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Hornigold Voted Out (1716)

The removal of Benjamin Hornigold from command of his New Providence pirate company by a majority of his men and the choosing of Samuel Bellamy in his room, an episode undated in any contemporary document and placed by the surviving evidence in the summer or early autumn of 1716.

Also writtenThe deposing of Benjamin Hornigold; The division of Hornigold's company; Bellamy chosen captain, 1716; The Hornigold-Bellamy split

Benjamin Hornigold lost the command of his own company in 1716, and the majority of his men put Samuel Bellamy in his room. The contemporary evidence is a few lines in the appendix to a Boston trial pamphlet of 1718, and the two men who gave it do not tell the same story.1

The senior captain of the flying gang

Hornigold was the ranking armed captain of the New Providence company that called itself the flying gang, his standing built on Spanish prizes taken under the colour of a war that had ended. John Vickers deposed in 1716 that Hornigold said all pirates were under his protection, and has him sailing from New Providence that March with near two hundred men. The fullest modern documentary reconstruction has him take the French sloop Marraine, written elsewhere as Mary Anne and Marianne, in early April, in the Benjamin of ten guns and about eighty men, with Bellamy and Paulsgrave Williams coming in out of a periauger and Bellamy given the prize to command.

Two witnesses, two reasons

John Brown, a Jamaica man of twenty five, was examined at Boston on 6 May 1717 by order of Governor Shute. He deposed that he "left Labous and went on board the Sloop Commanded formerly by Hornygold, at that time by one Bellamy, who upon a difference arising amongst the English Pirates because Hornygold refused to take and plunder English Vessels, was chosen by a great Majority their Captain & Hornygold departed with 26 hands in a prize Sloop". Five words there carry the whole popular account: chosen by a great Majority. No other contemporary document describes an election, and Brown never uses the word vote.2

Peter Cornelius Hoof, examined the same day, gave a different quarrel. "A difference arising amongst them about taking Prisoners; Some being for one Nation and some for another; and having at that time Two Sloops and about 100 Men, Hornygold parted from them in One of the Sloops, and Bellamy and Labous kept company together". Hoof describes a parting and no poll. Both have a company falling out on national lines, but they are not the same statement.3

The numbers and the sloops

Brown has Hornigold going off with twenty six hands, Hoof the whole force before the split as two sloops and about a hundred men. Brown's own figure for Bellamy's remaining company is illegible in the Text Creation Partnership transcription of the 1718 print, which reads "about [...] Men, most of them English"; modern transcriptions supply ninety. A hundred less twenty six leaves seventy four, which agrees with the seventy five that one documentary reconstruction gives Bellamy, and not with ninety. The arithmetic will not close.4

The vessels are no better. Brown has Bellamy taking the sloop formerly Hornigold's; the narrative built from Jeremiah Higgins's New York examination has Hornigold sent away in the Benjamin; the reconstruction has Bellamy in the Marraine since April and the Benjamin already sold to one John Perrin.

The date nobody wrote down

No contemporary document dates the division, and it can only be bracketed from outside. Brown reckoned himself taken about a year before his examination, that is about May 1716, held aboard the Frenchman's sloop about four months, and aboard Bellamy's after that, which puts the removal in the summer or early autumn. Later writers place it variously.5

Abijah Savage, master of the Antigua sloop Bonetta, was taken on 9 November 1716 and deposed before Walter Hamilton, Governor in Chief of the Leeward Islands. His takers were the Mary Anne, commanded by one Samuel Bellamy, and the Postillion, commanded by one Louis de Boure, each of eight guns and between eighty and ninety men. He names no Hornigold and never mentions the division. Bellamy was in independent command by that date, which puts the division earlier.6

What became of the two captains

Hornigold did not disappear. By 13 December 1716 he was off western Hispaniola in the sloop Delight, plundering the sloop Lamb, and in company with him, in a separate sloop of eight guns and about ninety men, was Edward Thache. Henry Timberlake, master of the Lamb, deposed to it at Jamaica four days later. That is the earliest documented appearance of Blackbeard as a pirate that has been found. Later writers have Thache leaving the division with Hornigold's loyalists; no contemporary document names him near it.7

Mathew Musson still listed Hornigold at Providence on 5 July 1717, ten guns and about eighty men. The modern documentary reconstruction has him take the King's Pardon in February 1718, in the surrenders taken by Captain Vincent Pearse of HMS Phoenix, and afterwards hunt pirates for Woodes Rogers. Johnson's General History instead has him surrender "at the Arrival of Captain Rogers, the Governor", and Rogers reached New Providence only in July 1718. Bellamy went the other way, to the Whydah in February 1717 and to the wreck off Cape Cod on 26 April.

The vote, and who was allowed one

Brown's five words are what later writers, the law and economics literature above all, cite for the claim that these companies elected and deposed their captains. The same trial shows how narrow the franchise was. Thomas Davis, acquitted at Boston as a forced man, deposed that "they would not allow the forced Men to have a Vote. There were One hundred and thirty forced Men in all, and Eighty of the Old company". Two hundred and ten men, of whom eighty could vote. That is Bellamy's company in early 1717 and not the meeting that chose him. In that company the vote of the whole company was the vote of eighty men.8

The book that does not mention it

Johnson's General History of 1724 gives Hornigold no chapter and Bellamy none, and the Bellamy chapter added to the second volume in 1728 opens on the Spanish wreck and goes straight to the Whydah, with no word of any division. Johnson's one statement touching this ground has Thache raised to command "at the latter End of the Year 1716, when Captain Benjamin Hornigold put him into a Sloop that he had made Prize of". That is about Thache and not about the vote.

What the sources cannot yet give is a date, a mechanism or a word from either man. A dated paper naming Hornigold and Bellamy in company, or naming Bellamy in independent command, between June and October 1716 would close the window. One phrase, "chosen by a great Majority", carries the whole weight of the vote, and nothing in it describes a formal ballot. The reference for Savage's deposition is unsettled, cited as CO 157/11 when Leeward Islands papers of the period sit in CO 152, and the New York examinations of Higgins and Caverley have been read only at second hand. No paper of 1716 has been found that fixes the date of the division.

What the evidence does not settle

Date of the division

  • The date of the Hornigold-Bellamy divisionUnverified

Cause of the split

  • Brown says a majority elected Bellamy captainVery likely
  • Hoof describes only a parting, naming no electionUnverified

Thache's presence at the division

  • Whether Thache was present, and on which side, unresolvedUnverified

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. Benjamin Hornigold lost the command of his pirate company in 1716 and Samuel Bellamy was put in his place by the majority of the men. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Trial pamphlet: The Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy (Boston, 1718), appendix of examinations taken 6 May 1717
  2. The only contemporary statement that a majority chose Bellamy is the examination of John Brown, taken at Boston on 6 May 1717, which gives the cause as Hornigold's refusal to take and plunder English vessels and has Bellamy "chosen by a great Majority their Captain & Hornygold departed with 26 hands in a prize Sloop"; Brown does not use the word vote and no other contemporary document describes an election. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Trial pamphlet: The Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy (Boston, 1718), examination of John Brown, 6 May 1717
  3. Peter Cornelius Hoof, examined at Boston the same day, gives a different cause and no election at all: a difference about taking prisoners, some men being for one nation and some for another, with the company then holding two sloops and about a hundred men, after which "Hornygold parted from them in One of the Sloops, and Bellamy and Labous kept company together". Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Trial pamphlet: The Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy (Boston, 1718), examination of Peter Cornelius Hoof
  4. The numbers and the vessels cannot be reconciled: Brown has Hornigold departing with twenty six hands and Hoof gives two sloops and about a hundred men in all, leaving seventy four for Bellamy against the ninety supplied by modern transcriptions where the 1718 Boston printing is illegible, and the three surviving accounts of which sloop each captain took are mutually exclusive. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Trial pamphlet and modern documentary reconstruction: The Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy (Boston, 1718), examinations of Brown and Hoof, Text Creation Partnership transcription; David Fictum, "The Firsts of Blackbeard"; Cindy Vallar, Pirates and Privateers articles
  5. No contemporary document dates the division; modern placements vary, and the working date of about November 1716 carried in this Archive's earlier research brief sits at the extreme late edge of what the record will bear. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Modern documentary article: David Fictum, "The Firsts of Blackbeard"
  6. Abijah Savage, master of the Antigua sloop Bonetta, deposed before Walter Hamilton, Governor in Chief of the Leeward Islands, that on 9 November 1716 he was taken by the Mary Anne, commanded by one Samuel Bellamy, and the Postillion, commanded by one Louis de Boure, each of eight guns and between eighty and ninety men, and named no Hornigold; that fixes Bellamy in independent command by that date and makes any later dating of the division difficult. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Colonial deposition, used at second hand: Deposition of Abijah Savage, Antigua, as transcribed in Dethlefsen, Whidaw and quoted in Laura Nelson, "John King: The Boy Pirate"
  7. Edward Thache's earliest documented appearance as a pirate is 13 December 1716, when he was in a separate sloop of eight guns and about ninety men in company with Hornigold's sloop Delight at the plundering of the sloop Lamb off western Hispaniola; the assertion by later writers that Thache was present at the division and left with Hornigold rests on no contemporary document. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Colonial deposition: Deposition of Henry Timberlake, master of the Lamb, Jamaica, 17 December 1716
  8. Forced men were not allowed a vote in Bellamy's company: Thomas Davis deposed at Boston that when the company was called together and each man to give his vote "they would not allow the forced Men to have a Vote. There were One hundred and thirty forced Men in all, and Eighty of the Old company", which describes the practice in early 1717 rather than the meeting that chose Bellamy. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Trial pamphlet: The Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy (Boston, 1718), examination of Thomas Davis; the modern scholarly use of Brown's sentence in Peter T. Leeson, "The Invisible Hook: The Law and Economics of Pirate Tolerance"