for they were immediately conveyed to Boston, tried, and executed. A number of pirates were about the same time hanged in Virginia. In consequence of the repeated complaints of British merchants regarding these freebooters, George I. issued a proclamation offering a pardon to all pirates who should surrender to any of the colonial governors within twelve months; and in 1718 dispatched a few ships of war under Captain Rogers, who, repairing to New Providence, then a perfect den of sea-thieves, took possession of the place, and nearly all the pirates there took the benefit of the royal proclamation. Steed Bennet and Richard Worley, two pirate chiefs who had fled from New Providence at the approach of Rogers, took possession of the mouth of Cape Fear River. They were captured by Governor Johnson and Captain Rhett; and Bennet, who was a man of good education, and had held the rank of major in the British army, was executed at Charlestown, with forty-one of his accomplices. North Carolina had been for a long time the haunt of one of the most desperate villains of his time, John Theach, generally known as “Black Beard,” from an enormous beard he wore, and which was adjusted, Grahame records, “with elaborate care in such an inhuman disposition as was calculated to excite both disgust and terror.... In battle, he has been represented with the look and demeanour of a fury; carrying three braces of pistols on holsters slung over his shoulders, and lighted matches under his hat, protruding over each of his ears. The authority and admiration which the pirate chiefs enjoyed among their fellows was proportioned to the audacity and extravagance of their outrages on humanity; and none in this respect ever challenged a rivalship with Theach.... Having frequently undertaken to personify a demon for the entertainment of his followers, he declared at length his purpose of gratifying them with an anticipated representation of hell; and in this attempt had nearly stifled the whole crew with the fumes of brimstone under the hatches of his vessel. In one of his ecstasies, whilst heated with liquor, and sitting in his cabin, he took a pistol in each hand, and, cocking them under the table, blew out the lights, and then with crossed hands fired on each side at his companions, one of whom received a shot that maimed him for life.” He was an early Mormon, for he had fourteen women whom he called his wives. His chief security had been the fact that Charles Eden, the governor, and Tobias Knight, the secretary of the province, shared in his plunder and protected him. As he was rich, and had been apprised of Rogers’ operations at New Providence, he judged it wise to accept the benefit of the king’s proclamation, and, with twenty of his men, pretended to surrender to Eden, who had been a receiver of goods or gold stolen by him. [Illustration: CAPE COD.]