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The Act of Grace, the King's Pardon (1717 to 1718)

The royal proclamation for the suppressing of pirates, issued in the name of King George I on 5 September 1717, which offered a full pardon to any pirate who surrendered by 5 September 1718 to a Principal Secretary of State or to a colonial governor, set bounties on those who did not, and was enforced above all at Nassau in 1718 before a second proclamation of December 1718 extended the deadline to 1 July 1719 and widened the covered period forward to piracies committed before a man had notice of it.

Also writtenThe King's Pardon; Act of Grace 1717; 1717-1718 Acts of Grace; Proclamation for the Suppressing of Pirates (5 September 1717); The royal pardon of George I

On 5 September 1717, at the Court at Hampton Court, the Crown issued a proclamation for the suppressing of pirates in the name of King George I. It was printed in The London Gazette within days. Men who gave themselves up would be pardoned. Men who did not would have a price on their heads. It was called the Act of Grace, or the King's pardon; Governor Woodes Rogers uses the phrase in his despatch to Secretary Craggs of 24 December 1718, writing of men who "accepted of H.M. Act of Grace".1

What the proclamation said

Any pirate who surrendered himself on or before 5 September 1718 received His Majesty's gracious pardon. The date was not the whole of it: the proclamation set the terms of that surrender, and a man had to come in on them.2

The pardon reached backwards only so far. Piracies committed before 5 January 1718 fell inside it; anything later did not. Later writers carry that cut-off.3

The other half of the sheet was money. Rewards were offered for taking pirates who declined to surrender, by rank: 100 pounds for the commander of a pirate ship or vessel, 40 pounds for a lieutenant, master, boatswain, carpenter or gunner, 30 pounds for any inferior officer and 20 pounds for every private man. A ship's articles bound men to each other; the proclamation set a public price on breaking that bond.4

The surrender authorities overseas were in practice the colonial governors. Alexander Spotswood in Virginia, Nicholas Lawes in Jamaica, Benjamin Bennett in Bermuda, Charles Eden in North Carolina and Robert Johnson in South Carolina are named among them.

Why the Crown offered it

Piracy in the western Atlantic surged after the Treaty of Utrecht closed the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713. Demobilisation threw thousands of privateersmen and naval seamen out of legal work, and a self-governing rendezvous took root at Nassau on New Providence in the Bahamas, barely policed. Merchant losses, colonial complaints and the plundering of the salvage camps on the wrecked treasure fleet pressed London to act.

Pardon by proclamation was old statecraft, and the practice of pardoning was familiar. What 1717 added was rewards for informers and captors, and a governor commissioned with force behind him to take the Bahamas back as a Crown colony. The measure assumed that a good share of the pirates would come ashore for a clean slate, leaving a hard core to be hunted.

The Phoenix at New Providence

News reached the Caribbean over the following months, carried by naval vessels and merchant shipping. In the early months of 1718 HMS Phoenix, Captain Pearse commanding, lay at New Providence, and by his management and conduct a great many of the pirates there surrendered, taking certificates from him of having done so. Benjamin Hornigold, by then turned out of his own command, was among those who came in. The Lieutenant Governor of Bermuda, writing on 29 March 1718 from what the surrenderers told him, had it that there were "not above 200 men (I mean pirates) att Providence and Harbour Island", all of them quiet and respectful to Pearse.5

Nassau, July 1718

Rogers came into Nassau on 26 July 1718 as the first royal governor of the Bahamas, with a small squadron and the pardon to administer. On 1 August about 200 of those who had been pirates came before his Council, surrendered to him, claimed the benefit of the King's proclamation and took the oaths of allegiance. Charles Vane refused. A French prize of 22 guns that he had taken was set on fire in the harbour to drive out the Rose, which cut her cables and ran out in the night, and the next morning Vane and about 90 of his men made off in a sloop. The taking of Nassau has its own record here.6

The men who broke it

Hornigold took the pardon and was employed by Rogers against the captains who had not come in. Others treated the certificate as a pause. Edward Thache, called Blackbeard, obtained a pardon in North Carolina and was at sea again before the year was out; he was killed at Ocracoke in November 1718. Stede Bonnet did the same, was taken at the Cape Fear River in late September and carried into Charles Town on 3 October. He escaped custody, was retaken in November, and was tried and hanged before the year closed.7

The extension of December 1718

Front page of The London Gazette, issue 5706, for 23 to 27 December 1718. The left column prints a second royal proclamation by George the First reciting the pardon of September 1717, noting that several pirates had not surrendered in time, and extending the term to the first day of July 1719; it is given at St James's on 21 December 1718.
The extending proclamation, in the London Gazette, issue 5706 The sequel, printed in the Gazette for 23 to 27 December 1718. The left column recites the first proclamation, allows that some pirates had not had timely notice of it, and moves the surrender deadline to 1 July 1719; it is given at St James's on 21 December. The right column carries the Nassau dispatch reporting Woodes Rogers's arrival. The London Gazette, the official public record, issue 5706, page 1. Public domain.

The first deadline expired on 5 September 1718. The Council of Trade and Plantations recommended a further extension on 9 December 1718; the proclamation was given at St James's on 21 December and printed in the Gazette for 23 to 27 December, issue 5706. It moved the surrender deadline to 1 July 1719, and it widened the covered period forward, pardoning piracies committed before a man had notice of it in place of the first proclamation's cut-off of 5 January 1718. In the same month Rogers tried at Nassau a party of men who had taken the pardon and gone back to the trade, reprieving one of them, George Rounsivell, under the gallows until the King's pleasure was known; the trial and the executions are on the pardons record.8

What the episode is made to carry

The Act of Grace is usually taken as the clearest single instrument of the state's turn from tolerating Atlantic piracy to suppressing it. A dated window meant that piracy after it closed was a choice on the record, and a man could be hanged as one who had spurned the King's mercy. Pardon paired with bounty and naval force became the template for closing the Nassau haven, and the measure belongs with the trials of 1718 to the early 1720s in any account of the end of the Golden Age.

Fiction and television reduce a months-long process across many ports and crews to one showdown between Rogers and Vane, with the fireship as the set piece. The division into penitents and holdouts leaves out the awkward middle, the men who took the paper and went back, and surrender figures are repeated with a precision the sources do not carry. Captain Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates, printed in 1724, shaped much of the tradition and embellishes throughout.

What the sources cannot yet give is the arithmetic. Both proclamations survive word for word, transcribed from the printed Gazette, issues 5573 and 5706, on the archive's pardons record; the lists behind them are another matter. Pearse's surrender list at ADM 1/2282 has not been read here, the numbers pardoned by Rogers from late July 1718 run from about two hundred to five hundred, and the court file of the December 1718 trial at Nassau has not been read here. The Bahamas correspondence in CO 23, the Admiralty papers and the Privy Council registers in TNA series PC 2 would close them. John Rackham's standing during the pardon window is thin here and is not asserted. The date of the first proclamation and the rewards are read here from the Gazette sheet itself, issue 5573, and the December 1718 chronology from the second sheet, issue 5706, and the Board's letters of that month.

What the evidence does not settle

Numbers pardoned by Rogers

  • Numbers pardoned by Rogers range from 200 to 500Confirmed

Rogers's arrival at Nassau

  • Rogers arrived at Nassau on 26 July, by his despatchConfirmed

Rackham's pardon status

  • Rackham's standing during the pardon window is thinly documentedPossible

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. A royal proclamation for the suppressing of pirates, called the Act of Grace or the King's pardon, was issued in the name of King George I and is dated at the Court at Hampton Court on 5 September 1717, in the fourth year of the reign. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Royal proclamation, as printed in the official gazette: Proclamation for the suppressing of pirates, given at the Court at Hampton Court 5 September 1717, printed in The London Gazette, issue 5573, for 14 to 17 September 1717, page 1; read from the facsimile shown on this page
  2. The proclamation promised the King's gracious pardon to any pirate who surrendered himself on or before 5 September 1718, and set the terms of that surrender. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Royal proclamation, as printed in the official gazette: Proclamation for the suppressing of pirates, given at the Court at Hampton Court 5 September 1717, printed in The London Gazette, issue 5573, for 14 to 17 September 1717, page 1; read from the facsimile shown on this page
  3. The pardon covered only acts of piracy committed before 5 January 1718. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Crown proclamation: The London Gazette, issue 5573, for 14 to 17 September 1717, transcribed verbatim on the archive's pardons record; Wayne Savage, Act of Grace 1717
  4. The proclamation set rewards for taking pirates who did not surrender, graded by rank: one hundred pounds for the commander of a pirate ship or vessel, forty pounds for a lieutenant, master, boatswain, carpenter or gunner, thirty pounds for any inferior officer and twenty pounds for every private man. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Royal proclamation, as printed in the official gazette: Proclamation for the suppressing of pirates, given at the Court at Hampton Court 5 September 1717, printed in The London Gazette, issue 5573, for 14 to 17 September 1717, page 1; read from the facsimile shown on this page
  5. The Phoenix man of war, Captain Pearse commanding, lay at New Providence in the early months of 1718 and by his management and conduct brought a great many of the pirates there to surrender, giving them certificates of their having done so. The Lieutenant Governor of Bermuda, reporting this on 29 March 1718 at second hand from surrenderers who had come in to him, was told that there were not above 200 pirates at Providence and Harbour Island, all of them quiet and respectful to Pearse. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Colonial state papers: Lieutenant Governor Benjamin Bennett to the Council of Trade and Plantations, Bermuda, 29 March 1718, C.O. 37, 10, no. 9, calendared as Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 30, 1717 to 1718, no. 474, read on British History Online: "They left att Providence the Phenex man of war Capt. Pierce Comander who had been there three weeks, and by his prudent managemt. and conduct had occasioned a great m[an]y of the pirates to surrender upon which he gives them certificates of their soe doeing, they all tell me that there is not above 200 men (I mean pirates) att Providence and Harbour Island who are all very quiet and respectful to Capt. Pierce"
  6. Woodes Rogers arrived at Nassau on 26 July 1718 as Governor of the Bahama Islands and administered the King's pardon there, about 200 of those who had been pirates coming before his Council on 1 August 1718, surrendering to him, claiming the benefit of the King's proclamation relating to pirates and taking the oaths of allegiance. Charles Vane refused: a French prize of 22 guns that he had taken was set on fire in the harbour to drive out the Rose, which cut her cables and ran out in the night, and the next morning Vane and about 90 of his men made off in a sloop. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Official gazette and colonial state papers: The London Gazette, issue 5706, for 23 to 27 December 1718, front page, letter from the Town of Nassau on the Island of Providence, read from the scanned issue: "That Day came before the Council about 200 of those who had been Pyrates, and surrendred themselves to the Governour, claiming the Benefit of His Majesty's Proclamation relating to Pyrates, and took the Oaths of Allegiance to His Majesty", the day being 1 August 1718, when the Council was assembled; the same letter for the Rose, the burning French ship and Vane's escape with "about 90 of his Men"; Governor Woodes Rogers to the Council of Trade and Plantations, Nassau on Providence, 31 October 1718, C.O. 23, 1, no. 10, calendared as Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 30, 1717 to 1718, no. 737, read on British History Online: "I arriv'd in this port 26th July in company with the men of warr ordered to assist me"
  7. Benjamin Hornigold accepted the pardon and was employed by Governor Woodes Rogers against the pirates who had not surrendered, first being sent from Nassau in a sloop to view Charles Vane at Green Turtle Key and afterwards, with Captain Cockram, taking thirteen of the men who had run away with vessels fitted out of the port. Edward Thache, called Blackbeard, and Stede Bonnet both surrendered to the Governor of North Carolina under the King's proclamation and both went back to piracy: Thache was killed at Ocracoke Inlet on 22 November 1718, and Bonnet was taken at the Cape Fear River by Colonel William Rhett, who weighed on 30 September 1718 and brought him into Charles Town on 3 October, whence he escaped on 24 October, was retaken on Sullivan's Island and brought back on 6 November, and was tried on 10 November and sentenced to be hanged by the neck till he was dead. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Colonial state papers and a period narrative: Governor Woodes Rogers to the Council of Trade and Plantations, 31 October 1718, C.O. 23, 1, no. 10, calendared as Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 30, 1717 to 1718, no. 737, read on British History Online: "I got a sloop fitted under the command of Capt. Hornygold to send and view them", and "Capt. Hornygold having proved honest, and disobliged his old friends by seazing this vessel"; Governor Rogers to Mr Secretary Craggs, Nassau, 24 December 1718, C.O. 23, 13, ff. 20 to 24v, same volume, no. 807: "I equipped a sloop with sufficient men and arms under ye command of Capt. Hornigold and Cockram who had themselves been pirates, but accepted of H.M. Act of Grace... apprehending them to the number of 13"; Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood to the Council of Trade and Plantations, 22 December 1718, C.O. 5, 1318, no. 61, same volume, no. 800, for Thache's surrender and later piracies, for Bonnet, "who was one of Tach's associates and surrendered with him, was gone out again in a sloop", and for the action at Ouacock Inlet "on the 22nd of last month" in which "Tach with nine of his crew were killed"; A General History of the Pyrates (London, 1724), attributed to Charles Johnson, read in the Project Gutenberg text, for Thache's surrender to "Charles Eden, Esq; the Governor above mentioned" and for Bonnet: "Colonel Rhet weigh'd the 30th of September, from Cape Fear River, and arrived at Charles-Town the 3d of October", "on the 24th of October, the Major and Hariot made their Escape", his retaking and return "the next Morning, being November the 6th", his trial on the 10th and the sentence "that you, the said Stede Bonnet, shall go from hence to the Place from whence you came, and from thence to the Place of Execution, where you shall be hanged by the Neck till you are dead"
  8. The first surrender deadline expired on 5 September 1718. The Council of Trade and Plantations recommended on 9 December 1718 that the King enlarge the time formerly granted for pardoning pirates in the West Indies, and a second proclamation, given at the Court at St James's on 21 December 1718, moved the deadline to the first day of July 1719 and widened the covered period forward, pardoning piracies committed before the offender had notice of the new proclamation in place of the first proclamation's cut-off of 5 January 1718. In the same month Woodes Rogers tried at Nassau a party of men who had taken the pardon and gone back to piracy, reprieving one of them, George Rounsivell, under the gallows until the King's pleasure was known. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Official gazette and colonial state papers: The London Gazette, issue 5573, for 14 to 17 September 1717, front page, printing the proclamation given at Hampton-Court, 5 September 1717, read from the scanned issue: "in case any the said Pirates shall, on or before the fifth Day of September, in the Year of our Lord One thousand seven hundred and eighteen, surrender him or themselves... shall have our gracious Pardon of and for such his or their Piracy or Piracies, by him or them committed before the fifth Day of January next ensuing"; The London Gazette, issue 5706, for 23 to 27 December 1718, front page, printing the proclamation "Given at Our Court at St. James's, the Twenty first Day of December 1718", read from the scanned issue: "in case any the said Pirates shall, on or before the first Day of July in the Year of our Lord One thousand seven hundred and nineteen, surrender him or themselves", pardoning piracies "committed before such time as they shall have received Notice of this Our Royal Proclamation"; Council of Trade and Plantations to Mr Secretary Craggs, Whitehall, 9 December 1718, C.O. 324, 10, pp. 209 to 210, calendared as Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 30, 1717 to 1718, no. 780, read on British History Online: "we thought it might be of advantage to H.M. service, that he shoud be pleased to enlarge the time formerly granted for the pardoning pirates in the West Indies"; Governor Woodes Rogers to Mr Secretary Craggs, Nassau on Providence, 24 December 1718, C.O. 23, 13, ff. 20 to 24v, same volume, no. 807: "One George Rounsivell I reprieved under the gallows, till I know H.M. pleasure"