"BLACK BEARD," THE PIRATE. 63 



But one serious evil caused the colonists great annoyance and loss the prevalence of 

 piracy. The State last named suffered far more than the rest. Commercial restrictions., 

 unwisely imposed by Great Britain, gave rise to a large amount of smuggling, and from 

 smuggling to piracy was an easy transition. " These gangs of naval robbers were likewise 

 frequently recruited by British sailors, who had been trained to ferocity and injustice by 

 the legalised piracy of the slave-trade." * One Captain Quelch, the commander of a 

 vessel which had committed numerous piracies, ventured to take shelter, with his crew, in 

 Massachusetts in the year 1704. He was detected, tried, and hanged, with six of his 

 accomplices, in Boston. In 1717 several vessels were captured on the coasts of New 

 England by a noted pirate, Captain Bellamy, a man who carried matters with a high 

 hand, having a vessel with twenty-three guns, and a crew of one hundred and thirty men. 

 The vessel was wrecked shortly afterwards on Cape Cod, the captain and the whole of his 

 crew, except six, perishing in the waves. The pitiful remainder gained the shore, their 

 fate literally realising Defoe's words 



"When what the sea would not, the gallows may;" 



for they were immediately conveyed to Boston, tried, and executed. A number of pirates 

 were about the same time hanged in Virginia. In consequence of the repeated complaints 

 of British merchants regarding these freebooters, George I. issued a proclamation offering 

 a pardon to all pirates who should surrender to any of the colonial governors within 

 twelve months ; and in 1718 dispatched a few ships of war under Captain Rogers, 

 who, repairing to New Providence, then a perfect den of sea-thieves, took possession of 

 the place, and nearly all the pirates there took the benefit of the royal proclamation. 

 Steed Bennet and Richard Worley, two pirate chiefs who had fled from New Providence 

 at the approach of Rogers, took possession of the mouth of Cape Fear River. They were 

 captured by Governor Johnson and Captain Rhett ; and Bennet, who was a man of good 

 education, and had held the rank of major in the British army, was executed at Charles- 

 town, with forty-one of his accomplices. North Carolina had been for a long time the 

 haunt of one of the most desperate villains of his time, John Theach, generally known 

 as " Blaek Beard/' from an enormous beard he wore, and which was adjusted, Grahame 

 records, " with elaborate care in such an inhuman disposition as was calculated to excite 

 both disgust and terror. ... In battle, he has been represented with the look and 

 demeanour of a fury ; carrying three braces of pistols on holsters slung over his shoulders, 

 and lighted matches under his hat, protruding over each of his ears. The authority and 

 admiration which the pirate chiefs enjoyed among their fellows was proportioned to the 

 audacity and extravagance of their outrages on humanity : and none in this respect ever 

 challenged a rivalship with Theach. . . . Having frequently undertaken to personify 

 a demon for the entertainment of his followers, he declared at length his purpose of 

 gratifying them with an anticipated representation of hell ; and in this attempt had nearly 

 stifled the whole crew with the fumes of brimstone under the hatches of his vessel. In 

 one of his ecstasies, whilst heated with liquor, and sitting in his cabin, he took a pistol 

 in each hand, and, cocking them under the table, blew out the lights, and then with 



* James Grahame, " The History of the United States of North America." 



