5. The oldest statutes of which we have copies were enacted in 1715, at the house of Captain Richard Sanderson, in Perquimans. Edward Moseley was Speaker of the House of Assembly and differed with Governor Eden in many matters of provincial policy. Through all his life as a public man he was intensely devoted to the interest of the colony; and though warmly attached to the English or Episcopal Church, was resolute in his advocacy of complete religious liberty. He formed a strong party of men, who regarded the Governor as simply the agent of the Lords Proprietors; and therefore, to be vigilantly watched and checked in any innovation upon established privileges. 6. There had been, for years, many crimes committed by pirates upon the ocean just along the North Carolina Coast. They sometimes extended their infamous practices to the sounds and rivers. One Edward Teach, who was also called "Black-Beard," was the chief of these bloody robbers. He had a fleet of armed vessels; the largest of which was called Queen Anne's Revenge. This formidable craft carried a crew of one hundred men, and forty cannon. 7. Edward Moseley and others were clamorous for the arrest and punishment of such horrid offenders against the law, and denounced Governor Eden as their accomplice. It was brought to the knowledge of Capt. Ellis Brand, who came in command of a British squadron in Hampton Roads, that Teach was to be found near Ocracoke. 8. Lieutenant Robert Maynard was ordered to go to that point and capture the outlaws. He found the pirates, who saluted him with so deadly a broadside that a large portion of the royal men were slain. Maynard unfortunately got his ship aground in the action, and his deck was terribly raked by his antagonists' fire. His case seemed well nigh hopeless, when he resorted to a stratagem. All of his men were ordered to go below, and soon the pirates saw nothing but dead men upon the deck. They hastened to board what they thought was another prize. 9. But Maynard and his men met them as they crowded upon the deck, and after a bloody struggle, captured nine men, who were the survivors of the prolonged and desperate conflict. Among these was a gigantic negro, who was on the point of blowing up the pirate vessel when arrested in his desperate purpose. 10. Black-Beard was slain during the battle, and Maynard sailed away from the scene of his victory with the corsair's head fixed upon his bowsprit. The captured offenders were carried to Williamsburg, Virginia, and there tried and executed, as they deserved to be.