A Call For Shares

A Memoir of Saint Augustine, 1716

I am told that Governor Antonio de Benavides was in terror when he descended the stairs to find his house filled with more then fifty desperate men, pyrates all, who’d as soon cut his throat as spit. He tried to retreat back up the stairs, but Teach got hold of him and asked where he thought he was going. The governor was so terrifyed he could not speak. When his wyfe and children were brought down into the midst of them, he offered all that was in the treasury if Teach would just spare their lyves.

Our men, who were spread throughout the town, found the guardhouse empty and soon learned that the garrison of one hundred twenty, upon learning that Black Beard and his men occupyed the town, had run off to hyde in the wood, north of the settlement.

The governor sent a runner, with a note, one of Teach’s own men, to summon the king’s tax collector, ordering him to open the counting house and give Teach all that was contayned in the treasury. It wasn’t much, a bag of silver coins and a few bars. Teach nearly beat the man to death before he would believe him, that there was no more to be had.

The people were so poor that many houses and hovels burned that night for the lack of ransom. I am ashaymed now of what was done, but I was not present with them, not that I would have had the power or inclinaytion to put a stop to it. I was in the tavern at the wharf, with the Frenchmen of Bonnett’s crew, indulging myself, as I too often do.

When Henri returned and found me so disposed I thought he would kill me, or leave me to the wrath of the townspeople. But he took me by the scruff of my neck and fairly threw me into the longboat, returning me to the ship, upon which we left that town with Teach also aboard, who left his men to march back to Saint Matthew on their own. Though the adventure gayned us little in the way of treasure, it served to embolden Teach with a new idea to raid other, richer towns along the coast.

Collin Aldworth

Williamsburg, June, 1719