ned to act against the pirates, but he would
do nothing, for he felt very friendly toward Blackbeard--just as a child
who has had a taste of the stolen sugar feels friendly toward the child
who gives it to him.

At last, when Blackbeard sailed up into the very heart of Virginia,
and seized upon and carried away the daughter of that colony's foremost
people, the governor of Virginia, finding that the governor of North
Carolina would do nothing to punish the outrage, took the matter into
his own hands and issued a proclamation offering a reward of one hundred
pounds for Blackbeard, alive or dead, and different sums for the other
pirates who were his followers.

Governor Spottiswood had the right to issue the proclamation, but he had
no right to commission Lieutenant Maynard, as he did, to take down an
armed force into the neighboring province and to attack the pirates in
the waters of the North Carolina sounds. It was all a part of the rude
and lawless condition of the colonies at the time that such a thing
could have been done.

The governor's proclamation against the pirates was issued upon the
eleventh day of November. It was read in the churches the Sunday
following and was posted upon the doors of all the government custom
offices in lower Virginia. Lieutenant Maynard, in the boats that Colonel
Parker had already fitted out to go against the pirates, set sail upon
the seventeenth of the month for Ocracoke. Five days later the battle
was fought.

Blackbeard's sloop was lying inside of Ocracoke Inlet among the
shoals and sand bars when he first heard of Governor Spottiswood's
proclamation.

There had been a storm, and a good many vessels had run into the
inlet for shelter. Blackbeard knew nearly all of the captains of these
vessels, and it was from them that he first heard of the proclamation.

He had gone aboard one of the vessels--a coaster from Boston. The wind
was still blowing pretty hard from the southeast. There were maybe a
dozen vessels lying within the inlet at that time, and the captain of
one of them was paying the Boston skipper a visit when Blackbeard came
aboard. The two captains had been talking together. They instantly
ceased when the pirate came down into the cabin, but he had heard enough
of their conversation to catch its drift. "Why d'ye stop?" he said.
"I heard what you said. Well, what then? D'ye think I mind it at all?
Spottiswood is going to send his bullies down here after me. That's
w