Stede Bonnet

Stede Bonnet The Gentleman Pirate

Any tour guide worth his salt should know that Stede Bonnet was a terrible pirate. He was a wealthy planter in Barbados who had a terminal midlife crisis at 29.  Why he bought a sailing ship named the Revenge, hired a crew left his wife and sons without saying goodbye in  1717, no one really knows. Some speculate that his radical career change was motivated by marital strife, the loss of a child and Jacobite leanings.

It didn't take long before playing pirate got Stede into big trouble when he took on a Spanish warship and was seriously injured in battle.  When the Revenge and its injured captain reached Nassau, Bahamas, Edward Teach "Black Beard," took command of the ship. The "Gentleman Pirate," it is said, spent most of his convalescence in his cabin in his pajamas.

While Captaining The Royal James, Bonnet ran aground in the Cape Fear River where he and his crew was arrested by Col William Rhett.  While being held in the provost marshal's house, in Charleston Bonnet escaped but was recaptured on Sullivan's Island. After a trial for piracy, Bonnet was hanged at Charleston's White Point Garden, on 10 December 1718.

Excerpt from Bonnet's plea begging Governor Robert Johnson to spare his life:

...to remove that, and all other Doubts with your Honour, I heartily beseech you'll permit me to live, and I'll voluntarily put it ever out of my Power by separating all my Limbs from my Body, only reserving the use of my Tongue to call continually on, and pray to the Lord, my God, and mourn all my Days in Sackcloth and Ashes...

For the "rest of the story"  read Stede Bonnet Charleston's Gentleman Pirate  and The Golden Age of Piracy both by Charleston's own "Capetian Byrd" Christopher Byrd Downey.