real person, who acquired no small fame by his maritime exploits during
the first part of the eighteenth century. Among many authentic and
recorded particulars concerning him, the following account of his death
may gratify curiosity:--

From the nature of Black Beard's position in a sloop of little draught
of water, on a coast abounding with creeks, and remarkable for the
number and intricacy of its shoals, with which he had made himself
intimately acquainted, it was deemed impossible to approach him in
vessels of any force. Two hired sloops were therefore manned from the
Pearl and Lime frigates, in the Chesapeake, and put under the command of
Lieutenant Maynard, with instructions to hunt down and destroy this
pirate wherever he should be found. On the 17th of November, in the year
1718, this force sailed from James River, and in the evening of the 21st
came to an inlet in North Carolina, where Black Beard was discovered at
a distance, lying in wait for his prey. The sudden appearance of an
enemy, preparing to attack him, occasioned some surprise; but his sloop
mounting several guns, and being manned with twenty-five of his
desperate followers, he determined to make a resolute defence; and,
having prepared his vessel over night for action, sat down to his
bottle, stimulating his spirits to that pitch of frenzy by which only he
could rescue himself in a contest for his life. The navigation of the
inlet was so difficult, that Maynard's sloops were repeatedly grounded
in their approach, and the pirate, with his experience of the soundings,
possessed considerable advantage in manoeuvring, which enabled him for
some time to maintain a running fight. His vessel, however, in her turn,
having at length grounded, and the close engagement becoming now
inevitable, he reserved her guns to pour in a destructive fire on the
sloops as they advanced to board him. This he so successfully executed,
that twenty-nine men of Maynard's small number were either killed or