Pirates by Jennifer Willis

Author:Jennifer Willis [JENNIFER SCHWAMM WILLIS]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2012-01-27T16:00:00+00:00

The story of the treasure of the Isles of Shoals is associated with Blackbeard. It can be told here, before we go into the recital of the main facts of the pirate’s career, since there is much variation in the stories told by different chroniclers as to the period in Blackbeard’s life in which the incidents relating to the Isles of Shoals occurred.

Captain Teach, according to those who attempt to explain certain traditions of the Isles, was operating off the coast of Scotland during one of his brief absences from American waters. Lying off the west coast of Scotland, awaiting the scheduled passage of a richly laden East Indiaman, Teach’s pirate sloop was hailed by a lone man in a rowboat.

The little boat came alongside, and a Scotch seafaring man came up the rope that was tossed to him, hand over hand. The visitor had no difficulty in finding Captain Teach, who seemed to be expecting him. The two conferred in Blackbeard’s cabin for three or four hours. Then they appeared on deck, very friendly, and Blackbeard called his officers together and introduced the stranger:

“Boys, here’s Sandy Gordon, a pirate that can show a lot of you tricks in spilling blood.

“He’s going to be with us for a while and we’re going to work together, even after he gets a ship of his own.

“You know my rule on this ship against women. We want no women aboard, except in the Captain’s cabin, and we don’t want them there often or long. But I’m making a little exception to the rule. Captain Gordon is going to bring a lady aboard as his guest for a little while. She’ll have the cabin next to mine, and all hands are to keep clear of that cabin until Gordon and his lady go aboard their own ship.”

The officers and men aboard Blackbeard’s vessel were not much pleased with this news, but they managed to hide their dissatisfaction from their boss. Women caused trouble aboard ship. That was part of every pirate’s creed. Nearly all articles signed by captains and crews of piratical vessels in those days forbade the presence of women on the ship. Blackbeard maintained the same rules, except as to his own personal women. When it suited him to keep a captured woman aboard for a few days, he did so, usually throwing her overboard with his own hands when he thought the time appropriate. It was observed that the men were always harder to handle during or after one of these romances, for they were plainly and wickedly jealous of their Captain, and would not suffer him to violate the rule against women were it not that they were afraid to oppose him in anything. They had seen too many men choked to death by the powerful hands of Blackbeard.

So there was talk, but not loud talk, among the men of Blackbeard’s crew when, the night after the arrival of Sandy Gordon aboard, the vessel put close in toward shore, and Sandy, with one of Blackbeard’s men, rowed up the little inlet toward a quiet farmhouse.

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