The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down (21 page)

The better homes—simple frame houses—belonged to the merchant-smugglers who bought the pirates' plunder with cheap rum, tobacco, and ammunition, and to the settlements' leading figures. Once these homes had belonged to New Providence's law-abiding colonists, but most had been forced to flee the town "for fear of being murdered." Thomas Barrow, the leader of the wreckers, had harassed them without mercy, shaking them down for drinking money and whipping anyone who refused him.

Even the merchants who came to trade with the pirates were not necessarily safe. In the harbor, Barrow robbed a brigantine from New England and beat up the master of a Bermuda sloop. Some vessels were apparently off-limits, including the
Richard & John,
the fourteen-ton sloop owned by Hornigold and Thatch's old pirate buddy John Cockram and Cockram's influential father-in-law, Richard Thompson. Cockram and his brothers, Joseph and Phillip, were running a successful trading syndicate out of Harbour Island, shipping pirate goods to Charleston and sugar and provisions back to Nassau. They competed with Benjamin Sims, a forty-year veteran of New Providence, and Neal Walker, whose sloop
Dolphin
was said to be in Jamaica at that very time, bearing a load of Henry Jennings's plunder. Together these merchant-smugglers provided vital logistical support to the Bahamian pirates. "The pirates themselves have often told me that if they had not been supported by the traders [bringing them] ammunition and provisions according to their directions," a colonial official would report in 1718,"they could never have become so formidable, nor arrived to that degree [of strength] that they have."

***

While Hornigold looked for someone to sell the
Benjamin
to, the others bought and sold goods and personal items, and exchanged news and stories with the wreckers and logwood cutters. Along the way they learned that Jennings's own men had turned on him to loot the
St. Marie.
They ate fresh fish and pineapples, and pork and chicken that had never seen the inside of a barrel, and drank Madeira wine and Barbados rum. Bellamy may have felt he'd found paradise: a republic of sailors, freed from those who would exploit them, free to live the merry life as long as the agents of empire could be kept away.

Hornigold found a buyer for the
Benjamin,
a Virginian merchant by the name of Perrin, who also happily purchased most of his plunder. With the proceeds, the pirate commodore purchased another sloop, transferred his guns aboard, and christened her the
Adventure.
The
Adventure
was considerably smaller and less threatening than the
Benjamin,
probably only twenty tons or so. The trade, Thomas Walker reported, had weakened Hornigold and "in some measure has disabled him from doing such damages upon the high seas as he would have done if he had continued his command" of the
Benjamin.
The trade made, Hornigold oversaw the fitting out of his third pirate sloop-of-war.

He was also concerned about the future of the pirate republic. All it would take to do them in, he knew, was for the English, French, or Spanish to send three or four men-of-war to Nassau. But if the town could be better fortified, authority might be kept at bay. He looked at the assorted cannons poking from the sloops in the harbor, then up at the ruined shape of Fort Nassau. Yes, he realized, the time had come to arm the island, not just its vessels. He organized Thatch and others to obtain cannon, pulleys, shot, and powder, and began rearming the old fortress.

For Thomas Walker, this was the final straw. For nearly a year, he, his wife, and his children had been threatened and abused by these rogues. He had begged the outside world to quash the pirates before they grew too strong, but to no avail. He knew that he would be killed if he tried to stop them from fortifying the harbor. If they succeeded, it would be far harder to root them out. He gathered his family and fled to Charleston, leaving Nassau to the pirates.

***

Back in Jamaica, Lord Archibald Hamilton's life was going from bad to worse. With each passing week, the news from Britain grew bleaker. By mid-March he knew that the main Jacobite army had suffered a devastating defeat near the English town of Preston and at least 4,000 had been taken prisoner. James Stuart and his entourage had reportedly landed in Scotland but "not finding things according to their expectation" had fled back to France four days later.
^*
By the end of April, Lord Hamilton found his nephew Basil's name on a list of nobles captured at Preston and imprisoned in London. The uprising had failed before the colonies had even had a chance to join in.

Lord Hamilton's Jacobite activities were catching up with him. In March, Samuel Page, the secretary of Jamaica's governing council, had sailed for England carrying a sheaf of damning documents, letters, and depositions that he intended to present to King George. The Assembly of Jamaica and the former commodore of the local naval detachment were submitting evidence against him. Peter Heywood, a member of the governing council, was maneuvering to replace Hamilton as governor, by professing his support of "King George's sacred person and family."

Hamilton's privateers were causing him further trouble. The activities of Jennings, Willis, Fernando, Ashworth, and others had generated a flurry of hostile letters from the governors of Cuba and French Hispaniola. Governor Torres y Ayala of Havana wrote that "several gentlemen of Jamaica" had told him that Hamilton "was part owner of all the vessels which have been sent to our camp" at Palmar de Ayz; all the treasure had to be returned and the perpetrators seized and punished. The Cuban governor's ambassador in Jamaica had traced some of the stolen money to Hamilton's own house. Recently there was the matter of the
Dolphin,
a little Bahamian sloop that had shown up filled with goods Jennings and his gang had recently plundered from a French ship. Then came Henry Jennings himself, the
St. Marie
in tow, though minus the coins and valuables she once carried. To top it off, an official French delegation arrived bearing a letter from the governor of Hispaniola, demanding the return of this ship and another French sloop supposedly captured by Jennings. "I believe, my Lord, all these actions must occasion horror," the governor had written Hamilton. "I know several of [the privateers] have estates in Jamaica. It is but just they should be sold, and the money employed to repair the wrong they have done. I demand it of your Excellency, in point of justice." The entourage included Captain Escoubet, who was extremely angry to see his ship, the
St. Marie,
anchored in Port Royal awaiting Hamilton's condemnation.

Alas, if the Jacobite uprising had succeeded, Hamilton could have used the privateers to fund his administration and secure the surrounding colonies for the rightful kings of England and Scotland. Instead, they had become a liability. They would have to be rounded up and sacrificed for the cause. He put out orders that Jennings and the other captains not be allowed to leave the island.

Shortly thereafter, in late July, there was a knock at Hamilton's door.

HMS
Adventure
had arrived from Britain bearing orders from King George. Lord Hamilton was to be arrested and delivered to England in chains. Peter Heywood, the leader of Hamilton's opponents on the governing council, had been appointed governor and he immediately launched a full investigation of Hamilton's privateers. Jennings's commission had been seized and he went into hiding.

A good thing, too, for in late August another ship arrived from London bearing an official proclamation from King George. It was printed and posted around the island on August 30, and distributed across the British Americas in the weeks that followed. The king had declared Jennings, Carnegie, Ashworth, Wills, and others to be pirates.

By then, Jennings and his men were already halfway to their sanctuary, beyond the reach of the law: the Bahamas.

June 1716–March 1717

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or early July 1716, the pirates regrouped at their Hispaniola hideaway: Bellamy and Williams in the
Marianne,
Hornigold and Thatch in the newly acquired sloop
Adventure,
and La Buse aboard the
Postillion.
All should have been well. The three sloops were freshly cleaned, and had plenty of fresh water, wine, ammunition, and powder stowed away below decks. There were nearly 200 men between them and a safe haven from which to sally forth and strike merchantmen as they passed through the Windward Passage.

But relations between the pirate companies were strained. Hornigold's rule over the little squadron was failing due to his reluctance to attack English and Dutch vessels. He thought himself a vigilante, settling old scores with the French and Spanish; friendly vessels were boarded only as a last resort to acquire vital supplies or skilled crewmen. Bellamy and Williams thought differently and La Buse and his largely French crew didn't see any reason to spare English shipping.

While Hornigold had been away in Nassau, Bellamy and La Buse had attacked several English vessels off the southern coast of Cuba, seizing men, provisions, and liquor. Hornigold was angry to learn of this upon returning. In the heat of August, tensions reached a breaking point. Bellamy and La Buse wished to plunder an English vessel; Hornigold again refused. Aboard the
Adventure,
many of Hornigold's men called for his impeachment. The commodore was overlooking valuable prizes, and he'd lost the
Benjamin
to boot; perhaps younger, more radical leadership was in order. The quartermaster likely called for a vote of the ship's company. Hornigold had lost the confidence of two-thirds of the crew. The majority was ready for no-holds-barred piracy and decided to join Bellamy and La Buse aboard their sloops. Hornigold, they decreed, could keep the
Adventure,
but was to leave the rendezvous immediately and not show his face there again. Humiliated, the deposed commodore headed back toward the Bahamas with twenty-six loyal men, including his protégé, Edward Thatch.

***

Even for a pirate, the speed of Samuel Bellamy's ascent to power was striking. Only a year after leaving New England as a penniless sailor he had become the commodore of a gang of 170 pirates. He and Williams had already captured prizes worth thousands of pounds, more money than he and his fellow sailors could ever have hoped to see in a lifetime of legitimate service. He was twenty-seven and his career was just beginning.

Most of the ninety men in his own sloop's crew were English and Irish, with a few Scots, Welsh, Spaniards, and Dutchmen, a Swede, and at least two men of African descent. Most were in their midtwenties or early thirties, former seamen and privateers who had willingly entered piracy. A few had been forced to serve, at least at first. John Fletcher, whom Hornigold had kidnapped off the
Blackett
in October 1715, had come to embrace the pirate life; the crew liked and trusted him so much that they elected him to serve as the
Marianne
's quartermaster. Others were unwilling captives, like Richard Caverley, seized from an English sloop on account of his navigational skills, and Peter Hoff, the thirty-four-year-old Swede with extensive knowledge of the southern Caribbean. Bellamy would need their expertise in the months ahead.

After Hornigold's departure, Bellamy and La Buse detained several sailing canoes, dinghies, and cargo boats, which kept their galleys stocked. They seem to have taken it easy through the end of the summer, eating, drinking, and making merry. By September, Bellamy reckoned it was time to expand their horizons. He proposed to his crew that they sail eastward, down the curving spine of the Antilles to the Spanish Main, chasing any sail crossing their path. The men agreed, as did those under La Buse. At the height of hurricane season, they began their trek from Hispaniola.

They sailed against the prevailing winds, tacking their way along the mountainous shores of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. It was a quiet trip, punctuated only by whatever marine life passed their way: a curious pod of dolphins or a cascade of flying fish scattering fearfully before the sloop's hulls. But as they passed the far end of Puerto Rico and began the crossing to St. Thomas, a lookout spotted the telltale, triple-masted outline of a ship on the horizon. As they closed the distance, Bellamy could see it was quite large—a frigate, really—flying French colors. A long row of gun ports pierced her side, with a second, shorter row on her poop and forecastle. Forty guns all told, making her a smaller frigate similar to the
St. Marie,
the French ship they'd looted under Jennings's nose. Unlike the
St. Marie,
however, this ship was fully armed, and was not confined in a harbor, anchored to the seafloor. Her sails were up and her great guns were rolling out for action. A mighty prize, to be sure, one that could allow them to attack most anything in the West Indies, but not an easy one to capture. Bellamy consulted La Buse and his men and resolved to hazard a bold strike.

Bellamy and La Buse were outgunned two-to-one, so they had to count on outmaneuvering their powerful opponent. They weren't able to do so, unfortunately. The French ship delivered a broadside against the
Marianne,
cannonballs tearing through her decks, sending splinters in all directions. After an hour's engagement, Bellamy called off the attack. One of his men was dead and three were seriously wounded. The French ship proceeded on her way.

They spent October and November prowling the Virgin Islands, then a sparsely-populated archipelago contested by four nations. Five hundred Danish colonists lived on St. Thomas, overseeing the labor of more than 3,000 African slaves; several hundred English lived on Tortuga, the westernmost part of the sprawling British Leeward Islands colony, which stretched out 300 miles down the Antillies to Antigua and Nevis. The Danes and English both claimed uninhabited St. John, the French and Danes argued over St. Croix, while the Spaniards held onto several other islands. With so many rival nations squabbling over such a small area, the Virgin Islands provided ideal conditions for swift commerce raiders like Bellamy and La Buse. They could steal a merchantman and take off "over the border" if a warship or coast guard vessel tried to pursue them. The prizes proved small, but they kept themselves in food and drink by seizing a variety of hapless fishing vessels and a French cargo ship carrying flour and salted cod. On at least one occasion they forced unmarried men to join them, but let the married men go free, knowing their family bonds made them much harder to mold into committed bandits.