The Life and Tryals of the Gentleman Pirate, Major Stede Bonnet

By Jeremy R. Moss

An heir to an established land-owning aristocratic family in Barbados, Major Stede Bonnet enjoyed luxuries equal to those of the finest houses in London. "A Gentleman of good Reputation" and a "Master of a plentiful Fortune," he was given "the Advantage of a liberal Education," but the call of the sea-and perhaps

• Language: English
• Publisher: Captain''s Row Books
• Release date: Sep 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646631506

Jeremy R. Moss

Jeremy R. Moss is an accomplished real estate developer, lawyer and lobbyist living in Jacksonville, Florida. Jeremy is an emerging author and freelance historian, and his research is focused on piracy and early colonial maritime history. Jeremy's first book, The Life and Tryals of the Gentleman Pirate, Major Stede Bonnet, was met with significant interest and praise. When not working or writing, Jeremy is a family man and can be found telling stories of adventure and buried treasure to his three young sons (www.AuthorJeremyMoss.com).

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THE

LIFE AND TRYALS

OF THE

GENTLEMAN PIRATE,

MAJOR STEDE BONNET

JEREMY R. MOSS

The Life and Tryals of the Gentleman Pirate,

Major Stede Bonnet

by Jeremy R. Moss

© Copyright 2020 Jeremy R. Moss

ISBN 978-1-64663-150-6

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the author.

Published by

Captain's Row Books

Jacksonville, Florida

www.authorjeremymoss.com/captainsrow/

For my wife, Katy, and children, Silas, Aidan and Boadin.

You are the world’s greatest adventure.

"Avast, Ahoy, Aye Aye!

AVAST, AHOY, AYE AYE!"

Table of Contents

Foreword

Part I

Chapter 1—The Making Of Major Stede Bonnet

Chapter 2—Bonnet’s Revenge

Chapter 3—Charles Town

Chapter 4—The Spanish Man-Of-War

Chapter 5—A Nest Of Rogues

Chapter 6—Bonnet Meets Edward Thatch

Chapter 7—Blackbeard Commands The Revenge

Chapter 8—A New Flagship

Chapter 9—The Royal Prince, The Diamond, And The King Of Great Britain

Chapter 10—The Protestant Caesar

Chapter 11—The Atoll At Turneffe

Chapter 12—The Pirate Flotilla Grows

Chapter 13—Revenge On The Protestant Caesar

Chapter 14—The Trip Back To The North American Mainland & The Blockade Of Charleston

Chapter 15—Blackbeard’s Trickery At Topsail Inlet

Chapter 16—A Voyage Toward St. Thomas

Chapter 17—Careening On The Cape Fear

Chapter 18—Bonnet’s Incarceration

Chapter 19—The Vice-Admiralty Court

Chapter 20—The Trial Of Bonnet’s Crew

Part II: The Trial of Major Stede Bonnet

Chapter 21—Trial, Day One, November 10, 1718

Chapter 22—Trial, Day Two, November 11, 1718

Chapter 23—Bonnet Faces His Fate: Trial, Day Three, November 12, 1718

Chapter 24—The Aftermath Of The Sentencing And Death Of Major Stede Bonnet 

Appendices

Appendix I: A Proclamation For The Suppressing Of Pyrates

Appendix II: The Information Of David Herriot And Ignatius Pell

Appendix III: The Information And Affidavit of Captain Peter Manwareing

Appendix IV: An Act For The More Speedy And Regular Trial Of Pirates

Appendix V: A List Of Those Prizes Taken By Major Stede Bonnet And The Revenge

Foreword

Before my second son was born, I would spend weekend mornings with my oldest son, who was only one at the time, so that my then-pregnant wife could rest. On many of these early mornings we would find ourselves at the local library or coffee shop. On one particular morning, we ended up at my favorite local coffee shop in Virginia Beach, Three Ships.

Three Ships was the perfect place for a new father to take his young son. Rustic but vibrant, Three Ships serves delicious coffee and biscuits, and the maritime decor always captivated my young son. We would look at all the pictures on the wall, and I would describe the tall ships, whalers, and schooners.

On this particular visit, though, I picked a small book of local ghost stories. Flipping through its pages, I was particularly enchanted by stories of Blackbeard the pirate, who shared a rich history with Virginia Beach (some of which is discussed in this book). I was immediately hooked, and searched for more and more stories of Blackbeard and his compatriots.

On one hand, I was surprised by the small number of scholarly, historical works about pirates. I expected hundreds of books would have been written over the 300 years since piracy’s Golden Age. Instead, I found only dozens. Nonetheless, I consumed every book and article I could find.

As I read about Blackbeard, I continued to come across references to a lesser-known compatriot, Major Stede Bonnet. Of all the notorious and well-known pirates who ravaged the coastal waters of early America and the Caribbean, Bonnet stood out as the least likely among them to be called to the life of a sea wolf, a beast of prey, or enemy of mankind.

Major Stede Bonnet was a Gentleman of good Reputation, a Master of a plentiful Fortune, and was given the Advantage of a liberal Education. An heir to an established landowning aristocratic family in Barbados, Bonnet enjoyed luxuries equal to that of the finest houses in London.

But Bonnet’s life in Barbados was not without trials and discontent. The call of the sea and, perhaps more significantly, the push of his family life cast Major Bonnet onto the unlikely and deliberate course toward piracy.

Easily likable, by friend and foe, many would be drawn to Bonnet. Even now, it is easy to understand how the call of open space, freedom and adventure can have significant impacts on a man’s soul. But, for the sane and rational, the duty and love of family quells bouts of wanderlust that may present themselves.

Not for Bonnet. When the whispers of adventure and wanderlust were heard by Bonnet on the Barbadian winds, Bonnet followed them.

While very surprising to everyone, to hear of the Major’s life of piracy, Bonnet, through happenstance and luck (good and bad) became one of the most successful and notorious "archipirata" of the Golden Age of Piracy.

In his two years of piracy, Stede Bonnet stood alongside some of the New World’s most notorious pirates, including Charles Vane, Charles Condent (also known as Billy One-Hand), Robert Deal, Calico John Rackham, Israel Hands, Benjamin Hornigold, William Kidd, Mary Read, Anne Bonny, and the pirate to whom Bonnet will forever be connected, Edward Thatch (infamously known worldwide as Blackbeard).

Through Bonnet’s brief exploits, he was able to amass a fortune worth almost $5.5 million in today’s dollars, putting him as the fifteenth highest-earning pirate according to a 2008 Forbes magazine article.

Obviously different from the rest, Bonnet is affectionately known as the Gentleman Pirate and was generally esteemed and honored, rather pitied than condemned, even after he broke out into open Acts of Piracy. Even after his capture and death sentence, his capturer, Colonel William Rhett, offered to escort Bonnet to England for purposes of an appeal or pardon.

Even with a sparse historical record for many pirates, collections of original source documents are beginning to make their way onto the internet in scanned and translated form.

One of the most significant resources in studying the life of Major Stede Bonnet is Bonnet’s trial transcript, which still survives in published form today at the National Archives in Atlanta, Georgia. Originally republished in London in 1719 as The Tryals of Major Stede Bonnet, and Other Pirates, the court transcript was supplemented with a preface describing the capture of Bonnet and his ship, Revenge, along with several appendices containing witness depositions and statements used by the prosecution at trial. Recently, the Library of Congress digitized The Tryals, making the transcript available online, in searchable format, for viewing or download.

The Tryals is a unique resource, providing contemporaneous, firsthand accounts from several members of Bonnet’s crew, including Bonnet himself. Combined with genealogical sources from Barbados, letters from governors, ship captains, and other colonial and English officials, and secondhand sources (like A General History of Pyrates), much of Bonnet’s life can be pieced together.

In writing this book, my philosophy has been to seek the original source whenever possible. The book contains a number of quotes from these original sources, including long excerpts and significant portions of The Tryals. These sources may have been originally identified in any of the modern works which have influenced my viewpoint on Major Bonnet, his consort, and pirates generally.

Punctuation, spelling, and, in some cases, diction may have been revised from their original sources to increase readability and comprehension. At times, however, original punctuation, spelling and diction have been left in its original form. Dates, whenever listed, match their original source. But it is important to note that at the time, two different calendars existed—the English-speaking world used the Julian calendar; the French and Spanish-speaking world, the Gregorian (still used today). The eleven-day difference in calendars has proven to be significant, especially when piecing together English and French sources.

With that, we begin the story of the tempestuous life, and trials, of the Gentleman Pirate.

---

PART I

The Life of Stede Bonnet

chapter 1

The Making of Major Stede Bonnet

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

—ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY, THE LITTLE PRINCE

It was 1688 in Barbados, a Caribbean hub that had matured, surviving early political divisiveness and unrest to later thrive as a wealthy society of sugar planters and traders. Navigation routes of the time had most vessels bound to the West Indies from Europe make landfall first in Barbados, the easternmost island of the Caribbean.

Being the windwardmost island of the Caribbean gave Barbados many advantages, thriving on early news reports, goods from Europe and, eventually, slaves, laborers and servants from Africa and elsewhere. Barbados also had a strategic military advantage, as winds blew across the region from east to west, making westward approach by ships slow and difficult.

Originally discovered by the Spanish in the early 1500s (Barbados appeared on Spanish maps as early as 1511), the small island was claimed by the Portuguese sometime between 1532 and 1536 when it was given the Portuguese name Los Barbados. A British historian assumed the name no doubt relates to the Barbarity of the Country, but conceded that some weak people of this Island thought the name was derived from the beards of fig trees found on the island.¹

An exploratory expedition was initially sent to the island in 1625 to determine its viability for settlement. On February 17, 1627, the ship William and John landed on Barbados from England with eighty white settlers and ten enslaved Africans for the purpose of settling the island as a proprietary settlement.

By 1639, an assembly of landowners was established on the island with an annual election, making the Parliament of Barbados the third oldest legislature in the Americas (behind the Virginia House of Burgesses, now the Virginia General Assembly, and Bermuda’s House of Assembly). An island council was also established, appointed first by the lord proprietor and later, in 1660, by the king.

Like the other colonies of the New World, early Barbados attracted a motley array of offscourings, from England, France, Holland, Scotland, Ireland and Spain, including adventurers, fortune-seekers, indentured servants, rogues and prostitutes.

In a 1655 journal entry, Henry Whistler, the master of Vice Admiral William Penn’s flagship (Penn was an English admiral and politician who served in the House of Commons from 1660 to 1670, and is better known as the father of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania), described Barbados as one of the Richest Spots of ground in the world and fully inhabited, going on to use more colorful language.

This island is the dunghill whereon England doth cast forth its rubbage. Rouges and whorse and suchlike people are those which are generally brought here. A rogue in England will hardly make a cheater here. A baud brought over puts on a demour comportment, a whore if handsome makes a wife for some rich planter.

These early settlers struggled to find viable, money-making crops for the island and grew tobacco, cotton, and indigo, among other things, on small family farms.

Stede Bonnet was born in 1688 in Barbados to Edward and Sarah Bonnet, and christened at Christ Church parish on July 29, 1688.² The Bonnets were affluent plantation owners and part of the original aristocracy of Barbados, with Stede born into the third generation of the Bonnets of Barbados.

Thomas Bonnet, Stede’s great-grandfather, was among the earliest inhabitants and settlers of Barbados. Thomas Bonnet prospered on Barbados during the Barbadian Sugar Revolution, clearing portions of the Barbadian jungle to establish a plantation of over 400 acres, at least two homes (a townhouse on High Street in Bridgetown, and a plantation manor house in Christ Church). The Bonnet plantation in Christ Church was among other large plantations created out of the consolidation of family farms.

Early sugar production reaped huge profits for local Barbadian growers, and the upper levels of the island plantocracy flourished. Sugar production required significant labor, however, and the Barbadian aristocracy quickly turned to African slaves as a cheap labor source, establishing Barbados as the first black slave society in the New World.

Recognizing the need to formalize and institutionalize slave labor, the critical component for sugar production and wealth generation, a 1636 Barbadian political directive defined all Africans brought to Barbados as lifelong chattels (possessions). Later, in 1661, the Parliament of Barbados passed the 1661 act for the better ordering and governing of Negroes, consolidating the slave culture in a single statute. The 1661 act would serve as a model for later comprehensive slave laws in Jamaica and Antigua. Barbadian slaves would eventually be defined as real estate, attaching to the land on which they labored.

By the mid-1700s, British historians would already note Barbados’s value, suggesting that if Barbados ’tis not the richest Spot of Ground in the World, ’tis only because the Industry of the People is not enough encouraged.³

Edward Bonnet, Thomas’s younger son and Stede’s father, inherited much of the Bonnet estate upon Thomas Bonnet’s death in 1676. By the time of Stede’s birth in 1688, the economy and politics of the island of Barbados had matured.

Edward Bonnet would manage the estate until his death in 1694, when Stede was only six years old. With Stede’s mother, Sarah (Whetstone) Bonnet, dying not long after the death of Stede’s father, Stede was an orphan, and the affairs of the Bonnet estate were taken care of by Stede’s guardian until he reached adulthood.

Young Stede inherited and was raised on the bustling Bonnet estate with access to and reign over 400 acres of sugarcane fields, two windmills, a cattle-driven mill,⁴ three servants (likely indentured whites from England, Scotland or Ireland) and ninety-four slaves. From age eleven until adulthood, Bonnet was raised by Jennet Whetstone, widow of former deputy secretary of Barbados John Whetstone. As he reached adulthood, Bonnet took over full responsibility for the Bonnet plantation.

Bonnet’s continued use of slave labor on his plantation would have aligned him with other Barbadian aristocrats. Slavery was pervasive in the still-developing sugar plantocracy, and the profitable Barbados would ultimately provide the blueprint for future slave colonies in colonial America.

Barbadian slaveholders, like their successors, were known to be ruthless in securing the slaves for which they claimed title, and had not yet learnt to govern their slaves by any other Ways than Severity.⁵ In addition to physical brutality, Black slaves were even denied the benefit of Christian baptism, as some more Scrupulous Overseers might not be willing to handle the Cat-a-nine-tails so often against their Fellow-Christians, as they would against Infidels.⁶

Enforced by a Barbadian militia comprised of landowners, strict penalties were imposed on runaway slaves. Among those enforcement mechanisms was the Cage, an enclosure for runaway slaves located in the center of Bridgetown established by act of Parliament in 1688.

Bonnet would be recognized as part of this Barbadian militia and given the title of major. Although some have exaggerated Bonnet’s status and rank into an assumption of significant military experience, his rank was merely bestowed upon him pursuant to a June 1652 Barbadian law that bestowed military titles upon the landowning aristocracy. The title would be important to Bonnet, however, and history would assign Major to Stede Bonnet’s name for more than 300 years after his death.

On November 21, 1709, twenty-one-year-old Bonnet married Mary Allamby, the sixteen-year-old daughter of William Allamby, at the Cathedral of St. Michael in Bridgetown. William Allamby was another wealthy plantation owner and part of the Barbadian aristocracy. Mary was his oldest daughter. The Bonnets would live in Bridgetown, which also served as the seat of the assembly, for the next several years.

Stede and Mary had four children, three sons (Allamby, born on May 17, 1712; Edward, born September 24, 1713; and Stede, Jr., born on September 16, 1714) and a daughter (Mary, born in early 1717). Stede’s first son, Allamby, died in early childhood (sometime before 1715).

Well respected and part of the Barbadian elite, Stede was appointed and sworn in as a justice of the peace on January 24,