At her trial in Jamaica, she would have escaped through the compassion of the court, if some one had not deposed that she often deliberately defended piracy with the argument that pirates were fortunately amenable to capital punishment, and this was a restraint to cowards, without which a thousand rascals who passed for honest people, but who did nothing but pillage widows and orphans and defraud their neighbors, would rush into a more honorable profession, the ocean would be covered with this _canaille_, and the ruin of commerce would involve that of piracy. She died in prison of a fever. Ann Bonny was born in Cork. She was of a truculent disposition, and the murdering part of piracy was much to her taste. When her husband was led out to execution, the special favor was granted of an interview with her; but her only benediction was,--"I'm sorry to find ye in this state; if ye had fought like a man, ye would not be seein' yerself hung like a dog." But what could angels themselves have done to make Captain Teach presentable in the best society? _Blackbeard_ was his _sobriquet_, for he had one flowing over his chest which patriarchs might be forgiven for coveting. The hair of his head was tastefully done up with ribbons, and inframed his truculent face. When he went into a fight, three pairs of pistols hung from a scarf, and two slow-matches, alight and projecting under his hat, glowed above his cruel eyes. Certainly, the light of battle was not in his case a metaphor. On board his vessel, one day, Captain Teach, just combing upon strong-water, summoned his crew. "Go to, now, let us make a hell," he cried, "and get a little seasoned. We'll find who can stand it longest." Thereupon they all went down into the hold, which he had carefully battened down; then he lighted sundry pots of sulphur, and showed superior qualifications for the future by smoking them all out. On the day of his last combat, when advised to confide to his wife where his money was hid, he refused, saying that only he and the Devil knew where it was, and the survivor was to have it. Whenever these English pirates found a clergyman, they acted as if pillaging had been only a last resort, owing to the scarcity of that commodity in those seas. Captain Roberts took a vessel which had on board a body of English troops with their chaplain, destined for garrison-duty. His crew went into ecstasies of delight, as if they had separated themselves from mankind and incurred atrocious suspicions from their desire to seek for religious persons in all places. They wanted nothing but a chaplain; they had never wanted anything else; he must join them; he would have nothing to do but to pray and make the punch. As he steadily refused, they reluctantly parted with him; but, smitten with his firmness, they retained of his effects nothing but three prayer-books and a corkscrew.