Pirates of Pensacola

Monday, 18 April 2005

Guest Blogger: Ben Franklin
Who knew Ben Franklin wrote pirate ditties? Below is one from 1719 about the sea battle between Lieutenant Maynard and the pirate Captain Teach, a.k.a. Black-beard (a.k.a Blackbeard without the dash). For those of you who don?t know, the monicker was synonymous with terror thanks to a repertoire of intimidation that included placing lit matches in his hair and beard so that it appeared to sailors whose ships he boarded that his head was spouting fire. In 1995, a bearded man performed a similar stunt in New York City?s Washington Square Park. People took him for insane and he was hauled off to Bellevue. In Blackbeard?s less media-savvy time, people took him for Satan. Thanks to our shipmate Ed Foxe for whacking the dust off an old Naval Society volume called "Naval Songs and Ballads," finding this baby and sending it to us:

Will you hear of a bloody battle, lately fought upon the seas?
It will make your ears to rattle and your admiration cease:
Have you heard of Teach the rover, and his knavery on the main;
How of gold he was a love, how he loved ill-got gain?

When the act of grace appeared Captain Teach and all his men
Unto Carolina steered, where they us'd him kindly then;
There he marry'd to a lady, and gave her five hundred pound,
But to her he prov'd unsteady, for he soon marched off the ground

And returned, as I tell you, to his robberies as before:
Burning, sinking ships of value, filling them with purple gore.
When he was at Carolina, there the Governor did send
To the Governor of Virgina, that he might assistance lend.

Then the man-of-war's commander, two small sloops he fitted out;
Fifty men he put on board sir, who resolved to stand it out.
The lieutnant he commanded both the sloops and you shall hear
How before he landed he suppress'd them without fear

Valiant Maynard as he sailed soon the pirate did espy;
With his trumpet he then hailed, and to him they did reply:
"Captain Teach is our commander", Maynard said "He is the man
Whom I am resolved to hang sir, let him do the best he can."

Teach replied unto Maynard, "You no quarter here shall see
But be hanged on the main-yard, you and all your company."
Maynard said "I none desire of such knaves as thee and thine."
"None I'll give," Teach then replied; "my boys, give me a glass of wine."

He took the glass and drank damnation unto Maynard and his crew,
To himself and generation, then the glass away he threw.
Brave Maynard was resolv'd to have him, tho' he'd cannons nine or ten;
Teach a broadside quickly gave him, killing sixteen valiant men.

Maynard boarded him and to it they fell with sword and pistol too;
They had courage, and did show it, killing of the pirate's crew.
Teach and Maynard on the quarter fought it out most manfully;
Maynard's sword did cut him shorter, losing his head he there did die.

Every sailor fought while he, sir, power had to wield his sword,
Not a coward could you see, sir, fear was driven from aboard;
Wounded men on both sides fell, sir, 'twas a doleful sight to see,
Nothing could their courage quell, sir; O they fought couragiously.

When the bloody fight was over we're informed by a letter writ,
Teach's head was made a cover to the jack-staff of the ship;
Thus they sailed to Virginia and when they the story told
How they killed the pirates many, they'd applause from young and old.

Lyricist Benny F. scrimshawed by Flarq. Franklin is most pirates? favorite U.S. President because he?s on the hundred. (He wasn?t a Prez, you say? Best to keep that to yourself if a pirate tells you otherwise.)

P.S. One of my favorite things about Blackbeard: He had his own pirate flag that was something of a pirate flag hodgepodge: black, with a crappily-drawn Devil holding an hourglass in one hand while stabbing a heart to bloody bits with the other. Everybody told Blackbeard they really liked it.

For more pirate history (though a lot of it is made-up), check out my novel.

Posted by Nelson Cooke at 1:17 AM ADT | Post Comment | View Comments (3221) | Permalink
Updated: Tuesday, 19 April 2005 1:18 AM ADT

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Monday, 18 April 2005 - 9:29 AM ADT

Name: Bilgemunky
Home Page: http://www.bilgemunky.com/bilgeblog

"For more pirate history (though a lot of it is made-up), check out my novel."

What - made up?!?

btw - I don't think you mentioned that when Ben Franklin wrote this he was only 13 :)