Blackbeard: America's Most Notorious Pirate by Angus Konstam

Author:Angus Konstam [Konstam, Angus]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Historical
ISBN: 9780470128213
Google: rGMbAAAAYAAJ
Amazon: 0470128216
Goodreads: 372561
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2006-05-31T19:00:00+00:00

Bartholomew Roberts, pictured off Whydah on the West African coast with his ships Ranger and Royal Fortune entering the harbor. A group of slave ships are shown at anchor in the roads beyond, trapped by Roberts and his pirates. Although Blackbeard was less successful than Roberts, the Welsh-born pirate never managed to threaten the stability of colonial America as successfully as his English-born colleague.

When the Ranger was too close to escape, Captain Ogle sprang his trap. Captain Johnson’s account told the story from the perspective of the pirates: “It was with the utmost consternation they saw her [the Swallow] suddenly bring to, and hawl up her lower ports, now within pistol-shot.” The pirates panicked and lowered their black flag, a signal of surrender. However, after a few moments of reflection they decided to fight, and raised their colors once again. What followed was a two-hour sea battle, and by the end of it the heavily outgunned Ranger was a bloody shambles, her mainmast brought down and her decks scattered with dead or dying men. Captain Johnson continued: “They [the pirates] grew sick, struck their colours, and called out for quarter; having 10 men killed out right, and 20 wounded, without the loss or hurt of one of the King’s men. She had 32 guns, manned by 16 French men, 20 Negroes, and 77 English.” These men had one last dramatic gesture to make: “The colours were thrown overboard, that they might not rise in judgment, nor be displayed in triumph over them.” They then unsuccessfully tried to set fire to their ship before she could be secured by Ogle’s boarders.

The fight against the Ranger was only half the battle. Five days later the Swallow returned to the coast at dawn, and found the Royal Fortune still at anchor, her crew impatiently waiting for the return of the Ranger. Once again Roberts and his men had been drinking, this time following the capture of the British slave ship Neptune of London, which rode at anchor close to the pirate flagship. The befuddled lookouts at first thought the approaching ship was the missing Ranger, but they soon realized their mistake. Roberts and his men scrambled to raise sail and get under way, tacking out into the mouth of the bay to meet the Swallow head-on. Desperate straits called for extreme measures. The pirate captain now knew he was facing a well-trained British warship, and that he stood no chance in a straight fight.

Roberts’s plan was therefore “to pass close by the Swallow, with all their sails, and to receive her broadside, before they returned a shot; if disabled by this, or if they could not depend on sailing, then to run on shore at the Point (which is steep to) and everyone to shift for himself among the Negroes; or failing in these, to board and blow up together, for he saw that the greatest part of his men were drunk, passively courageous, unfit for service.” Once past the Swallow he could make good his escape from the bay, hoping that the warship was too slow to pursue him.

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