In 1717 Teach blockaded the harbour at Charleston and sent Richards with a
party of pirates to the Governor to demand a medicine chest and all
necessary medical supplies, with a threat that if these were not
forthcoming he would cut the throats of all his prisoners, many of them
the leading merchants of the town. While waiting for the Governor's reply,
Richards and his companions scandalized the towns-folk of Charleston by
their outrageous and swaggering conduct.

RICHARDSON, JOHN.

His father was a goldsmith at New York. John, tiring of the trade of
cooper, to which he was apprenticed, ran away to sea. For many years he
served both in men-of-war and in merchant ships. Although an unmitigated
blackguard, he did not commit piracy nor murder until some years later,
when, being at Ancona, he met a Captain Benjamin Hartley, who had come
there with a loading of pilchards. Richardson was taken on board to serve
as ship's carpenter, and sailed for Leghorn. With another sailor called
Coyle, Richardson concocted a mutiny, murdered the captain in the most
brutal manner, and was appointed mate in the pirate ship. As a pirate
Richardson was beneath contempt. His life ended on the gallows at
Execution Dock on January 25th, 1738.

RICHARDSON, NICHOLAS.

One of Captain Quelch's crew. Taken out of the brigantine _Charles_, and
tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.

RIDGE, JOHN.

Of London.

One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Hanged in 1718 at Charleston, South
Carolina.

RINGROSE, BASIL. Buccaneer, pirate, and author.

Sailed in 1679 to the West Indies. A year later Ringrose had joined the
buccaneers at their rendezvous in the Gulf of Darien, where they were
preparing for a bold enterprise on the Spanish Main. They landed and
marched to the town of Santa Maria, which they plundered and burnt.
Thence they travelled in canoes down the river to the Bay of Panama. After
attacking the Spanish fleet and laying siege to the city, the buccaneers
cruised up and down the West Coast of South America for eighteen months,
sacking towns and attacking Spanish ships. All this while Ringrose kept a
very full and graphic journal, in which he recorded not only their
exploits, but also their hardships and quarrels, and gave descriptions as
well of the various natives and their customs, and drew charts and
sketches.

In 1681 Ringrose was still with Captain Sharp, and sailed through the
Straits of Magellan, and on January 30th of the same