Battle of Ocracoke Inlet
The end of Blackbeard
22 November 1718
By the autumn of 1718, Edward Teach — Blackbeard — had retired to a quiet life at Bath, in the colony of North Carolina, under the protection of a royal pardon and the indulgent gaze of Governor Charles Eden. He maintained a small sloop, the Adventure, and a crew of perhaps twenty men. He went on occasional cruises and returned with goods of dubious provenance, which the governor's secretary helpfully condemned in admiralty court so the proceeds could be distributed.
Spotswood's warrant
Alexander Spotswood, the lieutenant-governor of Virginia, considered all this an outrage and an offense against the laws of England. Having no authority over North Carolina, he acted on his own. He hired two shallow-draft sloops — Ranger and Jane — at private expense, manned them with sailors from HMS Pearl and HMS Lyme, and put the expedition under the command of Lieutenant Robert Maynard of the Pearl.
The sloops left the James River on 17 November 1718 and slipped into Ocracoke Inlet on the evening of the 21st.
The morning of the 22nd
At first light Maynard's sloops weighed anchor and worked toward the Adventure. Teach, surprised in the shallows with only about twenty-five men aboard, cut his anchor cable, exchanged hails (the famous lines, "Damn you for villains, who are you, and from whence come you?" — "You may see by our colors we are no pirates."), and opened fire with a heavy broadside of small shot. The first volley raked the Jane and killed her commander outright. Ranger was forced to drop back.
Maynard crowded most of his remaining men below deck out of sight. When Teach saw only a handful of figures on the Jane's deck, he ran his sloop alongside and boarded with fourteen men.
Hand to hand
The deck of the Jane erupted as Maynard's hidden sailors poured up the hatches. Teach and Maynard met face to face and fired pistols at each other; Teach missed; Maynard's ball struck Teach but did not stop him. They drew cutlasses. Teach broke Maynard's blade at the hilt. As Teach raised his cutlass for the killing stroke, a Royal Navy sailor cut him across the throat from behind. Teach fought on for some minutes more before finally collapsing. The surgeon who later examined his body counted, by Maynard's report, five musket balls and twenty cuts.
Aftermath
Maynard had Teach's head severed and lashed to the bowsprit of the Jane for the voyage back to Virginia. The remaining pirates were tried at Williamsburg in March 1719; thirteen were hanged.
The point of land at the entrance to Ocracoke Inlet is still called Teach's Hole. The body, by local legend, swam seven times around the Jane before sinking.
Related: Blackbeard · Queen Anne's Revenge