as he had received the medicines and his brother rogues,
let go the ships and the prisoners, having first taken out of them in
gold and silver about L1,500 sterling, besides provisions and other
matters.

From the bar of Charles Town they sailed to North Carolina, Captain
Teach in the ship, which they called the man-of-war, Captain Richards
and Captain Hands in the sloops, which they termed privateers, and
another sloop serving them as a tender. Teach began now to think of
breaking up the company and securing the money and the best of the
effects for himself and some others of his companions he had most
friendship for, and to cheat the rest. Accordingly, on pretense of
running into Topsail inlet to clean, he grounded his ship, and then, as
if it had been done undesignedly and by accident, he orders Hands' sloop
to come to his assistance and get him off again, which he, endeavoring
to do, ran the sloop on shore near the other, and so were both lost.
This done, Teach goes into the tender sloop, with forty hands, and
leaves the _Revenge_ there, then takes seventeen others and maroons them
upon a small sandy island, about a league from the main, where there was
neither bird, beast, or herb for their subsistence, and where they must
have perished if Major Bonnet had not, two days after, taken them off.

Teach goes up to the governor of North Carolina, with about twenty of
his men, and they surrender to his Majesty's proclamation, and receive
certificates thereof from his Excellency; but it did not appear that
their submitting to this pardon was from any reformation of manners, but
only to await a more favorable opportunity to play the same game over
again; which he soon after effected, with greater security to himself,
and with much better prospect of success, having in this time cultivated
a very good understanding with Charles Eden, Esq., the governor above
mentioned.

The first piece of service this kind governor did to Black-beard was to
give him a right to the vessel which he had taken when he was a-pirating
in the great ship called the _Queen Ann's Revenge_, for which purpose a
court of vice-admiralty was held at Bath Town, and, though Teach had
never any commission in his life, and the sloop belonging to the English
merchants, and taken in time of peace, yet was she condemned as a prize
taken from the Spaniards by the said Teach. These proceedings show that
governors are but men.

Before he sailed upon his advent