Major Stede Bonnet was a middle aged gentleman when he decided to turn pirate. He had served in the British Army, and had retired comfortably on his estate at Bridghorn. I guess he found the comfortable life too boring, for he decided to take up pirating. Some people thought that he just wanted to get away from his unpleasant wife..but whatever the reason, we bought a ship for himself, and gathered up a bunch of rag-tag ruffians (who he suspected were pirates) to be his crew. Now, Bonnet was not an experienced sailor. He counted upon his crewmen to manage the ship, which they did. He did become very very good at robbing and capturing other ships. However, his crew eventually came to suspect that their captain knew very little about running a ship. But any thoughts the crew might have had about getting rid of Bonnet were kept to themselves because Major Bonnet relied on his army training to bully and threaten his crew if they disobeyed him.

One day Major Bonnet's ship came upon Blackbeard. They became quick friends as Blackbeard invited him to join in on their next raid. Blackbeard was no fool, though, and quickly realized that Bonnet was not a very experienced seaman. He deicded that Bonnet was not fit to be the captain of a ship as nice as the one he commanded and planned to take it from him. Blackbeard invited Bonnet over to his ship for dinner one evening, and was told after dinner that he was going to be kept prisoner on Blackbeard's ship!

During the time that Bonnet was on Blackbeard's ship, Blackbeard was quite successful with raids and business trades, and decided to disband for a while and have fun. So he let Bonnet go and even gave him back his ship. Bonnet was happy to get his ship back, but was very very angry at Blackbeard, and swore to himself that he would get revenge. He found many of his old shipmates and decided to go looking for Blackbeard. His crew no longer looked down him, because they decided he was must be very brave to wish to go after Blackbeard. Although he never did get his revenge on Blackbeard, he did become a good pirate, and attacked many ships around the Carolinas. He was eventually caught and hanged in Charleston, South Carolina.

references-
Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts by Frank R Stockton

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