nor Eden's time, however, the colonies had begun to be more
thickly peopled, and the laws had gradually become stronger and
stronger to protect men in the possession of what was theirs. Governor
Eden was the last of the colonial governors who had dealings with the
pirates, and Blackbeard was almost the last of the pirates who, with
his banded men, was savage and powerful enough to come and go as he
chose among the people whom he plundered.

Virginia, at that time, was the greatest and the richest of all the
American colonies, and upon the farther side of North Carolina was the
province of South Carolina, also strong and rich. It was these two
colonies that suffered the most from Blackbeard, and it began to be
that the honest men that lived in them could endure no longer to be
plundered.

The merchants and traders and others who suffered cried out loudly for
protection, so loudly that the governors of these provinces could not
help hearing them.

Governor Eden was petitioned 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.

[Illustration: "Jack Followed the Captain and the Young Lady up the
Crooked Path to the House"

_Illustration from_
JACK BALLISTER'S FORTUNES

_by_ Howard Pyle

_Originally published by_
The Century Company, 1894]

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
o