The Chronology of Captain Benjamin Hornigold, The Leader of the Non-Jacobite Pirates in Nassau: 1713-1718

Cropped from a Map of Central America and the Caribbean, by Central Intelligence Agency, 2002. Reproduced from an original in the collection of the Geography & Map Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g4800.ct002224

Benjamin Hornigold was born in Ipswich, England, a port city, 60 miles up the coast from London in about 1680.

In 1713, he found himself in Port Royal, Jamaica, as the Queen Anne’s War was winding down and privateering was becoming illegal. A rumor was spreading that further north, about a week’s sailing, there was a small island, New Providence Island, in the Bahamas and it had a beautiful harbor. What was even better was the fact that during the war, the French and the Spanish had attacked Nassau and had driven away most of its settlers. Nassau had no government and the Royal Navy was busy elsewhere.

That summer, Hornigold and his friends, John Cockram and John West, sailed to Nassau, purchased sailing canoes, what were called periaguas, hired 20-30 men who would row and handle the sail for each canoe, and went pirating. 

West, Cockram and Hornigold sailed for about six months and were quite successful. One report stated that West’s canoe had raided a Cuban plantation and captured fourteen slaves valued at 2,100 pieces of eight [£656], Cockram’s canoe had captured silks that cost the Spanish merchant 32,000 pieces of eight [£10,000], and Hornigold’s canoe had seized merchandise costing the Spanish merchant 14,000 pieces of eight [£4,375]. The rate of exchange in Jamaica as established in 1707 by the Royal Mint and Parliament was one piece of eight was equivalent to 6s3d or 75d [one £ = 240d (pence). Put another way, one pound sterling had the buying power of a little more than three pieces of eight. One £ = three pieces of eight (225d) plus 15d.

Around Christmas 1713, the trio divided their plunder. West took his share and left piracy. Cockram took his share and sailed to Harbour Island, located about fifty miles east of Nassau and about two miles off the northeastern coast of Eleuthera Island, to marry the daughter of a well-established merchant, Richard Thompson, Sr.  Hornigold, fearing a Spanish attack on Nassau, took his share and followed Cockram to Eleuthera Island.

By the summer of 1714, Hornigold had struck up a friendship with Jonathan Darvell, who had lived on Eleuthera Island for many years. Darvell was too old to sail but he had the Happy Return, a small sloop, about fifteen tons. Darvell knew that Hornigold had sailing experience so he offered to let Hornigold sail the Happy Return for him. Darvell’s seventeen-year-old  son, Zacheus, wanted to sail so he and his brother-in-law, Daniel Stillwell, became the crew along with two of Hornigold’s friends, James Bourne and Ralph Blankenship. Their cruise was extremely successful: 46,000 pieces of eight [£14,375] from the shores of Florida and Cuba.

That fall, Hornigold, Thomas Terrill and another of Hornigold’s friends, bought a shallop, an overgrown rowboat with a sail and several sets of oars, from an Eleutheran settler and continued their piracy around Cuba. They captured a small launch and a periagua belonging to a Cuban noble. These vessels were overflowing with goods and money.

When the Spanish threat lessened, Hornigold returned to Nassau. Around Christmas, Thomas Walker, a former judge of the Vice Admiralty Court of the Bahamas, sailed from Nassau to Eleuthera Island, captured Daniel Stillwell and brought him back to Nassau along with the Happy Return. Walker arranged to send Stillwell to Port Royal to be tried as a pirate but Hornigold rescued Stillwell. Hornigold’s actions further established him as the leader of the non-Jacobite pirate faction in Nassau.

On July 24, 1715, the Spanish plate fleet, eleven Spanish vessels and a French escort, sailed from Havana for Spain. King Philip V was in dire need of the cargo: two years of silver. A week later, July 31st, all eleven Spanish vessels were caught in a hurricane and wrecked along the Florida coast. Their wreckage stretched for miles. Spain had prohibited trade with other countries so news of the wrecks was kept from the non-Spanish world. The Spanish, however, rushed drivers, equipment and vessels from Havana to salvage what they could. They set up temporary storehouses near each wreck site. There, the salvage could wait to be transported back to Havana.

Hornigold, meanwhile, was now the captain of his own sloop and was having success as an established pirate. In October, he captured Captain Abraham Lamb’s Blackett and after it was plundered, it was permitted to sail off.

In November, he captured the Mary of Jamaica and then a small Spanish sloop. The Mary and the Spanish sloop were less fortunate than the Blackett. Hornigold traded his current vessel for the Mary and had his prize crew sail the small sloop to Nassau to be declared a prize of war and sold at auction by his agent.

As Hornigold was capturing the Blackett and the Mary, Captain Henry Jennings, a landowner in Kingston, a Jacobite sympathizer, and Hornigold’s nemesis, had learned about the wreck from his friend, Lord Archibold Hamilton, the governor of Jamaica.  He had received information from the governor of Cuba. Jennings formulated a plan with his friend, John Wills, that they would obtain letters of marque (commissions) from Governor Hamilton. Although the commissions would only authorize the seizure of French and Spanish vessels at sea, Jennings and Wills had a different plan. They would seize the salvage stored on the Florida shore in the storehouses before it could be transported to Havana.

Jennings and Wills procured their letters of marque, and sailed with some men from the Spanish garrison at Port Royal. Jennings sailed in his sloop Barsheba and Wills in his sloop Eagle. On the day after Christmas, the men marched to the two storehouses at San Sebastian Inlet, drove away the 60 Spanish guards, and stole about 350,000 pieces of eight [about £109,375]. They stayed two days at the wrecks to divide their plunder and then sailed to Nassau to replenish their water and to brag about their good fortune. While in Nassau, Jennings asserted a right under his commission to the small Spanish sloop held by Hornigold’s agent, the sloop that Hornigold had captured after seizing the Mary of Jamaica.

When Jennings and Wills were attacking the Spanish storehouses, Hornigold was sailing the Mary of Jamaica not to fish the wrecks but to capture a Spanish sloop to replace the Mary. Hornigold had learned the Mary was owned by Augustine Golding of Vero Parish, Jamaica, and he felt a moral duty to return it to its English owner.

On his return to Nassau, Hornigold learned that Jennings had used his commission to claim the small Spanish sloop. Hornigold’s agent felt he had no choice but to release the vessel to Jennings.

Hornigold sent the Mary back to its owner and spent February fitting his new vessel, renamed the Benjamin, for piracy.

Early in April 1715, Hornigold in the Benjamin sailed from Nassau Harbor, intending to sail south to Cuba and then west to the Florida coast and the wrecks. On April 7th, as he was sailing along the Cuban coast, he spotted a French sloop, the Marianne of St. Dominique, docked at Port Mariel. Upon capture, Hornigold decided to take her back to Nassau as his prize. Ultimately, it could be auctioned and the proceeds divided among his crew.

While Hornigold’s prize crew was preparing the Marianne to sail, several of her French crew told Hornigold that a French merchant frigate, the St. Marie of Rochelle was at anchor 20 miles to the west in Bahia Honda. Rather than sail directly north to Nassau, the Benjamin and the Marianne sailed west to Bahia Honda where Hornigold discovered that Henry Jennings, Leigh Ashworth, James Carnegie, Samuel Liddell, Sam Bellamy and Paulsgrave Williams had captured the St. Marie a few days earlier.

Spotting Hornigold with the Marianne, a vessel Jennings had intended to seize, Jennings and Ashworth raised their anchors, set their sails, and began to chase the Benjamin and the Marianne, leaving Bellamy and Williams behind with the St. Marie.

Bellamy and Williams saw an opportunity to escape in a periagua with Jennings’ silver and gold. They rowed out of the harbor and they and their periagua were picked up by the Benjamin as Hornigold was preparing to return to Nassau with the Marianne.

Unable to overtake the Benjamin and the Marianne, Jennings and Ashworth returned to Bahia Honda only to discover that Bellamy and Williams had absconded with their silver and gold. Not knowing that Bellamy and Williams were with Hornigold, they decided to sail to Nassau to retrieve the Marianne. Arriving in Nassau on April 22nd, Jennings seized the Marianne claiming a right to do so under his commission from the governor of Jamaica. Carnegie arrived in Nassau a few days later sailing the St. Marie. He had traded his sloop, Discovery, for the St, Marie.

After a few days in Nassau Harbor, Jennings (Barsheba), Ashworth (Mary) and Carnegie (St. Marie) set sail for Port Royal. The owners’ share of the plunder was sent ahead on another sloop, the Dolphin.

Captain Matthew Musson, sailing under a commission from the governor of South Carolina, reported that around the end of April 1716, Thache, Hornigold, and Jennings were all in Nassau Harbor. Hornigold’s home base was in fact Nassau although neither Jennings nor Thache made Nassau home. Jennings lived in Jamaica and Thache had no home base. He occasionally stopped at Nassau on special occasions.

In May 1716, Hornigold in the Benjamin sailed in consort with the French pirate Olivier LeVasseur (nicknamed La Buse (the mouth) and La Bouse (the buzzard)) in his vessel, the Postillion, to Hispaniola to spend the hurricane season. They stopped on the way at the Isle of Pines to careen their vessels.

  In August, Sam Bellamy and Paulsgrave Williams, who had been sailing with Hornigold since April when Hornigold picked then up near the entrance to Bahia Honda, fomented a mutiny and all but twenty-six of Hornigold’s crew sailed away with Bellamy on Hornigold’s Benjamin. Bellamy and Williams were joined by Captain LeVasseur and his sloop, Postillion. Hornigold sailed to Nassau in the small Spanish prize vessel he had captured on his way to Hispaniola.

By November 1716, Hornigold had acquired another sloop, the Delight, and had set sail again. This time he sailed alone. On December 3rd, he captured a merchant ship, a galley, bound from Jamaica to Bristol, England—John Quarry was its captain. A week later, December 10th, he captured a 40-gun Spanish brigantine. Three days later, December 13th, around eight in the evening, the Delight was off Cape Donna Maria on the western end of Hispaniola when he captured the brigantine Lamb—Henry Timberlake was its captain.

An hour after Hornigold’s boarding party arrived at the Lamb, they were joined by another sloop, about the same size as the Delight, eight guns and about ninety men. The captain of that vessel, Edward Thache, sent a canoe with several men over to the Lamb. They too gathered provisions and ferried them back to their vessel. Thache made no attempt to personally board the Lamb.

Captain Timberlake wasted no time returning to Jamaica where he gave a deposition concerning the events of December 13th-14th. Timberlake stated that Thache and his sloop were there and Thache had sent a small boarding party in a canoe. Timberlake’s deposition was the first public, record to date of Thache as a pirate and the first public record of a Thache/Hornigold connection.

Captain Hornigold and his crew spent Christmas 1716 and the New Year in Port Royal. There it appears that Hornigold sold the Delight and bought another sloop, the Adventure.

With the New Year 1717, Hornigold sailed from Port Royal, stopping at the Isle of Pines to careen his new vessel.

After spending a couple of weeks on the Isle of Pine, the Adventure sailed toward the shipping lanes between Cartagena and Havana. The lookout spotted the English ship, the Charles Galley, a ship they had seen at Port Royal. They followed it toward the Bay of Campeche and then they changed course, heading back to the shipping lanes between Cartagena and Havana. Spanish warships were trying to wipe out the log cutters in the Bay of Campeche so sailing there alone presented an unnecessary danger.

In the Gulf of Honduras, the Adventure captured a Spanish vessel and returned with sacks of silver coins, ground corn and sugar and a few barrels of rum.

That evening Hornigold’s crew celebrated. The fiddler played, the crew sang and danced and ultimately threw their hats in the air. A breeze caught and carried them into the sea. The next day they paid a heavy price in the brutal sun. Fortunately, the Adventure was able to seize a coastal merchant sloop and the Adventure’s boarding party took their hats—every single hat.

The Adventure changed course again and began sailing north, cruising up the Florida coast. It came upon a snow from Jamaica—a square-rigged vessel with two masts and a trysail attached to its mainmast. The Adventure’s boarding party, led by Hornigold’s quartermaster, William Howard, came back with the snow’s surgeon, Dr. John Howell, along with his medical chest and his personal items. Dr. John Howell became the surgeon for the Adventure, although unwillingly.

Dr. Howell found one of  Hornigold’s men desperately ill. His death was rumored to be imminent. After examining him, Dr. Howell opened his medical chest and mixed what proved to be a magical elixir. Within days, the sailor recovered and was back at his post.

  After Dr. Howell joined the Adventure at Harbour Island, a Dutch vessel came along and it was seized. As it was being plundered, a second Dutch vessel came along and was seized as well.

The Adventure then set course for , a small island with only about thirty families living there. The beaches were a dazzling pink. With little traffic in the harbor, the beaches remained pristine.

While in Harbour Island, Captain Hornigold changed quartermasters. The new quartermaster was John Martin and Captain Hornigold arranged for Dr. Howell to stay with William Pindar, a merchant in Nassau, while the Adventure was in Harbour Island. 

Several days after the Adventure arrived, a French ship, the Mary Anne, dropped anchor nearby. Her captain was Jean Bonadvis. Upon learning that the Adventure had a surgeon, he wanted him for the Mary Anne.

Upon returning to the Adventure earlier than expected, Dr. Howell told the following story.

Me and Pindar had just finished dinner when there’s this loud knock on his door. Pindar got up from the table and opened the door. I glanced over his shoulder and saw a group of menacing half-drunk French seamen standing there cursing in French. I shan't repeat what they’re saying. Fortunately, they couldn’t see me. One shouted, ‘Captain Bonadvis from the Mary Anne sent us. We came for the doctor, heard he’s here! Came for a hogshead of rum, too!’

Pindar was quick to reply. ‘Don’t have the rum and you can’t have the doctor unless Captain Hornigold says so.’

Bonadvis’ men were becoming irate. I thought this was no place for me here so I headed out the back door and over to Benjamin Saunders’, who worked for Richard Noland, Hornigold’s agent. Saunders hid me till the Frenchmen left, and then he had Noland arrange for me to sail back over here where I’m safe. So here I am.

A few evenings later, Captain Bonadvis and several of his men appeared at the tavern in Harbour Island where Captain Hornigold was passing the time. Hornigold and Bonadvis engaged in a heated argument. Bonadvis demanded Dr. Howell. Finally, Captain Hornigold said, “If Dr. Howell says he’ll go with you, you can have him.”

The next day John Martin asked Dr. Howell if he’d like to sail with Bonadvis. Dr. Howell’s reply was emphatic, “I would rather sail with the English than with the French!” To say the least, Bonadvis was not happy.

The Adventure stayed at Harbour Island for a few more days and then sailed to Nassau to prepare for its next cruise. There, Captain Hornigold met an old friend, Captain Napping, and they decided to sail in consort.

In mid-March, the two sloops set off for the shipping lanes around Porto Bello. Porto Bello (now renamed Colon) is on the Isthmus of Panama where silver was shipped to Havana and then to Spain. On April 1st, Hornigold and Napping were sailing toward Porto Bello and approaching Friends Islands off Panama when they spotted the sloop Bennet.

The Bennet was seized without resistance and John Martin led the Adventure’s boarding party. They returned with a chest of gold belonging to the current asiento company.

Asiento contracts relate back to 1494 and the Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal. Under the treaty, a line was drawn from pole to pole down through the Atlantic Ocean. Land east of the line would belong to Portugal and land west of the line would belong to Spain. This meant that Spain could not go to the ports of West Africa to get slaves for its plantations and mines in the Caribbean and the Spanish Main. Spain had to get a third party to get the slaves and bring them to the Spanish islands and the Spanish Main. Every few years, the Spanish crown allowed countries and companies to bid on the exclusive right to supply slaves in Spanish America. This chest of gold belonged to the company that had the asiento and had just sold a galley full of slaves. It represented Spain’s percentage of what was received from the sale, and was being shipped to Spain in payment for that exclusive right.

In addition to the gold, Captain Hornigold liked the Bennet so he negotiated a trade with its captain, Captain Hickinbottem: the Adventure and freedom for Captain Hickinbottem and his men in exchange for the Bennet. Once the guns, black powder, provisions, and personal items were transferred to the Bennet, it and Captain Napping’s sloop set sail east toward Jamaica.

Six days later, the Bennet, in consort with Captain Napping’s sloop, were in Bluefields Bay, Jamaica. They captured a vessel and learned from its men that a rich Dutch ship was trading on the southern coast of Cuba.

Three days later, the Bennet, while still in Bluefields Bay, captured another vessel, the Revenge.

The Bennet and Captain Napping’s sloop then sailed toward the southern coast of Cuba. On April 12th, they spotted a twenty-four-gun Dutch ship. The Bennet ran a shot across the Dutch ship’s bow, but it showed no sign of surrendering. The chase was on. For two days, Captain Hornigold and Captain Napping engaged in a running battle with the Dutch ship. They were gaining when a ship appeared from over the horizon. The chase continued, but as the newcomer drew closer, they discovered it was a British warship, the twenty-gun frigate Winchelsea. If the chase continued, Hornigold and Napping would have needed to take on not only the Dutch ship but also the Winchelsea. The decision was made to end the pursuit.

The Winchelsea followed for some time. Not wanting to tangle with a British warship, Captain Hornigold and Captain Napping headed for the safety of Nassau and the pirate colony.

Between the two vessels, they had taken four hundred thousand pieces of eight [£125,000] and the chest of gold.

Hurricane season had begun in June and the Bennet stayed in Nassau Harbor.  Meanwhile, Captain Napping had sailed off in consort with Captain Thomas Nichols.

In July, the Bennet set sail again. On July 20, 1717, it was near Acklins Keys near Crooked Island in the lower Bahamas when it encountered the Winchelsea and returned to Nassau Harbor.   

In early September, Edward Thache and his sloop, Adventure, made an appearance in Nassau Harbor.

A few days later, a sloop flying a black flag sailed into Nassau Harbor. It was new to the harbor and no one had seen it before. It was badly beaten up in battle and its captain was standing on its deck in his dressing gown.

The sloop, Revenge, belonged to Major Stede Bonnet. It had sailed out of Barbados, up the east coast of North America to New York and then south to Charles Town where it blockaded the harbor, then up to Cape Fear to careen his sloop and then to the Florida coast.

Believing that a large vessel was a harmless merchant ship, Major Bonnet’s Revenge entered battle. The ship was a Spanish warship and the Revenge suffered a number of casualties, including Major Bonnet. With Major Bonnet disabled, the Revenge’s quartermaster directed the remaining crew to sail to Nassau Harbor for repairs.

Upon learning that Major Bonnet was unable to captain the Revenge, Thache convinced Major Bonnet to let him captain the vessel for him so the Major could retire to his onboard library and recuperate. Thache arranged for the necessary repairs and upgrades to the Revenge and hired replacement crew. Within a week or two the Revenge and Thache’s original sloop, the Adventure, now under the command of Richard Richards, sailed out of Nassau Harbor heading north. On September 29th, the Revenge captured the sloop Betty off the Virginia Capes.

With Thache and Bonnet gone, the harbor took on an eerie quiet. Captain Hornigold took the opportunity to change vessels again. This time he chose a larger vessel, the brigantine Ranger. The Ranger was a two-masted vessel with a fully square-rigged foremast and at least two sails on the taller mainmast—a square topsail and a gaff sail mainsail. The Ranger had 30-36 guns.

During the second week of October, the Ranger set sail heading north. Around October 17th, the Ranger was in the shipping lanes off the North Carolina coast and captured two merchant vessels. After plundering what was needed, the Ranger continued to sail north.

The next day, October 18th, Hornigold and the Ranger met Thache sailing Bonnet’s Revenge and Thache’s original sloop, Adventure, off the Virginia Capes. Shortly thereafter, they captured Captain Prichard’s vessel from St. Lucia and a vessel from London heading to Virginia. After sailing in consort for a day or two, Hornigold and the Ranger left Thache and headed south to Nassau.

Thache must have been impressed with the Ranger because soon after Hornigold departed, he sailed south, first stopping in Bermuda and then on to the southern Caribbean. Some would say that Thache had information from the men of Captain Pritchard’s vessel that a slave ship was due in Martinique. On November 28th, he in Bonnet’s Revenge and Richards in Thache’s original sloop Adventure captured the French slave galley, La Concorde, before it had reached its destination, Martinique. Thache brought La Concorde to Bequia Island where he released the slaves and some of La Concorde’s French crew. Thache then changed the ship’s name to the Queen Anne’s Revenge.

Several days after the Ranger returned to Nassau, the Marianne, the French sloop that Captain Hornigold captured at Port Mariel, Cuba, sailed into the harbor. It was still painted blue and yellow and its captain was now Paulsgrave Williams.

A few days later, the Ann, a snow, entered the harbor. It had been captured by Sam Bellamy and the Whydah in the shipping lanes off the Virginia Capes during the time the Whydah had been separated from the Marianne by a storm. Before the Whydah and the Marianne were reunited, Bellamy added the Ann to his fleet and made Richard Noland, Hornigold’s old friend, captain.

Both the Marianne and the Ann were severely damaged. The Ann had survived the nor’easter that had destroyed the Whydah off of Cape Cod. The Marianne had survived the nor’eastern while at anchor at Block Island, Rhode Island, had sailed north to Maine to wait for Bellamy, and had an arduous journey from Damariscove Island, Maine, down to Nassau.

In December, Hornigold boarded a vessel that took him to Jamaica. There he was informed that on September 5th, King George had issued a proclamation offering pardons to all pirates for acts of piracy committed before January 5, 1718. Pardons had to be secured from a royal official before September 5, 1718.

Henry Jennings, the leader of the Jacobite pirates in Nassau, also had received the news of the king’s pardon and he organized a meeting of his followers. He attempted to convince them to accept the king’s pardon. Charles Vane, who had sailed with Jennings, argued that they should not accept the pardon. Nothing was decided although Jennings with seven of his followers packed up and sailed the Barsheba to Bermuda to accept the pardon from Governor Bennet. The Jennings family were early settlers in Bermuda and had extensive land holdings. With Jennings absent, Charles Vane became the de facto leader of the Jacobite sympathizers on Nassau.

When Hornigold’s return to Nassau from Jamaica, he prepared the Ranger for one last voyage. Around Christmas, the Ranger was in the shipping lanes between Vera Cruz, Mexico, and the western tip of Cuba when it captured several vessels that were plundered and sent on their way. Then a day or two before the New Year, the Ranger captured a large Dutch merchant ship, twenty-six guns, and Hornigold made it his prize. A day or two later, the Ranger encountered an even larger Dutch merchant ship, the Younge Abraham, thirty-six guns, and Hornigold made it his prize. Both ships were taken back to Nassau. The Younge Abraham was positioned to guard the west entrance to the harbor.

On February 23, 1718, the Royal Navy frigate Phoenix dropped anchor in Nassau Harbor. Captain Hornigold watched as a longboat from the frigate was rowed to shore. The ranking officer, a lieutenant, carried a white flag. On shore, the lieutenent met with the crowd that gathered. Several hours later, they rowed back to the Phoenix and the Phoenix raised its anchor and left the harbor.

The next morning the Phoenix returned with Charles Vane’s sloop Lark in tow. The rumor was that Vincent Pearse, the captain of the Phoenix, had captured Vane and about sixteen of his men at Buskes Cay and they were now aboard the Phoenix.

Captain Hornigold and his friends, Francis Lesley, Josiah Burgess, and Thomas Nichols, rowed over to the Phoenix and asked Captain Pearse for the release of Vane and his men. They were concerned that if Vane and his men were held, the pirates in Nassau would think that the king’s pardon was a ruse and would not sign up for it.

After Hornigold and his friends had left the Phoenix, they saw Vane and his men, except for one, being rowed to shore. Captain Pearse kept the Lark claiming that it was involved in an act of piracy after January 4th.

Two days later, the 26th, Captain Hornigold and a number of pirates visited the Phoenix and received certificates of safe passage from Captain Pearse. These certificates would protect them until they could obtain official pardons from a Royal governor. Over two hundred signed up with Captain Pearse.

On the night of March 16/17, Vane and about sixteen of his men rowed from shore past the Ranger and the Phoenix and out the harbor’s west entrance.

The next night, twenty-four of Vane’s men rowed from shore and out the west entrance.

During broad daylight on the 21st, Vane and his men sailed into the east entrance of the harbor and dropped anchor just east of Potter’s Cay, the island that separated the east and west basins of the harbor. They went ashore and began loading cargo.

That evening, Vane’s men celebrated. After midnight when the harbor appeared to be asleep, Captain Pearse sent a longboat to make a surprise attack on Vane’s vessel. Vane had posted a sentry and Pearse’s attack failed.

On March 23rd, the Phoenix raised its anchors, set sail, and led a four-sloop convoy out of the harbor. The Lark had been converted back to a trading vessel and was one of the four in the convoy. Captain Pearse had sent it on a private mission to St. Augustine and it was being sailed by six sailors from the Phoenix.

A few nights later, Captain Hornigold awoke to see the Younge Abraham ablaze. It was the Dutch merchant ship that the Ranger captured near Vera Cruz and Hornigold had stationed near the harbor’s west entrance. Another vessel, the Mary Galley was also ablaze.

On March 29th, Captain Pearse and the Phoenix returned to the western basin of the harbor only to find the smoldering hulls of the Younge Abraham and the Mary Galley. The smaller Dutch ship had escaped the torch but was run aground on Hog Island. Charles Vane was gone but he had left his mark.

Two days later, March 31st, Vane returned to the eastern basin. He was no longer sailing the small merchant trader he had captured a few weeks earlier but was now sailing his former sloop, the Lark. On the way back from St. Augustine, three of the Phoenix sailors mutinied and took over the Lark. They sailed down to Vane’s little encampment behind Buskes Cay and had it refitted as a pirate vessel.

On April 4th, Vane sailed out of the eastern entrance in the Lark with a black flag flying.

On April 8th, the Phoenix sailed out of Nassau Harbor to return to its home port, New York.

Several weeks after Vane and the Lark left Nassau, rumors began circulating that Vane was trolling the shipping lanes off the Bermuda coast and behaving in a most unorthodox and barbaric manner. He had captured a dozen vessels, seven from Bermuda. He had selected one man from a captured vessel for especially brutal treatment. Even Governor Bennett had enough and had commissioned Henry Jennings, Vane’s former captain, to hunt him down and bring him back to Bermuda for trial.

On April 28th, Vane returned to Nassau Harbor. He had left with the Lark but returned with a four-vessel fleet.

A few days after Vane’s return, Hornigold watched Thache enter the harbor with a four vessel fleet. He had captured the slave galley, La Concorde, near Martinique and made it his flagship—twenty-two guns and one hundred fifty men. He had renamed it the Queen Anne’s Revenge. He stayed for a few days and then sailed north, up the Florida coast toward Charles Town. Thache had taken John Martin, Hornigold’s quartermaster, as his quartermaster for the Queen Anne’s Revenge.

For the next few weeks of May, Vane and his fleet stayed at anchor in Nassau Harbor. He appeared to be waiting for something or someone. Finally, around May 22nd, they sailed away.

Around the end of the third week of June, Captain Hornigold and the men of the Ranger left Nassau to exchange their certificates of safe passage for the king’s pardon from Governor Bennett of Bermuda. They returned to Nassau mid-July only to find that Vane was blocking the harbor entrance with several sloops. The Ranger was permitted to pass and anchor in the harbor. He discovered that Vane was in the harbor with a nine vessel fleet and had declared himself to be the governor.

Late on the afternoon of August 23rd, the Rose, the first vessel in the new governor’s fleet, was sighted off of Hog Island. The Rose, the Shark, the Buck, and the Willing Mind, entered the harbor that day. The Delicia and the Milford, continued to sail about three miles off-shore.

In the middle of the night, Captain Hornigold was awakened by the cries from his crew, “Hurry, hurry, Vane is trying to escape!” But how? Governor Rogers’ vessels had blocked the western basin’s entrance and Vane’s flagship was too large to sail around Potter’s Cay and out the eastern basin’s entrance now his flagship was sailing straight toward the western entrance and Governor Rogers’ vessels.

Suddenly, Vane’s flagship erupted into a giant fireball, setting off the cannons and black powder onboard. The Governor’s vessels cut their cables and scattered as best they could.

“Look there!” shouted one of Captain Hornigold’s crew. Vane was aboard a small sloop, Captain Charles Yeats’ Katherine, and heading around Potter’s Cay toward the eastern entrance. Governor Rogers sent several vessels in pursuit but they returned empty handed. In the distance, Vane was firing his cannons to mock the Governor.

The next day, Governor Rogers’ personal flagship, Delcia, and Commodore Peter Chaimberlain’s flagship, Milford, anchored in the harbor and Governor Rogers was rowed ashore. He was met by Captain Hornigold and Thomas Walker, the former judge of the Vice Admiralty Court in the Bahamas, and they walked to the fort. The governor was welcomed by the crowd that had assembled.

On September 14th, Captain Hornigold received word that Governor Rogers wanted to see him. He made his way to the Governor’s House and was informed that King George wanted him and his friend, John Cockram, to be pirate hunters and to hunt Charles Vane who was reported to be at Green Turtle Cay, one of the barrier islands off mainland Great Abaco, a day or two sailing from Nassau. The governor provided Hornigold and Cockram with a fully armed and supplied vessel along with a crew.

Several days later, Hornigold and Cockram sailed to Green Turtle Cay. They found Vane and his men but they were too strong to engage so they spent days observing. Vane was not alone. He had two vessels with him, the Emperor and the Neptune. They were soon joined by another vessel, the Wolf. Hornigold had seen the Wolf in Nassau Harbor and its captain was Nicholas Woodall. He had received a certificate of safe passage from Captain Pearse. Hornigold knew that the Wolf had been cleared by Governor Rogers to hunt for turtles. Hornigold was surprised to see that Woodall had gone pirating. He was smuggling arms and supplies to Vane and receiving goods from the Neptune. Woodard had gone pirating. Vane let the Emperor sail off but disabled the Neptune before he and Woodall sailed off. Hornigold and Cockram followed, lost Vane but captured Woodall and the Wolf. Three weeks after leaving Nassau, Hornigold and Cockram returned with Woodall in chains and the Wolf in tow.

About three or four weeks later, Governor Rogers called upon Hornigold and Cockram for another mission. A few days before, a vessel came into the harbor with a number of wounded men and a number of men who claimed they were forced to sail with the wounded who were pirates. They said that Governor Rogers had cleared three vessels to sail on a trading mission—the sloop Mary (Captain John Augur), the sloop Lancaster (Captain Phineas Bunce), and the schooner Bachelor’s Adventure (Captain Henry White). Once out of Nassau, Bunce decided to go pirate and convinced Augur to join him. They captured the Bachelor’s Adventure and made it into a pirate vessel as well. When they were near Exuma Keys, they came upon three vessels that they assumed were salt traders. One by one, Bunce’s fleet attacked and one by one they were defeated. Little did they know they had attacked the three-vessel fleet of Turn Joe, an Irish pirate and privateer who had joined Spain as a guarda costa privateer.

Governor Rogers sent out Hornigold and Cockram to round up the remaining pirates from these three vessels and to bring them back to Nassau. On November 15th, Hornigold and Cockram captured John Augur, William Cunningham, John Hipps, Dennis McKarthy, George Rouneival, William Dowling, William Lewis, Thomas Morris, George Bendall, and William Ling. All were tried on December 9th and 10th and all with the exception of John Hipps, were found guilty. They were hanged at Fort Nassau on December 12, 1718.

Captain Bunce had been wounded when his vessel attacked Turn Joe’s fleet. Bunce died of his wounds before trial.

The record for Benjamin Hornigold then goes silent until there is this final entry. During the hurricane season of 1719, Captain Hornigold was sailing the Ranger in the Gulf of Mexico when his vessel was wrecked in the storm. Captain Benjamin Hornigold did not survive.