Evening star., 1895-01-12
so much as think Of arresting them. And
so they were forced to let the villains pass

SO much as think Of arresting them. And
| so they were forced to let the villains pass
| with impunity.
"The government was not long in de-
| liberating upon the message, though it was
| the greatest affront that could be put upon
them, yet for the saving of SO many peo-
| pies lives (among them Mr. Samuel Wragg,
| one OF the counciD, they complied with the
| necessity and sent aboard a chest valued
| at between three and four hundred pounds,
and the pirates went back to their ships"
How much Blackboard took from the
vessels he stopped on the bar in front Of
Charleston harbor. how great was the
money paid for the redemption of the pris-
oners. 10 one can tell Altogether the booty
which he gained must have been very great
| indeed.
Adding what was here taken to what he
already had, he must have amassed con-
siderable fortune by this time. This for
| tune he determined to secure as much as
possible to himself. Accordingly he man
| aged in very clever way to run all Of his
| vessels aground off Topsail inlet excepting
one. To that one-a small sloop-he had
| transferred all Of his treasure and a crew
Of forty men, and with it he sailed away
| for the North Carolina sounds
| But even forty were in Blackbeard's
| opinion too many to share what had been
gained in their piracies. Accordingly he
marooned nineteen of them on a little
| sandy island about league from the main
land, where" says the historian, there
| their sustenance." And only twenty-three
were left to share the treasure.
At that time piracy had become so ram
! pant that King George issued a proclama-
ton pardoning all freebooters who would
surrender by a certain date, hoping thus to
correct the evil Blackboard and the twen-
ty-three pirates who now were with him
were almost the first to take advantage of
this pardon. After having shared the treas
| ure among themselves, they went up into
Pamlico sound and there surrendered to
Gov. Eden at Bath-Town.
There Blackboard bought a plantation,
married a girl Of sixteen years (his four
teenth wife, it Is said). and striking up
friendship with the governor. the colonial
secretary and other dignitaries of the prov
ince, led for while merry, jolly life of it,
playing cards and spending his money like
a lord. So for a while he continued his life
ashore Then. suddenly and apparently
without reason, his restless desire for ad-
venture broke out afresh. He called to-
gether his men. who had nearly all settled
in the neghborhood of Bath-Town, manned
the sloop that he had brought with him,
and with it and another sailed away out
into the ocean through OcracOke.
He was gone for six or seven weeks and
then he returned, bringing in large
French barque freighted with a precious
cargo of sugar, which was then worth con-
siderably upward of shilling pound.
No one ever heard the history of the
French vessel-how it was taken, what had
happened after it was taken-it must have
been a dark and bloody story. Blackboard
said he found the barque adrift with neither
captain nor crew, and that he had brought
it into port a derelict. He made Gov.
Eden present of fifty hogsheads of the
sugar, and Mr.. Knight, the colonial secre-
tary, a gift Of twenty hogsheads. The rest
was divided among the pirates.
Then Gov Eden promptly ordered the
now empty vessel to be towed out into the
sound and burned. There it was consumed,
kissing, to the waters edge and sunk, and
with It the last fragment that might have
| blOttpd forever.
1t was a very profitable adventure.
And now comes the fierce and bloody
ending of Blackbeards story.
Gov. SpottSwood of Virginia was already
beginning to take steps to stamp out Black
boards nest Of pirates down at Bath
Town, even though it was not in his juris-
another governor. The story that present
ly reached his ears concerning the loss of
the French barque determined him to act
without losing any time.
He fitted out two sloopS under command
of Mr.. Robert Maynard first lieutenant of
the Pearl man-of-war. which was then ly
ing at the mouth Of the James river. Lieu
tenant Maynard sailed down to Ocrocoke
inlet, into the sound and there met Black
beard Then followed a fight such as one
may read about now and then in pirate
books, but rarely in a true history such as
this.
Blackboard opened the battle by firing
two broadsides into the lieutenants sloop,
under the smoke Of which he and the
kings men drifted closer together and
finally grappled. AS soon as they were
near enough the pirates began to throw
aboard the sloop grenades made of case
bottles filled with small shot and pieces of
iron. These grenadeS burst soon they
had struck the deck. throwing their con-
tents together with bits of broken glass in
all directions. Under the smoke and con-
fusion Blackboard and his men boarded
the soop and then followed one of the most
desperate hand to hand conflicts in all
pirate history.
1t is thus that Capt Johnson. one of the
chroncers Of those events, describes the
conflict:
"Blacllheard and the lieutenant" says he,
'fred the first pistol at each other, by
which the pirate received a wound then
they engaged with swords until the lieu
tenants unluckily broke, who thereupon
stepped back to cock his pistol. Blackboard
with his cutlass was striking at that in
slant. when one of Maynards men gave
him a terrible wound in the neck and throat,
by which the lieutenant came off with a
small cut on his fingers.
They were now closely and warmly en-
gagged, the lieutenant and twelve men
against Blackboard and fourteen. until the
sea was tinctured with blood around the
vessel. Though Blackboard received a shot
from the pistol that Lieut.. Maynard dis
charged yet he stood his ground and fought
with great fury until he received twenty
cuts and five more shots. At length. he
was cooking pistol, having fired several
before, he fell down dead"
win tnlS the Dattie was over. Lieut..
Maynard cut off the dead pirates head.
nailed it at the bowsprit Of his sloop and
then sailed back in triumph to Virginia.
So ended Blackboard, the pirate, fighting
to the last
But what became Of his treasure? Some
where he had hidden it in the marshes or
bluffs of Currituck sound or in the forests
of the Tar river. There 1t somewhere re-
poses to this day-all that had been earned
through blood and crime and wickedness
buried in the ground and lost forever.
1.-The night before Blackboard was killed."
says one Of his historians, lone of the men
asked him in case anything happened to
him in the coming engagement whether his
wife knew where he had buried his money.
He answered that nobody but himself and
the devil knew where 1t was. and that the
longest liver should take all!''
No one has ever yet found 1t.