Blackbeard, (for so Teach was generally called, as we shall hereafter show) as soon as he had received the medicines and his brother rogues, let go the ships and the prisoners; having first taken out of them in gold and silver, about 1,500 £ sterling, besides provisions and other matters.
From the bar of Charleston, they sailed to North Carolina; Captain Teach in the ship, which they called the man-of-war, Captain Richards and Captain Hands in the sloops, which they termed privateers, and another sloop serving them as a tender. Teach began now to think of breaking up the company, and securing the money and the best of the effects for himself, and some others of his companions he had most friendship for, and to cheat the rest: accordingly, on pretence of running into Topsail Inlet to clean, he grounded his ship, and then, as if it had been done undesignedly, and by accident; he orders Hands’ sloop to come to his assistance, and get him off again, which he endeavouring to do, ran the sloop onshore near the other, and so were both lost. This done, Teach goes into the tender sloop, with forty hands, and leaves the Revenge there; then takes seventeen others and maroons them upon a small sandy island, about a league from the main, where there was neither bird, beast or herb for their subsistence, and where they must have perished if Major Bonnet had not two days after taken them off.
Teach goes up to the Governor of North Carolina, with about twenty of his men, surrender to His Majesty’s proclamation, and receive certificates thereof, from His Excellency; but it did not appear that their submitting to this pardon was from any reformation of manners, but only to wait a more favourable opportunity to play the same game over again; which he soon after effected, with greater security to himself, and with much better prospect of success, having in this time cultivated a very good understanding with Charles Eden, Esq.; the Governor above mentioned.
The first piece of service this kind governor did to Blackbeard, was, to give him a right to the vessel which he had taken, when he was a-pirating in the great ship called the Queen Ann’s Revenge; for which purpose, a court of vice admiralty was held at Bath Town; and, though Teach had never any commission in his life, and the sloop belonging to the English merchants, and taken in time of peace; yet was she condemned as a prize taken from the Spaniards, by the said Teach. These proceedings show that governors are but men.
Before he sailed upon his adventures, he marry’d a young creature of about sixteen years of age, the Governor performing the ceremony. As it is a custom to marry here by a priest, so it is there by a magistrate; and this, I have been informed, made Teach’s fourteenth wife, whereof, about a dozen might be still living. His behaviour in this state, was something extraordinary; for, while his sloop lay in Ocracoke Inlet, and he ashore at a plantation, where his wife lived, with whom after he had lain all night, it was his custom to invite five or six of his brutal companions to come ashore, and he would force her to prostitute herself to them all, one after another, before his face.
In , he went to sea, upon another expedition, and steered his course towards Bermuda; he met with two or three English vessels in his way, but robbed them only of provisions, stores and other necessaries, for his present expense; but near the island aforementioned, he fell in with two French ships, one of them was laden with sugar and cocoa, and the other light, both bound to Martinique; the ship that had no lading he let go, and putting all the men of the loaded ship aboard her, he brought home the other with her cargo to North Carolina, where the Governor and the pirates shared the plunder.
When Teach and his prize arrived, he and four of his crew went to His Excellency, and made affidavit, that they found the French ship at sea, without a soul on board her; and then a court was called, and the ship condemned: the Governor had sixty hogsheads of sugar for his dividend, and one Mr. Knight, who was his secretary, and collector for the province, twenty, and the rest was shared among the other pirates.
The business was not yet done, the ship remained, and it was possible one or other might come into the river, that might be acquainted with her, and so discover the roguery; but Teach thought of a contrivance to prevent this, for, upon a pretence that she was leaky, and that she might sink, and so stop up the mouth of the inlet or cove where she lay, he obtained an order from the Governor, to bring her out into the river, and set her on fire, which was accordingly executed, and she was burnt down to the water’s edge, her bottom sunk, and with it, their fears of her ever rising in judgment against them.
Captain Teach, alias Blackbeard, passed three or four months in the river, sometimes lying at anchor in the coves, at other times sailing from one inlet to another, trading with such sloops as he met, for the plunder he had taken, and would often give them presents for stores and provisions took from them; that is, when he happened to be in a giving humour; at other times he made bold with them, and took
