his sails and oars could make. Black-beard
cut his cable, and endeavored to make a running fight, keeping a
continual fire at his enemies with his guns. Mr. Maynard, not having
any, kept a constant fire with small arms, while some of his men labored
at their oars. In a little time Teach's sloop ran aground, and Mr.
Maynard's, drawing more water than that of the pirate, he could not come
near him; so he anchored within half gun-shot of the enemy, and, in
order to lighten his vessel, that he might run him aboard, the
lieutenant ordered all his ballast to be thrown overboard, and all the
water to be staved, and then weighed and stood for him; upon which
Black-beard hailed him in this rude manner: "Damn you for villains, who
are you; and from whence came you?" The lieutenant made him answer, "You
may see by our colors we are no pirates." Black-beard bid him send his
boat on board that he might see who he was; but Mr. Maynard replied
thus: "I cannot spare my boat, but I will come aboard of you as soon as
I can with my sloop." Upon this Black-beard took a glass of liquor, and
drank to him with these words: "Damnation seize my soul if I give you
quarter, or take any from you." In answer to which Mr. Maynard told him
"that he expected no quarter from him, nor should he give him any."

By this time Black-beard's sloop fleeted as Mr. Maynard's sloops were
rowing towards him, which being not above a foot high in the waist, and
consequently the men all exposed, as they came near together (there
being hitherto little or no execution done on either side), the pirate
fired a broadside charged with all manner of small shot. A fatal stroke
to them!--the sloop the lieutenant was in having twenty men killed and
wounded, and the other sloop nine. This could not be helped, for there
being no wind, they were obliged to keep to their oars, otherwise the
pirate would have got away from him, which it seems, the lieutenant was
resolute to prevent.

After this unlucky blow Black-beard's sloop fell broadside to the shore;
Mr. Maynard's other sloop, which was called the _Ranger_, fell astern,
being for the present disabled. So the lieutenant, finding his own sloop
had way and would soon be on board of Teach, he ordered all his men
down, for fear of another broadside, which must have been their
destruction and the loss of their expedition. Mr. Maynard was the only
person that kept the deck, except the man at the helm, whom he directed
to lie down