After a time Bonnet put into a North Carolina port in order to repair the Royal James, which was becoming very leaky, and seeing no immediate legitimate way of getting planks and beams enough with which to make the necessary repairs, he captured a small sloop belonging in the neighborhood, and broke it up in order to get the material he needed to make his own vessel seaworthy.

Now the people of the North Carolina coast very seldom interfered with pirates, as we have seen, and it is likely that Bonnet might have stayed in port as long as he pleased, and repaired and refitted his vessel without molestation if he had bought and paid for the planks and timber he required.  But when it came to boldly seizing their property, that was too much even for the people of the region, and complaints of Bonnet’s behavior spread from settlement to settlement, and it very soon became known all down the coast that there was a pirate in North Carolina who was committing depredations there and was preparing to set out on a fresh cruise.

When these tidings came to Charles Town, the citizens were thrown into great agitation.  It had not been long since Blackbeard had visited their harbor, and had treated them with such brutal insolence, and there were bold spirits in the town who declared that if any effort by them could prevent another visitation of the pirates, that effort should be made.  There was no naval force in the harbor which could be sent out to meet the pirates, who were coming down the coast; but Mr. William Rhett, a private gentleman of position in the place, went to the Governor and offered to fit out, at his own expense, an expedition for the purpose of turning away from their city the danger which threatened it.

Chapter XXVI

The Battle of the Sand Bars

When that estimable private gentleman, Mr. William Rhett, of Charles Town, had received a commission from the Governor to go forth on his own responsibility and meet the dreaded pirate, the news of whose depredations had thrown the good citizens into such a fever of apprehension, he took possession, in the name of the law, of two large sloops, the Henry and the Sea-Nymph, which were in the harbor, and at his own expense he manned them with well-armed crews, and put on board of each of them eight small cannon.  When everything was ready, Mr. Rhett was in command of a very formidable force for those waters, and if he had been ready to sail a few days sooner, he would have had an opportunity of giving his men some practice in fighting pirates before they met the particular and more important sea-robber whom they had set out to encounter.  Just as his vessel was ready to sail, Mr. Rhett received news that a pirate ship had captured two or three merchantmen just outside the harbor, and he put out to sea with all possible haste and cruised up and down the coast for some time, but he did not find this most recent depredator, who had departed very promptly when he heard that armed ships were coming out of the harbor.