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Updated: June 19, 2025
THE armed brigantine had been out several days on the voyage to Virginia when a vessel was sighted hull-down. Captain Wellsby and Colonel Stuart decided to edge over and take a look at the stranger although they were not anxious to engage an enemy of heavier metal. If, however, this should happen to be Blackbeard in the Revenge they were in no mood to avoid him, despite the odds.
Sailing-Master Ned Rackham was content to let the skipper con his own vessel in this great emergency. The mind of Captain Wellsby was very active and he pondered on something else than winning through the storm. He had been helpless while under the guns of the Revenge, with the two sloops in easy call. Now the situation was vastly different. He had been delivered out of Blackbeard's clutches.
The boy was confident that this was the New England coasting vessel in which Ned Rackham and his pirates had appeared off Cherokee Inlet and had carried the marooned seamen from the sandy cay. "A brown patch in the big main-topsail, and the bowsprit steeved more'n ordinary," said Joe. "Tit for tat, Cap'n Wellsby. Your men can have the fun of jamming them in the fo'castle.
Close behind them, in a manner more orderly came Captain Jonathan Wellsby who had tossed the one and tremendously booted the other. They were the helmsmen whom he had replaced with his own officers at the steering tackles, while his first mate had been left in charge of handling the ship.
"Right-o," declared Joe. "'Tis our custom to spin strange yarns for clothes and vittles in payment." The men scampered to the galley and pantry but refused to let Captain Wellsby carry these rare entertainers into the cabin.
Agile, quick-witted, he bounded into the thick of it, cutlass in hand, while he shouted: "At 'em, lads! And give the dogs no quarter!" With hoarse outcry, his gallows-birds mustered compactly while those who had been in the cabin came scampering to join them. Curiously enough, Captain Jonathan Wellsby had been forgotten.
There was loud cheering when they came to the cleared land of the indigo fields and saw a tattered British ensign fluttering from the log stockade which enclosed the huts of the overseer and his laborers. In the gateway appeared the stalwart figure of Captain Wellsby in ragged garments and with a limping gait. Other men crowded behind him and responded with huzzas which were like a feeble echo.
Just then there was heard a sudden and riotous commotion among the pirates at the creek. It was a mad, jubilant uproar as though some frenzy had seized them all. Bill Saxby leaned on his musket and listened for a long moment. "The rogues have fished up the sea-chest, by the din they make," said he. "We left that sounding rod a-stickin' in the mud. They save us the trouble, eh, Captain Wellsby?"
A sudden gale might pluck the Plymouth Adventure from the shoal or tear her to fragments where she lay. Therefore most of the men, including passengers, were embarked on the raft. Captain Wellsby remained aboard with a few of his sailors and our two lads, Joe and Jack, who had not attempted to thrust themselves upon the crowded raft.
Captain Wellsby had felt confident that he could beat off the ordinary pirate craft which was apt to be smaller than his own stout ship. And most of these unsavory gentry were mere salt-water burglars who had little taste for hard fighting. The master of the Plymouth Adventure, so pious and sedate, was a brave man to whom the thought of surrender was intolerable.
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