised the Atlantic and Indian oceans until 1696, and became the focus of the world's first global manhunt.As always with pirates, little is known of their early life, but what is known of Avery is he was born  near Plymouth on the 23rd of August, 1659. He served in the Royal Navy during the Nine Year's War, and afterwards became a slave trader off the African coast. In 1693 he became a mariner again, as first mate on the Spanish warship of forty-six guns, the Charles II. But after the ship's owners failed to pay their wages, so on the evening of the 7th of May, 1694, Avery led a mutiny against the captain, put him ashore with five or six loyalists, and sailed the ship for the Indian Ocean to begin their pirate career.

Henry Avery, the Pirate King

In 1695, The Fancy sailed to the Arabian Sea, where a 25-ship convoy of Grand Mughal vessels was making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, including the treasure-laden flagship Ganj-i-sawai and its escort, the Fateh Muhammed. Avery joined forces with several other pirate vessels, and found himself in command of a small pirate squadron, including a sloop captained by English pirate Thomas Tew. As the pirates gave chase, the smaller vessels in the squadron gradually fell behind, and at some point Tew was killed in an engagement with a Mughal ship. Avery had more success, and captured the escort ship the Fateh Muhammed and then the Ganj-i-sawai, having broken the ship's mast in a broadside. The bloody hand-to-hand battle on deck waged for several hours. The pirates took heavy losses but the spoils were astronomical. Avery had captured up to £600,000 in precious metals and jewels, making him the richest pirate in the world, equivalent to around £52.4 million in present day money. Avery and his crew then tortured and killed a great number of the passengers and raped women of all ages. Some women stabbed themselves with daggers or jumped overboard, committing suicide to escape this fate.The plunder of Emperor Aurangzeb's treasure ship had serious consequences for England, with Avery's attack damaging relations so terribly that the very existence of English trade in India was threatened. When the damaged Ganj-i-sawai finally limped its way back to harbour in Surat, news of the pirates' rape of the Muslim women was considered an unforgivable violation of the Hajj. The local Indian governor, Itimad Khan, immediately arrested the English subjects in Surat and kept them under close watch, partly as a punishment for their countrymen's depredations and partly for their own protection from the rioting locals. Aurangzeb was livid, and quickly closed four of the company's factories in India and imprisoned the officers, nearly ordering an armed attack against the English city of Bombay with the goal of forever expelling the English from India.
To appease Aurangzeb, the East India Company promised to pay all financial reparations, while Parliament declared the pirates hostis humani generis ("enemies of the human race"). In mid-1696 the government issued a £500 bounty on Avery's head and offered a free pardon to any informer who disclosed his whereabouts. When the East India Company later doubled that reward, the first worldwide manhunt in recorded history was underway. The Crown also promised to exempt Avery from all pardons and amnesties it would subsequently issue to other pirates. 
Avery meanwhile sailed to New Providence, and under the name of Henry Bridgeman and claiming to be an unlicensed slave trader, offered the Governor £860 to let them stay and not ask questions. New Providence was underfunded and underpopulated, and at serious risk of French attack, and so the Governor agreed. As the manhunt for Avery escalated, the Governor by now having realised who he was, covered for him in exchange for the Fancy, as well as fifty tons of ivory tusks, one hundred barrels of gunpowder, several chests of firearms and ammunition, and an assortment of ship anchors. As the heat mounted, and the governor himself coming under suspicion, he had the Fancy destroyed to remove the key piece of evidence that Avery was in his town.
Regardless the Governor was forced to either put a warrant out for Every's arrest or, failing to do so, effectively disclose his association with the pirate. Preferring the former choice for the sake of his reputation, he alerted the authorities as to pirates' whereabouts, but was able to tip off Avery and his crew before the authorities arrived. Avery's 113-person crew then fashioned their hasty escape, vanishing from the island with only twenty-four men ever captured, six of whom were executed. His last words to his men were a litany of conflicting stories of where he planned to go, doubtless intended to throw pursuers off his trail.

Avery's crew split up, while Avery was spotted in Dublin harbour in June 1696, with about twenty other men in the sloop Sea Flower. They aroused suspicions while unloading their treasure, and two of the men were subsequently caught. Avery, however, was able to escape once again. His fate after this encounter is unknown.

Captain England

Edward Seegar was born in Ireland around 1685. He changed his name to England when he took up piracy. Like many pirates, he originally served as a privateer in the Royal Navy during the War of the Spanish Succession, but was captured by a pirate captain Christopher Winter and pressed into joining the crew. Defoe describes England as a man of reason, who should have known better than to turn pirate, perhaps indicating that he was educated. Defoe also describes England as good-natured, courageous, not avaricious and averse to the ill-treatment of captives.
England, along with Charles Vane, took part in Captain Jennings' assault on the Spanish salvage ship at Palma de Ayz, Florida, where they escaped with £87,000 of gold and silver. By March 1718, England was Vane's quartermaster, a position that would later be given to Calico Jack (to Vane's eventual detriment) after Vane granted England captaincy of his own ship, one of Vane's captured sloops, in the summer of 1718. Captain England's Jolly Roger is the best remembered pirate flag in history, the death's head and crossed humerus. 

England's Jolly Roger

England was clever, but did not wish to take the king's pardon. So with the Royal Navy bearing down on the Caribbean, he sailed for the coast of Africa. En route to Africa, England seized a number of ships, notably a ship called the Cadogan, a ship captained by a man called Skinner, who some of England's crew knew, and had served under before. Skinner had failed to pay the men any wages, and so when he came aboard, Skinner was met by his old Boatswain, who said, ″Ah! Captain Skinner! Is it you? The only man I wished to see. I am much in your debt, and now I shall pay you in your own coin.″ The men immediately seized Captain Skinner, bound him to the windlass and pelted him with glass bottles. Then they whipped him about the deck until they were bored. Afterwards they said, because he had been a good Master he should have an easy death, and so out of mercy, shot him through the head.It was aboard the Cadogan that Howell Davis was mate. Being a likeable man, he gained favour with England, who, after having his pick of prizes from the ship, granted him captaincy of the Cadogan, from where he would start his own notable pirate career.
It was then that England upgraded to his best remembered ship. He seized a vessel called the Pearl, from a Captain Tyzard, which he renamed the Royal James. In the spring of 1719, the rovers returned to Africa, and entered into a very prosperous period of piracy, taking 10 ships in a single voyage and recruiting over 50 sailors from their collective crews.

England and his crew settled in an unspecified African town for a time, but after some friction with the natives, fighting broke out and the town was put to the torch. Afterwards, they put to a vote where they should head next, and elected for India. They shaped their course accordingly and sailed for Madagascar, in search of the legendary pirate Henry Every, who's crew they had heard to be settled on the island. They did not find Every's crew, who were settled on the other side of the island, and so continued on to India. By 1720, England had reached the Indian Ocean, where he met with fellow pirate Captain Oliver la Buse. England captured a thirty-four gun Dutch ship, which he named Fancy in honour of Henry Every, and he made the Fancy his new flagship. 

Battle with the Cassandra

Once in the Indian Ocean, England attacked an East India Company ship called the Cassandra, captained by James Macrae, which resulted in a protracted, deadly battle, in which both ships ran aground. Macrae and his surviving men escaped onto land, where they hid for 10 days, England laying siege to them, holding the beached Cassandra to ransom. Finally, Macrae surrendered. The value of the Cassandra's cargo was estimated at £75,000. England, being notable for his kindness, spared Macrae's life, and gave him the heavily damaged Fancy in exchange for the Cassandra. England lost 90 men capturing the Cassandra, and John Taylor, England's Quartermaster and captain of England's ship, the Victory, had strongly objected to sparing Macrae. At this point, an unknown member of the crew appeared, 'a fellow with a terrible pair of whiskers, and a wooden leg, being suck round with pistols, swearing and vapouring upon the Quarter-Deck, and asks, in a damning manner, which was Captain Macrae'. Macrae believed that this man was to be his executioner, but when he came near him, he took him by the hand, swearing damn him he was glad to see him, and said "and show me the man that offers to hurt Captain Macrae, for I'll stand by him', and so with many oaths told Taylor he was an honest fellow, and that they had formerly sailed together. This put an end to the dispute and Taylor went to bed. England advised Macrae to begone before Taylor awoke, lest his generosity leave him overnight.

A short time later, England and his crew heard a false rumour that Macrae was organising a fleet to take back the Cassandra. Enraged, like Calico Jack before him, Taylor deposed his captain and seized his ships, marooning England on Mauritius with three others, including the one-legged man who had defended Macrae. England survived for a while on the charity of other pirates, possibly some of Henry Every's old crew. He died in 1721, from ″severe strings of his conscience″ according to the unreliable account of a sailor named Downing, either from disease or suicide.

Calico Jack

John Rackham ( December 26th 1682 – November 18th 1720) was an English pirate who, as I mentioned last week first became known as a pirate as the quartermaster aboard Captain Vane's ship, the Ranger. He is remembered best as Calico Jack, a name he got from wearing calico fabric clothing, a coarse, gauze-like material. He is also remembered for his Jolly Roger design, Death's head and crossed sabres, as well as having two female crew members, Mary Read and Anne Bonny. As I mentioned last week, Rackham deposed Vane as captain of his own ship for his refusal to attack a heavily-armed French Man O' War. Rackham named him a coward and Vane and those loyal to him were put aboard a smaller ship in their inventory to form their own smaller crew.

Rackham's Jolly Roger

Rackham assumed command on the 24th of November 1718. They roved the Caribbean sea for some time then, before taking Christmas ashore. After they resumed roving, they came across no substantial prizes for more than two months. They did capture a ship laden with convicts heading for the plantations, but this was recaptured by the English within a few days. They then took two ships, one from Carolina, one from New England, and retreated to the Bahamas to clean and refit the ship with the stores they had captured. However, Woodes Rogers, who was by now governor of Providence, sent out a well-armed sloop to take the pirates. The sloop succeeded in recovering the two taken ships, but Rackham and his crew escaped. From there they laid low in Cuba for a time, until their money had run out, and once again returned to roving.

Rackham and his men were refitting their small sloop, Vane's old ship the Ranger, when a Spanish coastguard warship entered the harbour, along with a small English sloop they had captured. The Spanish warship saw the pirates but could not get at them at low tide, so they parked in the harbour entrance to wait for morning. Rackham saw the warship too, and he and his men rowed over to the captured English sloop and overpowered the Spanish guards there. As dawn broke, the warship began blasting the Ranger, now empty, as Rackham and his men silently sailed past in their new prize. From there Rackham and his men made their way back to Nassau, where they appeared before Governor Rogers and asked to accept the royal pardon, claiming that Vane had forced them to become pirates. Rogers, who hated Vane, believed them and allowed them to accept the pardon and stay. Their time as honest men would not last long. While in port, Rackham began an affair with Anne Bonny, wife of sailor James Bonny, who was employed by Woodes Rogers. After finding out about the relationship, James Bonny brought Anne to Governor Rogers, who ordered her whipped on charges of adultery. Rackham offered to buy Anne in a "divorce by purchase," but she refused to be sold like an animal. Instead, they escaped to sea together, with a new crew, possibly including remnants of Rackham's old crew, voiding their pardons, and stealing a sloop belonging to John Ham. Rackham's crew continued to rove successfully for a time, until the 20th of October 1720, when upon taking a sloop in Discovery Bay, intelligence reached the governor of their presence, and so he sent one Captain Barnet to apprehend Rackham and his men. Rackham was caught unawares when he was treating with another crew, and he and his men were arrested and taken to Port Royal, Jamaica. Rackham was hanged on the 18th of November, 1720.

Charles Vane

Charles Vane (c.1680 – March 29, 1721) was one of the notorious pirate captains of the New Providence Pirate Republic, an alliance of pirates that for a time dominated the waters of the Caribbean. His piratical gains in today's currency would exceed £1.5 million. Like most pirates of note, Vane was vicious and cruel, showed little respect for the pirate code and cheated his crew on multiple occasions, and killed hostages after promising mercy.
Nothing is known of Vane's early life, but he began his pirate career serving under Captain Henry Jennings. At the end of July 1715, a Spanish treasure ship was wrecked by a hurricane off Florida, and as the survivors attempted to salvage the cargo, Jennings raided the wreck site, making off with some £87,000 in gold and silver.
Vane was not long a captain of his own when Woodes Rogers and his fleet descended on the Caribbean to put an end to piracy. Outnumbered and out-gunned, the majority of the pirates in New Providence, including Captain Jennings, surrendered and accepted the promised royal pardon for their crimes. Vane had other ideas, and in July 1718, as the Royal Navy's Men O' War descended on New Providence to negotiate a surrender, Vane and a crew of like-minded buccaneers who refused the pardon, filled a recently captured French vessel with gunpowder and set it alight, on course for the incoming royal Men O' War. In the confusion, Vane and his crew made their escape on a sloop called the Lark, alongside Blackbeard and his Queen Anne's Revenge, proudly flying piratical colours and firing on the English ships as they fled.
Two days later, Vane captured a Barbadian sloop, and fitted it with 25 hands, commanded by one Mr Yeats. The next day, Vane captured another sloop called the John and Elizabeth laden with pieces of eight. Now armed with three ships and considerable loot, Vane and his men retired to a small uncharted island which they claimed as a base.
From there Vane began several months of successful roving, trading up to a larger sloop called the Ranger, and became one of the most dangerous pirates of the day, collecting a number more ships to add to his fleet. However he neither respected nor trusted his consort Mr Yeats. Vane had hoped to prevent his underling from taking the pardon by fitting his crew with a significant number of ex slaves, for whom the pardon would mean re-enslavement. However, one evening Yeats and his crew made a break for it, and made sail away from Vane's hideout. Vane gave chase in his own ship and fired on them, but to no avail. Yeats and his crew accepted the pardon, the black pirates were returned as slaves to the owner from whom they had originally escaped.

An early 18th Century engraving of Vane

After a time of searching for Yeats, Vane retreated to the Cape Fear river in North Carolina to clean his ships. The governor of South Carolina ordered one Colonel Rhet to take two well armed sloops up to the Cape Fear river in search of pirates. However, upon beginning his voyage, Rhet met with a ship that had been plundered by Vane not long since, one sailor aboard informed the colonel that he thought he had heard one of the pirates say they should clean ships in one of the southern rivers. So Rhet altered his course southward in search of Vane, thereby missing him.Vane meanwhile had met with Blackbeard on Ocracoke Island (where the latter would meet his end later that year) and tried to convince him to join a mounted attack to retake Nassau from the English. Blackbeard refused, having too much to lose.

Deposed

Lacking the firepower to take Nassau alone, Vane returned to roving, and in November 1718, came upon a French Man O' War. Vane felt the ship was too dangerous to attack, and wished to avoid engaging her. However Vane's quartermaster, Jack Rackham, felt the French ship was laden and slow, and would prove easy to take. Vane and his first mate, Robert Deal, along with fifteen or so others, were outnumbered by Rackham and the rest of the crew, however the pirate code allowed a captain to make all decisions regarding fighting, chasing, or being chased, and so the French ship was left unmolested. However, the next day Vane was obliged to stand to a vote, and Rackham called out Vane as a coward, and usurped him as captain of his Ranger. Vane, and all those who had voted with him, were put aboard one of the smaller of the pirate company's ships, with sufficient supplies and ammunition.
Undeterred, Vane continued roving, within three days taking a sloop off Jamaica, and making his loyal mate Robert Deal captain of her. On the 16th of December 1718, Vane and Deal took a third ship, the Pearl, and carried her to a small island called Bonacca, where they made their hideout. In February 1719, Vane's ship was hit by a tornado and he was wrecked on an uninhabited island near Honduras. Most of his men drowned, but Vane himself survived, living on fish for several weeks. Deal's ship survived, and continued to rove for a short time, until Deal and his crew were taken by one of Rogers' Men O' War.
Eventually a ship pulled into the island Vane was castaway upon. The ship's master, one Captain Holford,  was a former pirate and acquaintance of Vane's, however Holford refused to rescue Vane, saying he did not trust him, fearing he would lead his own men against him. So Holford left Vane stranded, and claimed that he would return in one month, and if he found Vane still upon the island he would take him prisoner to Jamaica to be hanged. Fortunately for Vane, he found rescue on a second passing ship some time later, claiming to be another man. However, Vane's luck ended when the ship he was aboard met with Holford's ship, and in coming aboard, Holford happened to cast his eye down into the hold and recognised Vane, and outed him to his new captain. Vane was then arrested, taken to Jamaica and imprisoned. He was hanged on the 29th of March, 1721. 

Captain Martel

Ahoy mateys! This week I am writing about a rather unknown pirate captain, John Martel of Jamaica, but nevertheless had gains in excess of $1.5 million US in a present value adjustment. Like most carribbean pirates, Martel started out as a privateer in a war against the Spanish, but at the conclusion of the war, turned to piracy.
At the start of his pirate career, Martel commanded a pirate sloop of eight guns and 80 men, and his first recorded act of piracy was in September 1716, when he attacked the galley Berkley, robbing a Captain Saunders of £1000 in cash, and afterwards raided another sloop by the name of King Solomon, from which he took an indeterminate but valuable amount of money, provisions and goods.

Martel's flag

Martel eventually captured a galley called the John and Martha from a Captain Wilson, and took the ship as an upgrade. The new ship had 20 guns, as opposed to Martel's original eight, and had cargo of logwood and sugar that Martel carried to market. Martel marooned most of the original crew of the John and Martha but detained a few to bolster his crew. Martel now had a galley of 22 guns, 100 men, and left 25 hands aboard his old sloop. Thus armed, Martel began a lucrative pirate career, plundering ships across the Caribbean and the east coast of America, including fellow pirate vessels, taking everything from gold dust, to slaves, to ivory.
By 1717, Martel had a small flotilla comprised of two ships with 20 guns, a sloop of eight, a sloop of four and one sloop unarmed. He made a base for himself on the tiny island of St. Croix, and mounted guns at the mouth of the inlet as defence. Martel was known for his cruelty even by his own men, who reported that he killed the entire crew of a merchant vessel he captured for no reason.

Captain Hume

Martel's eventual downfall would come in the form of Captain Hume of Barbados, commander of the HMS Scarborough, who was hunting two pirate sloops that molested the colonies. The Scarborough was fitted with 30 guns and 140 men, but battle and illness had thinned Hume's ranks to just 80, and was therefore in an ill state to go to sea, however Hume left his sick men behind and recruited more from the other islands, taking on soldiers from Antigua, Nevis, and St. Christopher's. Hume set out in search of the sloops, but to no avail, and returned to Barbados. By chance, that night a boat had anchored there from St. Croix, and Hume received information about a pirate ship of 22 or 24 guns with other vessels in tow going into the Northwest part of the island.
The Scarborough weighed immediately, and by next morning of the 17th of January 1717, came in sight of Martel and his crew. The larger ship was unable to continue due to the shallow water of the inlet and the fact that it was guarded by an armed sloop. So Hume exchanged fire with the coast for several hours. Eventually he came to anchor alongside the reef, and at about 4 in the afternoon, managed to sink the sloop that had been guarding the inlet. For three more days the Scarborough laid siege to the island, until Martel made a break for it, but his ship ran aground and Hume quickly caught up to him. In a panic, Martel and his crew abandoned ship, and set her alight with 20 slaves burned alive in the hold. 19 of Martel's crew escaped on a second sloop, but Martel and the rest took to the woods of the island, and were never seen again, presumably dying of starvation on the island.

Blackbeard

Ahoy mateys! This week I am writing about probably the most famous buccaneer of all time, Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard.

Born in Bristol around 1680, little is known of Blackbeard's early life. Born and raised in a thriving harbour town, he was no doubt brought up with a strong maritime culture. It is known that he could read and write, giving rise to the possibility he was from a wealthy family. During Queen Anne's War, Teach joined a privateer ship bound for Jamaica. He received distinction "for his uncommon boldness and personal courage" but was never raised to any command. In the latter end of 1716, Teach turned to piracy, captaining a sloop owned by fellow pirate Benjamin Hornigold (more on him later).

Career

Despite his infamy, Blackbeard's pirate career was very short lived, spanning only two years. As Teach was beginning his pirate career, Captain Woodes Rogers was setting out for the Caribbean to rid the waters of piracy forever. In the spring of 1717, Blackbeard and Hornigold sailed from New Providence, a pirate haven established by Captain Jennings some years earlier, to the American mainland. On their way, Teach and Hornigold seized a shallop from Havana carrying 120 barrels of flour, a sloop from Bermuda carrying 100 barrels of wine, and a ship bound for South Carolina from which they got "plunder of considerable value". That September, Teach and Hornigold encountered hapless would-be pirate Stede Bonnet, a landowner and military officer from a wealthy family who had turned to piracy earlier that year. Bonnet's crew of about 70 were reportedly dissatisfied with his command, so with Bonnet's permission, Teach took control of his ship Revenge. The pirates' flotilla now consisted of three ships; Revenge, Teach's old sloop and Hornigold's Ranger. By October, another vessel had been captured and added to the small fleet.

In November, they took a French merchant slave vessel  named La Concorde near Saint Vincent, and with Hornigold's permission, Teach took and named himself captain. Teach sailed to Bequia to allow the ship's former crew and whatever slaves declined to join Teach to disembark. In an surprising act of candour, Teach donated his old sloop to the crew he had just robbed, which they renamed Mauvais Rencontre (Bad Meeting) and sailed for Martinique. Teach mounted 40 guns on his new ship, and renamed her Queen Ann's Revenge, possibly after Bonnet's sloop. Shortly after, Hornigold returned to Providence to accept Rogers' pardon.
From there Teach began to cut a bloody swathe across the Caribbean, seizing dozens of vessels in the months to follow, sinking and burning many more, and invited several captains to join his fleet, including one David Herriot, captain of the Adventure, which Teach sent the famous Israel Hands (who appears in a fictionalised form in Robert Louis Stephenson's Treasure Island) to man for the piratical account.
In April, the fleet lay siege to Charleston, in South Carolina. Taking several ships hostage, Blackbeard demanded ransom of a chest of medicines from the Governor, threatening to burn the ships and send the governor the heads of those he had taken prisoner. Humiliated, but unable to refuse the demand, the Governor sent aboard a chest of medicines worth approximately £400. Blackbeard released the hostages, but not before relieving them of their provisions and around £1500 in gold and silver.

Blackbeard's own flag, a skeleton spearing a heart while toasting the Devil

After plundering Charleston, Blackbeard and his men were wanted. They learned of the royal pardon, and wished to take it but were wary. The pardon stipulated it only applied to crimes committed before January 5th, and so risked hanging for their actions at Charleston. Most authorities could waive this condition, but Blackbeard was still wary. In a cunning move, he sent Stede Bonnet to accept the pardon first to see if he would be granted it, and at the same time cheated his former comrade out of all of his loot and provisions. On the pretence of running into an inlet to clean his ship, Blackbeard ran his ship aground. Feigning distress, Blackbeard ordered Bonnet's sloop to come to his rescue, but in answering the call, Blackbeard's man Israel Hands ran Bonnet's ship aground also and both were stuck. This done, Teach and Hands seized the other sloop with forty hands, abandoned the Revenge and marooned the sloop's crew on a small desert island. Bonnet, having received his pardon, set out for revenge against Teach, and rescued his marooned crew after two days. He was unable to find Blackbeard, and returned to piracy. He was caught in September 1718, and he and all but four of his crew were hanged in Charleston.
Satisfied that the offer could be trusted, Blackbeard went to North Carolina to see Governor Charles Eden and accept the pardon. Blackbeard bribed the Governor, for not only was he allowed to keep his Queen Ann's Revenge, it being listed as a prize taken from the Spanish, but Teach continued pirating and returned to Eden repeatedly with prizes in exchange for absolvement.

Final Battle

In the autumn of 1718, Blackbeard threw a party at Ocracoke Island, just off the coast of North Carolina, which was attended by many infamous pirate captains of the day. The party waged on for several days, and news of it spread to the neighbouring governors. Two ships were deployed to capture the pirates, the Jane and the Ranger, commanded by a Lieutenant Robert Maynard, that engaged Blackbeard and his men on November 21st. Taken unawares in the midst of their celebration, Blackbeard and nineteen men climbed about the Adventure, and gave battle to Maynard. Blackbeard fired a devastating broadside, which killed around a third of Maynard's men in a single volley. Around 20 were killed on the Jane, and nine on the Ranger.

Maynard hid his men in the hold, and as Blackbeard boarded the Jane, they burst from their hiding place and surprised the pirates. Blackbeard rallied his men and the two groups fought across the deck, which was already slick with blood from those killed or injured by the broadside. Maynard and Teach fired their flintlocks at each other, Blackbeard was hit but continued fighting. Teach drew his cutlass and managed to break Maynard's sword. Against superior numbers and discipline, the pirates were pushed back toward the bow, allowing the Jane '​s crew to surround Maynard and Teach, who was by then completely isolated. As Maynard drew back to fire once again, Teach moved in to attack him, but was slashed across the neck by one of Maynard's men.Badly wounded, he was then leapt upon and killed by several more of Maynard's crew. The remaining pirates quickly surrendered. Teach's corpse was thrown into the inlet while his head was suspended from the bowsprit of Maynard's sloop so the reward could be collected. Israel Hands, who had been ashore during the battle, survived and was taken to Virginia for trial. In exchange for pardon, he testified against the corrupt officials Teach had dealt with. It is said he died a beggar in London.

Personality

Blackbeard is best known for his unspeakable cruelty rather than his aptitude for piracy. It is for his visciousness he is remembered, for actions such as shooting one of his own men for snoring. Sources claim he was married no fewer than fourteen times, sometimes to girls as young as sixteen. On the first night of his marriage, it was custom for him to go ashore with five or six of his brutal companions, and force his new bride to prostitute herself to his companions one after another before his eyes. Blackbeard was given to such wickedness as if he aimed to make his men believe him the Devil himself. One day at sea, he told his men, "Come, let us make a Hell of our own, and see how long we can bear it." Accordingly he filled several pots with brimstone and other flammable materials, and down in the hold, set them alight. They sat there until they had almost suffocated, and at length his crewmen opened the hatches to breathe, he himself pleased he held out the longest.

In times of combat, teach wore a sling that held a brace pistols, and stuck lit matches under his hat, which framed his face, making his eyes appear more fierce and wild, and made him the very idea of hellish fury. The beard for which he is best remembered is said to have gone all the way up to his eyes, and he tied it in small tails with ribbons in the contemporary style of wigs.
Teach once shot Israel Hands in the knee, giving the reason that "If I do not now and then kill one of them, they will forget who I am." The night before he was killed, Blackbeard had sat up all night drinking with his men, and knowing the sloops coming for them, someone asked if his wife was aware of where his money was buried. Blackbeard replied that nobody but himself and the Devil knew where, and the longest liver should take it all.