Colonel Rhett, of Charlestown, was the agent of Justice in this instance. Not long after Blackbeard had held up Charles Town for a quantity of pills and plasters, as we have noticed, another rascal tried the same trick but could not make it work. This fellow’s name was Vane, sometimes called Vaughan, and quite a bad actor in his own way. Of all the citizens who sharply resented these piratical impertinences, Colonel Rhett, a noted colonist, took it most to heart. On his own initiative he fitted out as sloops-of-war two ships, the _Henry_, on which he himself sailed, and the _Sea Nymph_, which he manned with many “gentlemen of the town, animated with the same principle of zeal and honor for our public safety, and the preservation of our trade.” Heartily seconded by Governor Johnson of South Carolina, who unlike Governor Eden of North Carolina was a terror to pirates, Rhett’s little fleet put out in pursuit of Vane; for Vane, seeing that his plans had slipped, decided that he had better also slip. He slipped so effectively that Rhett never came up with him. Since leaving Topsail Inlet with his recruits Bonnet had taken no less than thirteen vessels, and word of this pirate had come to Charles Town while Rhett was outfitting. Missing Vane, Rhett “and the rest of the gentlemen were resolved not to return without doing some service to their country, and therefore went in quest of a pirate they had heard lay at Cape Fear.” There they certainly found their opportunity of doing a public service and most commendably appropriated that opportunity. At evening on September 26 the _Henry_ and the _Sea Nymph_ came to Smith Island while daylight enough was left to show them the topmasts of the pirate above a spit of land behind which the _Royal James_ lay. They threw their anchors into the mud of the inlet and waited for morning. At dusk three boatloads of armed men came out of the river and coolly reconnoitered. Major Bonnet had spotted Colonel Rhett. All that night of late summer the Charles Town gentlemen could make out the threats and persuasions of Bonnet and his officers driving on the efforts of their crew in making ready for the morrow’s deadly debate, which Bonnet, rather than surrendering, evidently chose to maintain. The tide brimmed up the river from the Atlantic and was sucked back again to those vast waters, yet it lulled no one to sleep on any of the ships. All night the wind-blown torches and lanterns lit the work of the pirates; all night the glare of them flickered and jumped beyond the bump of land which separated the besiegers and the besieged. The pirate sloop was like a warrior unbuckled and relaxing in his tent, expecting no hostile surprise. Her deck was disorderly with bits of cargo; barrels of rum, quarters of beef, hogsheads of molasses, all to be cleared off for the free action of the guns. Her gear, too, was probably at odds and ends in course of repair.