Historic Pirates

Stede Bonnet

The story of the career of Major Stede Bonnet is indeed a strange one. He had less cause than most to become a pirate. His background was much more respectable than that of the average sea rover. His had not been the rough-and‑tumble life usually bred by poverty and hunger which had led so many men to turn pirate. Even more astonishing, he had never even been a sailor!

In England, his family was held in high esteem, and his education was good for the age in which he lived. As an army officer, he had reached the rank of major, but after reaching middle age he had settled down to enjoy the good things of life. He enjoyed the company of the best society of Bridgetown, on the West Indian Island of Barbados. His sugar plantation brought him wealth, and he held the respect of his friends and neighbors.

Then, for some undetermined reason, Stede Bonnet suddenly cast aside everything smacking of respectability and as a pirate began the search for adventure. His former neighbors were scandalized when they discovered this most likable person had suddenly gone "a pyrating." They searched for an explanation for his unusual behavior. Publicly, they vowed the major was suffering from "a Disorder in his Mind." There were whispers that the real reason for his about-face was the sharp tongue of a nagging wife. At the time, some openly stated that Bonnet's troubles could be traced to "some discomforts he found in the married state."

Not only was Stede Bonnet not familiar with the ways of the sea, but he was unaware of the ways of pirates. The beginning of his piratical career was much milder than that of the ordinary buccaneer. In the first place, he made no attempt to capture or steal a ship with which to begin his operations. In early 1717 he did the almost unheard of thing of buying a vessel. This was a fast little sloop, with ten cannons lashed to her single gun deck. He renamed his ship the Revenge, a favorite name among pirates. In selecting his crew, his course was equally startling. Instead of signing on a crew and promising them regular shares of the booty, Bonnet hired his sailors, paying them wages out of his own pocket. From the taverns and grog-shops of Bridgetown, he recruited some 70 derelict seamen to man his ship.

Despite the innocent manner in which he prepared for a life of piracy, Bonnet did demonstrate that he had planned carefully. He did not sail right out and start plundering vessels in the nearby sea lanes. Instead, the Revenge lay quietly rocking in the harbor for several days. To those who asked, the captain replied that he had purchased the sloop to work up trade with other nearby islands. Then one night, without a word of farewell to his friends or the whining Mrs. Bonnet, the captain ordered the anchor to be weighed, and the Revenge slipped quietly across the Bridgetown bar out into the vastness of the open Atlantic. Once out of sight of land, a course was set for the Capes of Virginia. Once there, he stationed himself in that great sea lane of commerce.

For a rank amateur, Bonnet was extremely successful. Within a very few days, he had taken the Anne of Glasgow, the Endeavor of Bristol, the Young from Leeds, and the Turbes from Barbados. After plundering the cargoes, the crews were set ashore, to be picked up by some passing vessel. The Turbes was burned, more than likely because she was from Barbados. This seemed to set a pattern, for every ship from the Barbados that Bonnet later captured was put to the torch, probably to keep the news of his new profession from reaching his former home.

Sailing north, Bonnet discovered that there was a ready market in New York for the booty taken from his prizes. More importantly, the merchants who bought the goods asked no embarrassing questions. A sloop bound for the West Indies was captured, but the hunting in the northern Atlantic proved not so profitable as it had been in southern waters. After putting into Long Island to take on supplies, Bonnet steered southward, this time for the Carolina coast.