2. From Feared Pirate to Feared Pirate Hunter
During the War of the Spanish Succession, Englishman Benjamin Hornigold (1680 – 1719) was licensed with letters of Marque to legally prey upon French shipping. He got a taste for preying on ships, so after the war, Hornigold seamlessly transitioned from privateering to outright piracy. Eventually, he became one of the Caribbean’s most notorious pirates, and by 1717, he commanded the most powerful ship in the region: a 30-gun sloop, the Ranger, which allowed him to prey on shipping with impunity.
Hornigold’s first mate was Edward Teach, later known as Blackbeard, and his proteges and acquaintances included other future notorious pirates such as Black Sam Bellamy and Stede Bonnet. Hornigold operated mainly near the Bahamas, and his base of operations was Nassau, a notorious pirates’ nest. He and a bitter rival, Henry Jennings, transformed Nassau into a de facto Pirates’ Republic, governed by its own code of conduct and regulations. Then Hornigold did a 180, and became a pirate hunter.