After cleaning on the coast of Virginia, they returned to the West Indies, and in the latitude of 24, made prize of a large French Guineaman, bound to Martinique, which by Hornigold’s consent, Teach went aboard of as captain, and took a cruise in her; Hornigold returned with his sloop to Providence, where, at the arrival of Captain Rogers, the Governor, he surrendered to mercy, pursuant to the King’s proclamation.
Aboard of this Guineaman Teach mounted no guns, and named her the Queen Ann’s Revenge; and cruising near the island of St. Vincent, took a large ship, called the Great Allen, Christopher Taylor Commander; the pirates plundered her of what they though fit, put all the men ashore upon the island above mentioned, and then set fire to the ship.
A few days after, Teach fell in with the Scarborough man-of-war, of 30 guns, who engaged him for some hours; but she finding the pirate well mann’d, and having tried her strength, gave over the engagement, and returned to Barbados, the place of her station; and Teach sailed towards the Spanish America.
In his way he met with a pirate sloop of ten guns, commanded by one Major Bonnet, lately a gentleman of good reputation and estate in the Island of Barbados, whom he joined; but in a few days after, Teach, finding that Bonnet knew nothing of a maritime life, with the consent of his own men, put in another captain, one Richards, to command Bonnet’s sloop, and took the major on aboard his own ship, telling him, that as he had not been used to the fatigues and care of such a post, it would be better for him to decline it, and live easy and at his pleasure, in such a ship as his, where he should not be obliged to perform duty, but follow his own inclinations.
At Turneffe ten leagues short of the Bay of Honduras, the pirates took in fresh water; and while they were at an anchor there, they saw a sloop coming in, whereupon, Richards in the sloop called the Revenge, slipped his cable, and run out to meet her; who upon seeing the black flag hoisted, struck his sail and came to, under the stern of Teach the Commodore. She was called the Adventure, from Jamaica, David Harriot Master. They took him and his men aboard the great ship, and sent a number of other hands with Israel Hands, master of Teach’s ship, to man the sloop for the piratical account.
The , they weighed from Turneffe, having lain there about a week, and sailed to the bay, where they found a ship and four sloops, three of the latter belonged to Jonathan Bernard, of Jamaica, and the other to Captain James; the ship was of Boston, called the Protestant Caesar, Captain Wyar Commander. Teach hoisted his black colours, and fired a gun, upon which Captain Wyar and all his men, left their ship, and got ashore in their boat. Teach’s quartermaster, and eight of his crew, took possession of Wyar’s ship, and Richards secured all the sloops, one of which they burnt out of spite to the owner; the Protestant Caesar they also burnt, after they had plundered her, because she belonged to Boston, where some men had been hanged for piracy; and the three sloops belonging to Bernard they let go.
From hence the rovers sailed to Turkill, and then to the Grand Cayman, a small island about thirty leagues to the westward of Jamaica, where they took a small turtler, and so to the Havana, and from thence to the Bahama wrecks, and from the Bahama wrecks, they sailed to Carolina, taking a brigantine and two sloops in their way, where they lay off the bar of Charleston for five or six days. They took here a ship as she was coming out, bound for London, commanded by Robert Clark, with some passengers on board for England; the next day they took another vessel coming out of Charleston, and also two pinks coming into Charleston; likewise a brigantine with 14 Negroes aboard; all which being done in the face of the town, struck a great terror to the whole province of Carolina, having just before been visited by Vane, another notorious pirate, that they abandoned themselves to dispair, being in no condition to resist their force. They were eight sail in the harbour, ready for the sea, but none dared to venture out, it being almost impossible to escape their hands. The inward bound vessels were under the same unhappy dilemma, so that the trade of this place was totally interrupted: what made these misfortunes heavier to them, was a long expensive war, the colony had had with the natives, which was but just ended when these robbers infested them.
Teach detained all the ships and prisoners, and, being in want of medicines, resolves to demand a chest from the government of the province; accordingly Richards, the Captain of the Revenge sloop, with two or three more pirates, were sent up along with Mr. Marks, one of the prisoners, whom they had taken in Clark’s ship, and very insolently made their demands, threatening, that if they did not send immediately the chest of medicines, and let the pirate-ambassadors return, without offering any violence to their persons, they would murder all their prisoners, send up their heads to the Governor, and set the ships they had taken on fire.
Whilst Mr. Marks was making application to the Council, Richards, and the rest of the pirates, walk’d the streets publicly, in the sight of all people, who were fired with the utmost indignation, looking upon them as robbers and murderers, and particularly the authors of their wrongs and oppressions, but durst not so much as think of executing their revenge, for fear of bringing more calamities upon themselves, and so they were forced to let the villains pass with
