oat for
them. After this barbarous deed. Teach, with the remainder of his crew,
went and surrendered to the governor of North Carolina, retaining all
the property which had been acquired by his fleet.

The temporary suspension of the depredations of Black Beard, for so he
was now called, did not proceed from a conviction of his former errors,
or a determination to reform, but to prepare for future and more
extensive exploits. As governors are but men, and not unfrequently by no
means possessed of the most virtuous principles, the gold of Black Beard
rendered him comely in the governor's eyes, and, by his influence, he
obtained a legal right to the great ship called "The Queen Anne's
Revenge." By order of the governor, a court of vice-admiralty was held
at Bath-town, and that vessel was condemned as a lawful prize which he
had taken from the Spaniards, though it was a well-known fact that she
belonged to English merchants. Before he entered upon his new
adventures, he married a young woman of about sixteen years of age, the
governor himself attending the ceremony. It was reported that this was
only his fourteenth wife, about twelve of whom were yet alive; and
though this woman was young and amiable, he behaved towards her in a
manner so brutal, that it was shocking to all decency and propriety,
even among his abandoned crew of pirates.

In his first voyage, Black Beard directed his course to the Bermudas,
and meeting with two or three English vessels, emptied them of their
stores and other necessaries, and allowed them to proceed. He also met
with two French vessels bound for Martinique, the one light, and the
other laden with sugar and cocoa: he put the men on board the latter
into the former, and allowed her to depart. He brought the freighted
vessel into North Carolina, where the governor and Black Beard shared
the prizes. Nor did their audacity and villany stop here. Teach and some
of his abandoned crew waited upon his excellency, and swore that they
had seized the French ship at sea, without a soul on board; therefore a
court was called, and she was condemned, the honorable governor received
sixty hogsheads of sugar for his share, his secretary twenty, and the
pirates the remainder. But as guilt always inspires suspicion, Teach was
afraid that some one might arrive in the harbor who might detect the
roguery: therefore, upon pretence that she was leaky, and might sink,
and so stop up the entrance to the harbor where