The Last of the Bold Pirates by Capt’n Jack
Posted March 16, 2009 at 4:24 pm.
Originally published in the first issue of The Pelican Post June 1993-
“Aye matey, pirate country ’twas and pirate country “twill always be ,” intoned one of my aging shipmates as he looked out across the wide river toward the open ocean from Waterfront Park in Southport. “Aye, and gold, there is plenty of that buried around these parts. Pirate gold, just waiting for some young sand dauber to dig it up.”
And it’s true. Oak Island, Bald Head and the Cape Fear River were well known to the bucaneers of old as they plied the sea lanes of the new world seeking treaure and adventure. Blackbeard himself often hid along our shores even though his headquarters was further north up the Pamlico. But others also lurked here and if my vigilant mate had been at the Whittlers Bench in the park two hundred and seventy-five years ago he would have witnessed the last great battle of the last great pirate of the golden age of piracy.
Stede Bonnet was a prosperous gentleman planter on Barbados in the early 1700s when he suddenly decided to give up everything and go “a pyratin.” Most historians agree that he was likely seeking refuge from a sharp-tongued, whining shrew of a wife. He may also have seen life at sea as a way to extricate himself from a messy affair with the wife of a high government official. Whatever the reason, Bonnet bought a ship and hired a crew, actions unheard of among pirates, and took to the seas to rob and pillage.
The sea raiders such as Bonnet and Blackbeard were virtually all from the Caribbean where a thriving economy was already well established in the British, French and Spanish colonies. But with civilization also came law enforcement which forced the freebooters to find easier pickings. And they certainly did in North Carolina when Charles Eden became the Royal Governor in 1714. He let it be known that pirates were welcome in North Carolina as long as he got a cut of the booty. I guess that was kind of tradition even in those days. Anyway, old Blackbeard took the Governor’s offer so much to heart that he bought a fine home near government house in Bath, took a wife and settled in as one of the foremost citizens of the colonial capitol.
By 1717, Captain Bonnet and his crew of the Royal James were also regular residents of the hidden bays and coves of the Carolina coast, enjoying the protection of Governor Eden. The Lower Cape Fear was his favorite haunt and he had etablished camps on both Bald Head and Oak Island. The region was wild and pristine not yet having been settled by white men. The land grant to Maurice and Roger Moore for this entire area wasn’t issued until 1725 and Brunswick Towne wasn’t established until a year later. By then the pirate menace had been broken and most of the pirates had seen their final day swinging from a royal yard arm.
In late 1717, Governor Robert Johnson of South Carolina and Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia had grown weary of constant harassment from the pirates and decided to act in concert with the Navy to “wipe out the pyrate pests.” Colonel William Rhett the Receiver- General of South Carolina and commander of her militia was charge to mount an expitionary force to wipe out the scoundrels.
On the afternoon of September 26th, 1718 , the sloops Henry and Sea Nymph under the command of Colonial Rhett rounded the eastern end of Oak Island and spotted the topmasts of the Royal James further upriver. Bonnet was caught by surprise and should have been finished then and there, had not both the Henry and Sea Nymph run hard aground on a sand bar in the river. Probably the same one I’ve run on a few times. It was midnight before the Navy ships floated off on the rising tide. By this time Stede Bonnet had been able to get the Royal James ready for combat at dawn.
At first light anchors were weighed and the battle was joined with all three ships issuing broadside after broadside. In maneuvering to cut off Bonnet who was trying to escape to the open sea, the Sea Nymph went aground again and it looked as if the pirates would escape. But the Navy sloop was still able to bring her guns to bear wrecking great damage on the pirate ship.
Next the Royal James went aground on the falling tide letting the Henry close to a hundred feet before she too fetched up on the bottom. Soon the militia swarmed over the side into small boats and attacked the stranded pirates in hand-to-hand combat. It was a pitched battle and many men on both sides were killed but Colonel Rhett finally prevailed at great cost and captured Captain Bonnet and the remainder of his pirate crew. His battered little task force returned to Charleston with the prisoners on October 3rd.
Meanwhile a little to the north Lieutenant Robert Maynard and “sixty of the best men in the Royal Navy” sailed aboard HMS Ranger with but a single mission; to find and end the career of Blackbeard the pirate. On November 21st, less than two months after Bonnet was captured, Maynard found Blackbear in Ocracoke Inlet and killed him in one of the mot furious sword and pistol fights in Navy history. With the severed head of Blackbeard on the bowsprit, HMS Ranger sailed up the Pamlico to Bath delivering a message of sorts to Governor Eden.
Stede Bonnet stood trial in Charleston and was sentenced to hang. But, as always seems to be the case, he had his loyal supporters. One of those supporters was a most surprising gentleman. In what was perhaps the greatest tribute to the buccaneer, his captor and nemesis, Colonel Rhett, offered to personally accompany Bonet to England to seek a pardon from the King. But the Admiralty stood firm and on December 10th, nineteen days after his compatriot, Blackbeard, had been killed at Okracoke, Stede Bonnet, gentleman planter and last of the bold pirates, swung out from the gallows and was left twisting in the wind until his bones were white, as a lesson to any man who might get a notion to go a-pyratin.
And what of Governor Eden? Well he got the just deserts that all crooked politicians eventually get; they named a town for him across the Pamlico River, Edenton.
The old seaman said that there would always be pirates about and he was probably right. We know that the Caribbean still teems with pirates and buccaneers most of whom are driving taxicabs. But what about the decendants of the pirates of the Carolinas? I’m pretty sure I have run into a couple of them down in Myrtle Beach. And then there was a used car dealer here- abouts that I thought might have had some pirate blood, but he said not so. He was from an old and respected family up in Beaufort County by the name of Teach.
(Capt’n Jack is our local expert on all things nautical, philosophical and historical. For ten years, he was captain of a sailing ship that ranged from Canada to Venezuela along the Eastern Seaboard and throughout the Caribbean. Now days you might find him hanging about the waterfront watching the ships. )
Southport, NC
