Jon Hagadorn

Captain Hume released the prisoners with the ship and sloop that remained, and then went after the two pirate sloops first mentioned.

Thus ends Chapter 2.

We'll begin Chapter 3, Captain Teach, alias Blackbeard, right after these sponsor messages.

Edward Teach was a Bristol man born, but had sailed some time out of Jamaica in privateers in the late French War.

yet though he had often distinguished himself for his uncommon boldness and personal courage, he was never raised to any command till he went a-pirating, which I think was at the latter end of the year 1716, when Captain Benjamin Hornigold put him into a sloop that he had made prize of, and with whom he continued in consortship till a little while before Hornigold surrendered.

In the spring of the year 1717, Teach and Hornigold sailed from Providence for the Maine of America, and took in their way a billop from the Havana.

with a hundred and twenty barrels of flour, as also a sloop from Bermuda, Thurbor, master, from whom they took only some gallons of wine, and then let him go, and a ship from Madera to South Carolina, out of which they got plundered to a considerable value.

After cleaning on the coast of Virginia, they returned to the West Indies, and in the latitude of twenty-four made a prize of a large French guinea-man 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 guinea-man, Teach mounted no guns, and named her the Queen Anne's Revenge, and cruising near the island of St.

Vincent, took a large ship called the Great Allen, Christopher Taylor Commander.

The pirates plunged her of what they thought 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 thirty guns, who engaged him for some hours.

But she, finding the pirate well manned, and having tried her strength, gave over the engagement and returned to Barbados, the place of her station, and Teach sailed toward 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 Captain Richards, to command Bonnet's sloop, and took the major on board 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 Turniff, ten leagues short of the Bay of Honduras, the pirates took in fresh water, and while they were at anchor there, they saw a sloop coming in, whereupon Richards in the sloop called the revenge, slipped his cable, and ran 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 Harriet, Master.

They took him and his men aboard the great ship, and set a number of other hands with Israel hands, master of Teach's ship, to man the sloop for the piratical account.

The ninth of April they weighed from Turnip, having lain there about a week, and sailed to the bay, when they found a ship and four sloops, three of latter belonged to Jonathan Bernard of Jamaica, and the other to Captain James.