Others jumped over the line with both feet, and none more infamously than Vane's old quartermaster, "Calico Jack" Rackham.
***
Rackham didn't lack for courage, but perhaps for judgment. After abandoning Vane in November 1718, he convinced his band to cruise just off the shore of Jamaica, a particularly dangerous environment as the island was home to the Royal Navy's West Indies fleet and a large number of armed merchant vessels. With risk came rewards. On December 11, the pirates lay chase to the merchant ship Kingston, overtaking her so close to Port Royal that the townspeople watched the attack. The ship, it turned out, was carrying a cargo valued at £20,000, much of it in the form of a large parcel of gold watches hidden in the bulk cargo. Her Jamaican owners were not going to let such a brazen theft succeed. As it happened, there were no warships in the harbor, but with the governor's blessing, the owners outfitted a pair of privateering vessels to recover their ship.
Three months later, in early February 1719, the privateers finally found the Kingston at Isla de los Piños, south of Cuba. Rackham's brigantine was anchored alongside, but most of her crew was ashore, sleeping off hangovers under the brigantine's sails, which they'd converted into temporary tents and awnings. Surprised and in no condition to defend themselves, Rackham's company fled into the woods, hiding there until the privateers left with the Kingston and most of her cargo. Rackham and his men were left with two boats, a canoe, a few small arms, twenty silver watches, and several large bales of silk stockings and laced hats. After donning the finery, the pirates became divided over how to proceed. From their captives they had learned that King George had extended his pardon (the same extension that had allowed some of Blackbeard's men to escape hanging in Virginia). Rackham and six followers decided to take the pardon in Nassau, where they might claim that Vane had forced them into piracy. They left in one of the boats and worked their way around the eastern tip of Cuba, capturing various Spanish boats along the way.
Rackham arrived in Nassau in mid-May 1719 and convinced Rogers to pardon his men. They lived in Nassau for a while, hawking watches and stockings, drinking in what taverns and brothels still remained. (Rogers, who continued to distribute Protestant religious pamphlets to the ex-pirates, presumably clamped down on some of Nassau's moral excesses.) As their money ran out, Rackham's friends shipped out on privateers or merchant sloops. Rackham, with his captain's double-share of plunder, lasted the longest. During this time, he made the acquaintance of one of New Providence's most infamous harlots, Anne Bonny, wife of James Bonny, a rank-and-file pirate who had become one of Rogers's informants. Rackham took a fancy to the fiery young woman, who swore like a pirate and had cuckolded her husband on a great many occasions. He spent the last of his money courting her, then shipped out on one of Burgess's final privateering missions, and spent his share of the proceeds on his new flame. The two fell in love and, sometime in the spring or early summer of 1720, approached James Bonny to seek an annulment of their marriage. Bonny agreed to do so in exchange for a substantial cash payment, but they would need a respectable witness to sign the appropriate papers. They chose their witness poorly. Richard Turnley, a mariner despised in some circles for having piloted HMS Rose safely into the harbor when Rogers first arrived, not only refused to act as witness, he informed Governor Rogers of the situation. Rogers, perhaps having read too many of the religious pamphlets he'd brought with him, told Bonny that if she annulled her marriage he would have her thrown in prison where he would force Rackham to whip her. Anne "promised to be very good, to live with her husband and keep loose company no more." She had no intention of doing any of these things.
Unable to continue their relationship ashore, Rackham and Bonny decided to take to the sea as pirates. The couple recruited a half-dozen disgruntled former pirates as well as Anne's close friend, a cross-dressing female sailor named Mary Read. The author of A General History of the Pyrates erroneously claimed that Bonny and Read met at sea, when Read, dressed as a man, was pressed into service aboard Rackham's pirate sloop. According to this oft-repeated account, Bonny took a liking to the fresh-faced recruit, only discovering her true gender after making the moves on her. Read is then said to have explained that her mother had raised her as a boy in order to pass her off as another man's son, that she had served as a sailor and foot soldier, and had come to Nassau when pirates captured a merchant ship she was serving aboard. Indeed, the two women may well have met after Bonny mistook Read for a handsome young man, but the encounter almost certainly took place not at sea, but in Nassau. We know this because by the time Rackham and Bonny decided to go pirating together, Mary Read was not only with them, her identity and gender were already well known to Governor Rogers, who identified the women by name in an official proclamation released to the Boston newspapers.
The account is partially correct: The women did indeed become cross-dressing pirates. Late on the night of August 22, 1720, Rackham, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and six men stole one of the swiftest vessels in all of the Bahamas, the William, a twelve-ton, six-gun sloop belonging to privateer John "Catch Him if You Can" Ham.* The watch aboard the Delicia challenged the pirates as they left the harbor, but they talked their way out of trouble, claiming they were going to stand outside the harbor for the evening after having broken their anchor line. Instead, they took the William round to the backside of New Providence and began plundering fishing canoes and other vessels from locations all over the Bahamas, their numbers growing as unhappy sailors and former pirates joined their company. Rackham and Bonny also went out of their way to track down Richard Turnley, whom they knew to be hunting turtles on one of the Bahamas' outer cays. They destroyed his boat and pressed three of his crewmen, while Turnley and his young son hid in the woods. They left behind a fourth crewman with a message for Turnley: If Rackham and Bonny ever came across him again, they would whip him to death.
Over the next two months, Bonny and Read became inseparable and, in matters of fashion, developed a compromise between them. "When they saw any vessel, gave chase, or attacked, they wore men's clothes," as Read preferred, a former captive would later testify at their trial, "and at other times, they wore women's clothes." At a time when women sailors were unheard of, Bonny and Read actively participated in combat, running gunpowder for the men, fighting in battles, and terrorizing their captives. Dorothy Thomas, a fisherwoman detained by the pirates on the north side of Jamaica, testified that the two women "wore men's jackets and long trousers and [had] handkerchiefs wrapped around their heads ... a machete and pistol in their hands and cursed and swore at the men, [urging] ... that they should kill her, to prevent her [testifying] against them." Thomas added that the only reason she knew they were women "was by the largeness of their breasts." On October 20, 1720, the pirates daringly attacked the sloop Mary & Sarah while she lay at anchor in Dry Harbor, on the north shore of Jamaica; the vessel's captain noted that Bonny had "a gun in her hand," and that "they were both very profligate, cursing and swearing much, and very ready and willing to do anything on board."
Despite having his lover aboard, Rackham continued to pursue a reckless strategy. He spent much of October on the shores of Jamaica, hopping from harbor to harbor, stealing small vessels, and recruiting additional crewmen. Soon he was being dogged by several Jamaican privateers, including one commanded by former Bahamian pirate Jean Bondavais, who had been terrorizing Spanish shipping. Bondavais caught up with Rackham while he was collecting recruits from shore near the western tip of Jamaica. Rather than trying to conceal his identity, Rackham promptly fired on Bondavais' vessel. Bondavais retreated to report the incident to Captain Jonathan Barnet, a privateer who had been hunting for Rackham in his own well-armed sloop. Barnet chased Rackham throughout the afternoon and into the night, during which time many of Rackham's men fell to drinking. The alcohol may have affected the pirates' handling of their swift vessel because, at ten o'clock, Barnet came within hailing distance. He ordered them "to strike immediately to the King of England's colors." Som
ebody on Rackham's sloop responded:"We will strike no strikes," at which point Barnet's men fired a swivel gun.
At this point, most of Rackham's men fled into the hold, leaving Read and Bonny on deck. Read, according to the General History, "called to those under deck to come up and fight like men and, finding they did not stir, fired her arms down the hold amongst them, killing one and wounding others." Moments later, Barnet's men fired a broadside, backed by a hail of small arms fire, causing the pirates' boom to crash onto the deck, followed by the shot-ridden mainsail. Unable to maneuver their vessel, the pirates begged for quarter. Barnet's men stormed over the rails, took everyone aboard into custody, and the next morning delivered them to the militia officer ashore. Soon thereafter, Calico Jack, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read found themselves in Spanish Town jail, awaiting trial.
Among their fellow prisoners was Charles Vane. It's not known if the pirates were able to speak to one another, but if they did, Vane may have had some harsh words for his former quartermaster. Had Rackham not led the uprising against him two years earlier, Vane might have succeeded in building a pirate fleet comparable to those once commanded by Bellamy and Blackbeard. Once divided, neither man had the strength to do any serious damage to the British Empire. Rackham was among the first to be tried and found guilty. On November 18, 1720, the day of his execution, Anne Bonny was allowed to see him one last time. "I'm sorry to see you here," she is said to have told him, "but if you had fought like a man, you need not have hanged like a dog." Later that day he and four other men were executed at Gallows Point in Port Royal. His body was later placed in a gibbet on a small island in the harbor now known as Rackham's Cay; he and Vane may have been hanged separately, but their corpses swung within sight of each other across Port Royal Harbor.
As for Mary Read and Anne Bonny, they were tried on November 28, 1720, found guilty, and sentenced to death. They had a surprise for Governor Lawes and the other officials at the Spanish Town courthouse. They "plead their bellies," claiming to be "quick with child" and, thus, ineligible for execution, as it was illegal for the court to take the lives of their fetuses. Lawes ordered that the women be examined, whereupon their claim was found to be true. Their sentences were postponed and the women were presumably returned to prison. Mary Read died there from a violent fever and was buried at St. Catherine's church in Jamaica on April 28, 1721. Anne Bonny's fate is unclear, though she was apparently not executed. During her pregnancy, her long-estranged father, a South Carolina planter of some means, may have been able to obtain her release. If she died on Jamaica, the records of her burial have been lost.
***
With the execution of Rackham and Vane, the Golden Age of Piracy was all but over. While ships would continue to be attacked—particularly off West Africa—the pirates never again had the upper hand. With few exceptions, the pirates of the 1720s spent their time playing cat-and-mouse games with the authorities; there were to be no more threats to the colonies themselves. British authorities estimated the worldwide pirate population at approximately 2,000 between 1716 and 1718, but less than 200 by 1725, a collapse of 90 percent. After 1722, most pirates had abandoned any hope of carving out their own republic or helping overthrow the Hanoverian kings of England and spent most of their time fighting for mere survival.
That's not to say that all of the Flying Gang pirates were defeated. Indeed, many of the diehards who abandoned the Bahamas in 1718 carried on for years, and a few managed to retire comfortably. Olivier La Buse, Bellamy's longtime consort, went to the Leeward Islands with his ship-of-force prior to the pirate republic's collapse. On June 12, 1718, Captain Francis Hume's HMS Scarborough cornered La Buse at La Blanquilla, where he had anchored to plunder a small prize sloop. As the frigate approached, La Buse and most of his crew made their escape on the faster, more nimble sloop. He eventually made his way to West Africa, meeting up with a number of Bahamian colleagues, including Edward England and Paulsgrave Williams. He had a long and generally prosperous career in Africa and the Indian Ocean until 1730, when he was apprehended by French authorities and executed on the island of Réunion. His grave is a popular tourist site there.
Paulsgrave Williams also wound up in Africa, where he was last seen in April 1720 serving as quartermaster aboard La Buse's brigantine. A man held captive on that vessel, slaver captain William Snelgrave, recalled that Williams was grouchy and despondent, threatening him with violence without provocation. "Don't be afraid of him, for it is his usual way of talking," another captive told Snelgrave. "But be sure [to] call him Captain as soon as you get aboard" his vessel. Indeed, Williams warmed to the use of his old title, as he was unhappy not being in command. Snelgrave also reported that members of the pirate fleet drank toasts to "King James the Third," suggesting continued Jacobite proclivities among Williams's associates. Williams probably sailed with La Buse for some time thereafter, possibly settling among other aging pirates in Madagascar. He never again saw his wife and children in Rhode Island, but his eldest son apparently never forgot him. When he grew up, Paulsgrave Williams Jr. became a wig-maker, specializing in the peruke his father was so fond of wearing.
The rank-and-file pirates who stole Rogers's privateer Buck helped spawn a new wave of outlaws who would terrorize the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Led by Howell Davis, a fearless Welshman, they plundered vessels from Virginia to West Africa. In November 1719, he forced a carpenter named Bartholomew Roberts to serve aboard the Buck; after Davis was killed a short time later during an attack on a Portuguese slave fortress, Roberts presided over what was probably one of the most productive pirate companies in history, taking over 400 vessels before they were captured by the Royal Navy in February 1722. Another Buck mutineer was Walter Kennedy, an Irishman inspired to piracy by the tales of Henry Avery. After running his own pirate sloop for a time, he returned to London to enjoy his riches, set up his own brothel on Deptford Road, and dabbled in mugging and other petty crime. He was eventually apprehended and executed for piracy in 1721 at Wapping, where he had been born twenty-six years earlier. One of Kennedy's old shipmates aboard the Buck, Thomas Anstis, also became a successful pirate captain, but was killed by his own crew during a 1723 mutiny.
It was Edward England, Vane's first quartermaster, who may have come closest to living out the Avery legend. After parting ways with Vane, England specialized in attacking slave ships on the West Coast of Africa, whose demoralized crews were reliable sources of fresh manpower. He captured nine such vessels in the spring of 1719, and more than a third of their sailors defected to his company. At Cape Corso he nearly captured Lawrence Prince's new command, the 250-ton Whydah II, which fled under the guns of a slave fort to avoid following her namesake into piracy. He, like Avery, spent considerable time cruising the Indian Ocean. He raided the shipping of the Moghul Empire and, upon catching a thirty-four-gun ship, named it Fancy as Avery had done. In the end, his men deposed him for refusing to allow them to harm their captives, marooning him on one of the islands of Mauritius, east of Africa. England managed to build a raft and conveyed himself to Madagascar, where he lived the rest of his days among Avery's surviving pirates.
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For the most part, the pirates' nemeses and their high-level collaborators fared worse than the pirates themselves.
After abandoning Rogers in Nassau, Commodore Peter Chamberlaine of HMS Milford remained in charge of the Royal Navy's West Indies fleet until June 1720, when he received orders to escort fourteen merchant vessels back to London. On June 28, while passing through the Windward Passage, the fleet encountered a violent storm that drove every vessel ashore on the west end of Cuba. A witness later said, "the shore [was] covered with dead bodies." Two-thirds of the 450 sailors and passengers were killed, including Chamberlaine and the entire complement of the Milford, apart from thirty-four sailors, the purser, and a blind cook.
Francis Hume, commander of HMS Scarborough, who destroyed the pirate vessels of Martel and La Buse, was rewarded in 1723 with the command of the third-rate Bed
ford, one of only twelve ships of the line then in service. Nonetheless, he shot and killed himself in Scotland "on account of some private discontent" in February 1753.
Vincent Pearse's Phoenix was based in New York for many years, allowing him to build many lasting relationships among the leading citizens of that city. These led to his marriage to Mary Morris, the daughter of New Jersey governor Lewis Morris, who owned a vast estate in what is now the Bronx. The marriage was not a happy one. While Pearse was in England, Mary carried on a dalliance with another naval officer. Pearse didn't discover the affair until a few years later, when the couple was living in London. Enraged, he brought her to court for adultery. The scandal was voluminously documented in the Morris family's letters to one another, and descended into a soap opera of lawsuits, countersuits, abortive reconciliation, and intrigue. In 1742, while Pearse fought his wife in London, a New York court ruled against him in a £1,500 lawsuit on an unrelated matter, which likely ruined him. He was probably still quarrelling with his wife when he died, in May 1745.
Shortly after killing Blackbeard, Lieutenant Robert Maynard was found to have kept a number of valuables taken from the Adventure, having disobeyed a direct order from Captain Gordon to return them to the inventory of seized plunder. His self-aggrandizing accounts of the battle at Ocracoke further discredited him with his superiors and Governor Spotswood, in whose letters praise for the lieutenant is conspicuously absent. Maynard was not promoted to commander for another twenty-one years. He eventually made captain and was given command of the sixth-rate Sheerness in September 1740, when he must have been an old man. He died in England in 1750.
While cleared of wrongdoing by his governing council, Governor Charles Eden's reputation never recovered from his dealings with Blackbeard. He died of yellow fever at his home in Edenton on March 17, 1722, at the age of forty-nine. His tombstone carried the epitaph: "He brought ye country into a flourishing condition, and died much lamented."
The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down Page 34