The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1896-1929, 1897-06-24
OK. N. c.. THURSDAY, JUNE "a, 1897.
PIRATES OF CAROLINA.

/ PIRATES OF CAROLINA.
THE TERRoRs OF THE SEAS.
These are now Things Of the Past.
W. C. Allen n, Wilmington Messenger.
| PART 1.
Vessels come and 60 along the whole
coast of America now with perfect Sc
curity so far as molestation by pirates
is concerned. To day the sailor from
New York to Havana does not anticl-
pate any interference from robbers on
the high seas but makes provision, on
setting out, to combat only the winds
and waves, the common enemies of
navigators. He is not on the lookout
constantly for freebooters on his right
hand or his left. Teach's hole on the
coast of North Carolina, one time the
terror of all coasting vessels, has no
special interest to the navigator now,
more than the fact that, at one time, it
was the trysting place of many ma
rauders of the seas.
There was time when things were
different. From 1890 to l72O the en-
tire coast from Maine to Cuba was in
tested by bold and blood thirsty buc-
cancers. They roamed the seas as lords
of the deep, and committed their dep
relations with impunity; for there
was no force adequate to the task of
coping with them. The merchant
vessel that ran the gauntlet of these
desperadoes was esteemed fortunate.
Many were captured and plundered,
and their crews either slaughtered or
sent adrlft to perish In the deep. The
booty that they obtained was enormous.
Their adherents on land aided them
materially in hiding the treasure as it
was brought into the place of rendez-
vous. It is believed in some places that
large quantities of gold and silver, bur-
led during those times, still remain con-
cealed along the coast of the United
States.
About ITO a formidable band of
these freebooters entered into a COM
pact to act together for mutual profit
and safety. Edward Teach, better
known by the name of Blackboard, was
commander-ln-chief; and three noted
pirates, namely, Henry Vane, Steed
Bonnet, and Richard Worley were his
chief lieutenants. Teach was the soul
of the band and the dictator of all their
movements. His fleet consisted at first
OF six heavily armed vessels of war,
that of Teach himself carrying forty
guns and manned by a hundred sturdy
sea rovers, each man ready at any time
to give his life in defense of his COM
mander. There were no vessels in
American waters at that time that
could match those terrors of the sea.
With these formidable enemies of
mankind securing the seas and fire.
quenting the coasts, the commerce OF
the New World was almost destroyed.
They confined their depredations most
ly to the southern colonies, though tre-
quently they made bold dashes into the
northern seas and carried off immense
treasure almost in sight of Boston har-
Dor. Their headquarters were estab-
lished upon one of the small islands of
the Bahamas, with places of rendez-
vous in the Cape Fear and Pamllco
rivers In North Carolina and others of
less note on the coasts of South Caro-
lima and Georgia. Here they met at
stated times and formulated their dar-
ing schemes OF murder and plunder.
It was time favorably suited to the
purpose OF the pirates. The country
was sparsely settled, Georgia being yet
a wilderness with no white settler with
in her borders, and the mother country
had her navy employed in protecting
her interests in other parts of the
world. While the laws against piracy
were stringent, they could not be en-
forced. The temptations upon the seas
were so great that many of the boldest
in each colony torsook the peaceful
haunts of their homes and sought ill
gotten fortunes upon the water.
The northern colonies had been for a
long time afflicted with the same trou-
bic that then annoyed their southern
sisters. Only few years before that
time, in 1896, Captain Kidd had be-
come pirate and terror to the north
ern seas. Before becoming freebooter
he was sort of prlvateer, a kind of sea
rover, neither fish, flesh, nor foul. 1t
is very short step from privateering
to piracy, and Captain Kidd was not
man to strain at gnat.
When the depredations of the cor
sairs all along the Atlantic coast be-
came nnbearable. Kidd. with a strong