shipwreckedwithcaptainmarrow: On the 23rd of August, 1718, Blackbeard’s last act of piracy wou

shipwreckedwithcaptainmarrow: On the 23rd of August, 1718, Blackbeard’s last act of piracy would occur in the evening, taking a French merchant ship from Bermuda. The published account of the act, discovered in Nantes in 2008 in the depths of the Archives Departmentales de Loire-Atlantique, states the encounter; as described by Pierre Boyer, a survivor who arrived home. Two French ships, a sugar ship Rose Emelye (under command of Captain Jan Goupil) and the La Toison d’Or (the “Golden Fleece”), had recently departed Bermuda bound for home; sailing together along the Gulf Stream, with the American coast days behind them. From behind, a mysterious sloop appeared and pulled alongside them. Blackbeard’s Adventure would then appear hostile as cannons were readied and crew came up from below decks, leading Captain Goupil to command his men to prepare for action and called to the Adventure “Remove yourselves or we will fire!”.The Adventure instead swung hard about, slamming into the unarmed La Toison d’Or and promptly boarded her as pirates swarmed over the gunwales seizing the crew as human shields. The immediate loss of the Toison d’Or, followed by a volley of musket fire upon his vessel saw Captain Goupil surrendering to the pirates. The pirates tied up five men and kept them as prisoners aboard the adventure, while others were strip-searched for valuables and plundering of the ships began. Blackbeard in particular was pleased with the Rose Emelye’s cargo, which contained 180 barrels of sugar and hundreds of bags of cocoa. Blackbeard would claim the Rose Emelye and transfer the French crews all together onto the Toison d’Or and ordered them to make way for France, and that if this other vessel didn’t exist they would have “thrown them into the sea”. The Rose Emelye and Adventure would be taken back to Ocracoke (arriving on September 12th, claiming the Rose Emelye had been found at sea “without a soul on board”), with the incident being the final straw for Virginia governor Alexander Spotswood; who would later state “I thought it necessary to put a stop to the further progresses of the robberies.”(Pictured is Blackbeard as depicted in Black Sails, a 1776 map showing the Gulf Stream along the American coast) -- source link

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