THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 20, 1994 TAG: 9411170439
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GEORGE TUCKER
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Norfolk was the closest geographical point Benjamin Franklin ever came to Ocracoke Island, N.C., where Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, met his bloody fate on Nov. 22, 1718.
Even so, the proximity of the two places might have caused Franklin, while visiting Norfolk in 1756, to recall that he had written a ballad on the notorious pirate's death at Ocracoke 28 years earlier.
When Franklin visited Norfolk in 1756, he was serving as Deputy Postmaster of the American Colonies. Having visited Williamsburg on official business, he came to Norfolk where he was made an honorary citizen of the borough on April 10, 1756. After receiving his certificate, which is still preserved among Franklin's papers in the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, he returned home by way of a Chesapeake Bay sailing vessel.
At the time Franklin wrote his Blackbeard ballad in 1718, he was an apprentice of his half brother, James, a well-known Boston printer. Realizing that Blackbeard's death was hot news, Franklin incorporated the details and hawked them in a broadside about the streets of his native Boston. Titled ``The Downfall of Piracy,'' it bears the date Nov. 22, 1718.
Blackbeard's nefarious career was cut short by a British naval lieutenant named Robert Maynard who had been dispatched by Governor Alexander Sportswood of Virginia to either capture or kill him. When Maynard succeeded in accomplishing the latter, he hacked off Blackbeards's head, secured it to the bowsprit of his vessel and brought it back to Virginia. Arriving in Hampton Roads, he stuck it on a pole at the mouth of Hampton Creek to serve as a deterrent to anyone toying with the idea of running up the Jolly Roger.
Franklin's doggerel is too long to quote in its entirety, but a few verses should be included to show that 12-year-old Ben not only had an eye for lurid detail, but also allowed his fancy to roam sufficiently to make him verses saleable. After devoting the opening stanzas to Blackbeard's earlier piratical career and Maynard's arrival in Carolina waters, Franklin got down to brass tacks by describing the buccaneer's response to the demand that he surrender thus:
Teach replyed unto Maynard.
You no Quarter here shall see,
But be hand'd on the Mainyard,
You and all your Company;
Maynard said, I none desire
Of such Knaves as thee and thine,
None I'll give, Teach then replyed,
My Boys, give me a Glass of Wine.
Several verses later, Franklin got down to the nitty gritty in the following description of the personal encounter between Blackbeard and Maynard:
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.
After that climax, Franklin ended his ballad with this flourish:
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 kill'd the Pirates many,
They'd Applause from young and old.
Right on, Ben! by CNB