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Beaufort Inlet (Topsail Inlet)

The tidal inlet through the southern Outer Banks of North Carolina, called Topsail Inlet in the golden age, on whose bar Edward Thache lost the Queen Anne's Revenge and the sloop Adventure in June 1718.

Also writtenTopsail Inlet (the period name of the inlet, including 1718 and the Moseley map of 1733); Topsail-Inlet (as printed in David Herriot's deposition); Beaufort Town (the town behind the inlet, as on Moseley 1733)

Beaufort Inlet is the tidal gap in the southern Outer Banks of North Carolina, between Bogue Banks and Shackleford Banks. Behind it lie sheltered water and the town of Beaufort. In June 1718 a pirate flotilla stood in for this opening and left two wrecks on its bar.

The name in the period

Nobody in 1718 called it Beaufort Inlet. Contemporary usage was Topsail Inlet, and the printed deposition that carries the story spells it Topsail-Inlet. Edward Moseley's printed map of the province, 1733, carries Topsail Inlet with Beaufort Town beside it, fifteen years after the wrecking.1

The ship was a slaver

The hull that grounded here was French and had been worked in the trade in people. As La Concorde of Nantes, owned by the merchant Rene Montaudoin, she made slaving voyages in 1713 and 1715 and sailed on her third on 24 March 1717 under Pierre Dosset. She reached Whydah, rendered in the French accounts as Juda, on 8 July 1717, and embarked 516 enslaved Africans. Edward Thache's pirates took her near Martinique in late November 1717 and renamed her Queen Anne's Revenge.2

What became of them is unresolved. The project literature reports 61 deaths on the passage and, in the same account, 61 sold at Grenada. The most celebrated pirate wreck in North America is the hull of a slave ship.

On the bar

The flotilla worked north from the blockade of Charles Town in May and stood in for Topsail Inlet at the beginning of June. On or about 10 June 1718 the flagship grounded. David Herriot's deposition is exact on the place: "Thatch's ship Queen Anne's Revenge run a-ground off of the Bar of Topsail-Inlet". The sloop Adventure, of about 80 tons, commanded by Israel Hands, went to assist and grounded too. Both were lost.3

Draught explains it. The Queen Anne's Revenge was about 200 tons, heavily armed, and the shallow sloops could work an inlet she could not. Wreck material here commonly lies buried under eight to twelve feet of sand. That overburden strands ships and then keeps them.

Deliberate or not

Herriot deposed that it was common knowledge Blackbeard ran the ship aground on purpose, "to break up the Companies, and to secure what Moneys and Effects he had got for himself". Herriot was a captured master who had joined the company and left it, testifying under an arrangement for clemency, and reporting a motive as common knowledge rather than as something he witnessed. Other contemporary readings treat the grounding as an accident of pilotage, and a later tradition holds that the pretext for coming in was careening.4

The loss of the Adventure keeps accident credible. Throwing away a serviceable sloop while kedging the flagship off is an expensive way to stage a fraud. Both vessels went aground on a bar, and neither was scuttled.

The men left on the shoal

Blackbeard stripped the wrecks. All the money, small arms and effects of value came out of the great ship, he went into the tender sloop with forty hands, and seventeen men were put ashore on a small sandy island about a league from the main, in the words of the 1724 General History "where there was neither Bird, Beast or Herb for their Subsistance". They remained there two nights and one day. Major Stede Bonnet got intelligence of them, sent his boat, and brought them all aboard his sloop, the vessel formerly called the Revenge and afterwards the Royal James.5

Colonel William Rhett took Bonnet at the Cape Fear River in September, which carried the survivors into the Charles Town trials, where Herriot deposed against the man who had rescued him. Blackbeard was killed at Ocracoke Inlet on 22 November 1718.

Site 31CR314

The wreck was found on 21 November 1996 by Intersal Inc., the find made by Mike Daniel on research by Phil Masters with David Moore. The first diagnostic finds were a bronze bell dated 1705, a sounding weight, an English blunderbuss barrel, a lead cannon apron and two cannonballs. The site is designated 31CR314 and lies in about 28 feet of water roughly a mile offshore of Fort Macon State Park. It was protected from March 1997, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004, and announced as the Queen Anne's Revenge on 29 August 2011.6

Tentatively identified

No name board, no inscribed bell and no document ties this hull to that ship. The identification is widely accepted and is the state agency's working position, resting on a preponderance of circumstantial evidence. The supporting objects are chronological rather than nominative: a coin weight bearing the bust of Queen Anne, a syringe with Paris manufacturing marks of 1707 to 1715. The state's 2007 survey summary calls 31CR314 "tentatively identified". That same summary records six other submerged sites here, so this is a wreck field, and the sloop Adventure is not among them. She has never been found.7

Intersal searched for the Adventure to 2004 without result. In 2000 Michael Overfield ran a magnetometer and side scan survey inside the inlet and logged thirty-seven anomalies, four of five survey areas showing signs consistent with wrecking. Nobody has dived them.

What the sources cannot yet give is the paper itself. No piece reference has been established for the original of Herriot's deposition, which should be traced in the Colonial Office series for South Carolina at Kew, nor for Brand's letter of 12 July 1718 in the Admiralty captains' letters. The shoal itself has never been identified on the ground, and the mortality figures for the 516 people embarked at Whydah are internally inconsistent. That the identification of 31CR314 rests on a preponderance of circumstantial evidence is how its principal advocates put it, not an independent verdict. Bonnet's return to the shoal, and what became of the men he took off, come from the printed General History and not from a paper of the time.

What the evidence does not settle

Date of Queen Anne's Revenge grounding

  • Grounding date is only approximate: on or about 10 June 1718Unverified

Whether the grounding was deliberate

  • Whether Blackbeard grounded the ship deliberately is not settledUnverified

La Concorde's enslaved Africans

  • Mortality and disposal figures for the 516 enslaved are inconsistentVery likely

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. The place now called Beaufort Inlet was called Topsail Inlet in the golden age, and the period name is fixed cartographically by Edward Moseley's printed map of the province of 1733, which carries Topsail Inlet with Beaufort Town beside it. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Period cartography: Edward Moseley, A New and Correct Map of the Province of North Carolina, 1733 with Susan M. Trimble's index to it; the deposition of David Herriot printed with The Tryals of Major Stede Bonnet and Other Pirates
  2. The ship lost at this inlet was a former French slave ship, La Concorde of Nantes, owned by the merchant Rene Montaudoin, which sailed from Nantes on 24 March 1717 under Pierre Dosset, embarked 516 enslaved Africans at Whydah on 8 July 1717, and was taken by Blackbeard's pirates near Martinique in late November 1717 and renamed Queen Anne's Revenge; the reported mortality on the passage and the disposal of the survivors are internally inconsistent in the project literature and are not carried here. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Official reports and modern project research: Queen Anne's Revenge Project, Who was Aboard La Concorde and The Pirate Ship's Journey, resting on the reports of Pierre Dosset and Francois Ernaud; North Carolina highway historical marker C-86 essay
  3. On or about 10 June 1718 Blackbeard's flagship Queen Anne's Revenge grounded on the bar at Topsail Inlet and was lost, the deposition of David Herriot recording that "Thatch's ship Queen Anne's Revenge run a-ground off of the Bar of Topsail-Inlet", and the sloop Adventure of about 80 tons, commanded by Israel Hands, grounded and was lost as well after being sent to her assistance. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Trial deposition and modern project research: Deposition of David Herriot, printed with The Tryals of Major Stede Bonnet and Other Pirates; Queen Anne's Revenge Project, On This Day, the Fate of a Ship was Sealed; Richard W. Lawrence, Archaeological Investigations at Beaufort Inlet
  4. Whether the groundings were deliberate is contested: Herriot deposed that it was common knowledge Blackbeard ran the ship aground on purpose "to break up the Companies, and to secure what Moneys and Effects he had got for himself", but he testified under an arrangement for clemency and reported the motive as common knowledge rather than as direct observation, while other contemporary readings treat the loss as an accident of pilotage on entering port and a later narrative tradition holds that the pretext for entering was careening. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Trial deposition against secondary narrative: Deposition of David Herriot; Queen Anne's Revenge Project, On This Day, the Fate of a Ship was Sealed; Hugh F. Rankin, The Pirates of Colonial North Carolina
  5. Blackbeard grounded his ship at Topsail Inlet on pretence of running in to clean, and Hands's sloop, coming to his assistance, ran ashore near the other, so that both were lost. He then went into the tender sloop with forty hands, took out of the great ship all the money, small arms and effects of value, and marooned seventeen men on a small sandy island about a league from the main, where there was neither bird, beast nor herb for their subsistence. They remained there two nights and one day until Major Stede Bonnet, having got intelligence of them, sent his boat and brought them all aboard his sloop, the Revenge, afterwards called the Royal James. The figure of about fifteen marooned given in one project account is not carried here, and David Herriot's appointment as sailing master of the Royal James is not established, no trial record having been read. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Period narrative: A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, second edition (London, 1724), attributed to Captain Charles Johnson: "on Pretence of running into Topsail Inlet to clean, he grounded his Ship, and then, as if it had been done undesignedly, and by Accident; he orders Hands's Sloop to come to his Assistance, and get him off again, which he endeavouring to do, ran the Sloop on Shore near the other, and so were both lost. This done, Teach goes into the Tender Sloop, with forty Hands, and leaves the Revenge there; then takes seventeen others and Marroons them upon a small sandy Island, about a League from the Main, where there was neither Bird, Beast or Herb for their Subsistance"; "they had taken all the Money, small Arms and Effects of Value out of the great Ship, and set ashore on a small sandy Island above a League from the Main, seventeen Men... They remained there two Nights and one Day, without Subsistance... for Major Bonnet happening to get Intelligence of their being there... sent his Boat to make Discovery of the Truth of the Matter... and they were all brought on Board Bonnet's Sloop"; and, for the renaming, "the Pyrates taken in a Sloop formerly called the Revenge, but afterwards the Royal James"
  6. The wreck at the inlet was found on 21 November 1996 by Intersal Inc., the find made by Mike Daniel on research by Phil Masters with David Moore, the first diagnostic objects being a bronze bell dated 1705, a sounding weight, an English blunderbuss barrel, a lead cannon apron and two cannonballs; the site is designated 31CR314, lies in about 28 feet of water roughly one mile offshore of Fort Macon State Park, was protected from March 1997, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004, and formally announced by North Carolina as the Queen Anne's Revenge on 29 August 2011. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Modern archaeology and state agency record: Queen Anne's Revenge Fact Sheet, NC DNCR; North Carolina highway historical marker C-86 and marker essay
  7. The identification of 31CR314 as the Queen Anne's Revenge is widely accepted and is the working position of the state agency, but no name board, bell inscription or document ties the hull to the ship and the case rests on a preponderance of circumstantial evidence, the state's own 2007 survey summary describing the site as tentatively identified; the inlet is moreover a wreck field in which six other submerged sites are recorded, and the sloop Adventure has never been found. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Peer-reviewed archaeology and state survey report: Mark U. Wilde-Ramsing and Charles R. Ewen, Beyond Reasonable Doubt: A Case for Queen Anne's Revenge, Historical Archaeology 46; Richard W. Lawrence, Archaeological Investigations at Beaufort Inlet, QAR-R-07-02