es his prisoners.

Thus ended the great sea-fight between the private gentlemen, and thus
ended Stede Bonnet's career. He and his men were taken to Charles Town,
where most of the pirate crew were tried and executed. The green-hand
pirate, who had wrought more devastation along the American coast than
many a skilled sea-robber, was held in custody to await his trial, and
it seems very strange that there should have been a public sentiment in
Charles Town which induced the officials to treat this pirate with a
certain degree of respect simply from the fact that his station in life
had been that of a gentleman. He was a much more black-hearted scoundrel
than any of his men, but they were executed as soon as possible while
his trial was postponed and he was allowed privileges which would never
have been accorded a common pirate. In consequence of this leniency he
escaped and had to be retaken by Mr. Rhett. It was so long before he was
tried that sympathy for his misfortunes arose among some of the
tender-hearted citizens of Charles Town whose houses he would have
pillaged and whose families he would have murdered if the exigencies of
piracy had rendered such action desirable.

Finding that other people were trying to save his life, Bonnet came down
from his high horse and tried to save it himself by writing piteous
letters to the Governor, begging for mercy. But the Governor of South
Carolina had no notion of sparing a pirate who had deliberately put
himself under the protection of the law in order that he might better
pursue his lawless and wicked career, and the green hand, with the black
heart, was finally hung on the same spot where his companions had been
executed.

Chapter XXVII

A Six Weeks' Pirate

About the time of Stede Bonnet's terminal adventures a very
unpretentious pirate made his appearance in the waters of New York. This
was a man named Richard Worley, who set himself up in piracy in a very
small way, but who, by a strict attention to business, soon achieved a
remarkable success. He started out as a scourge upon the commerce of the
Atlantic Ocean with only an open boat and eight men. In this small craft
he went down the coast of New Jersey taking everything he could from
fishing boats and small trading vessels until he reached Delaware Bay,
and here he made a bold stroke and captured a good-sized sloop.

When this piratical outrage was reported at Philadelphia, it created a
great sensation, a