Jon Hagadorn

The ship was of Boston, called the Protestant Caesar, Captain Wire Commander.

Teach hoisted his black colors and fired a gun, upon which Captain Wire and all his men left their ship and got ashore in their boat.

Teach's quartermaster and eight of his crew took possession of Wire's ship, and Richard 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 Turkle, and then to the Grand Caymans, 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 Rex, and from the Bahama Rex they sailed to Carolina, taking a brigantine and two sloops in their way, where they lay off the bar of Charlestown 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 Charlestown, and also two pinks coming into Charlestown.

Likewise a brigantine with fourteen 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 despair, being in no condition to resist their force.

They were eight sail in the harbor, 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 just ended when these robbers infested them.

Teach detained all the ships and prisoners, and being in want of medicines, resolved to demand a chest from the government of the province.

Accordingly, Richards, the captain of the revenge sloop, with two or three more pirates, was 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 medicine, 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. Marx was making application to the council, Richards and the rest of the pirates walked the streets publicly in the sight of all the 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 think of executing their revenge, for fear of bringing more calamities upon themselves, and so they were forced to let the villains pass with impunity.

The government were not long in deliberating upon the message, though it was the greatest affront that could have been put upon them.

Yet for the saving so many men's lives, among them Mr. Samuel Rag, one of the council, they complied with the necessity, and sent aboard a chest valued at between three and four hundred pounds, and the pirates went back safe to their ships.

"'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 fifteen hundred pounds sterling, "'besides provisions and other matters.'

From the bar of Charlestown 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.