Beacon to Nassau

The new Governor battles to arrive and tame the Pirate Republic of Nassau

With a sigh, Captain Woodes Rogers put down his pen and closed the ink bottle. His log entry finished, he closed the desk, left his cabin and walked to the rail. The quarter moon provided surprising light off the port bow, yet he could see no other ships. Worse, he could not see land. Captain Rogers had hoped to make the voyage from England to Nassau in 40 days. Today, July 25, 1718, was now day 93 and still The Delicia continued her trudge through the Atlantic.

Even Columbus only needed two months, he muttered to himself. He glanced starboard at the familiar sight of Polaris, still holding steady, yet sinking ever closer to the horizon with each league.

“Mister Simms!” he barked at an ensign, “our position?”

“We should see Nassau tonight, sir. Can’t be more than a few hours.”

Captain Rogers strolled across the deck to the ensign and the chart and looked for himself. Sure enough, the series of dots marking their position creeped steadily, if slowly, towards New Providence Island. He’d taken enough of the sightings himself to feel confident in the accuracy of their position. The accuracy of his chart, however, remained uncertain.

They’d sighted the first of The Bahamas that morning and had passed through the channel between the two outer islands – the last vestige of deep water before the tricky shoals and reefs that guarded the final stretch. His impatience grew as New Providence Island inched closer. The only people whose impatience rivaled his were the crew. They’d endured rancid water, weevil infested hardtack and spoiled meat for weeks as the voyage dragged. Sometimes Rogers felt that only the grog kept them in line.

He made one last glance toward the moon, hoping to see a silhouette of land beneath. New Providence had been without a governor for 14 years and grown into a raging nest of piracy and lawlessness. Some even dared call it a Pirate Republic. Whether it could be considered a nation or not mattered little to Rogers. What mattered was that the settlement of Nassau was British, and His Majesty King George had appointed Rogers as governor with the mandate to restore the rule of law. The Crown’s law.

Pirates ruled the island, and had for over a decade, but that would change. Before sailing from England, Rogers had been informed that well over two hundred pirates could typically be found in Nassau, and hundreds more manned the crews of ships plundering the wealth of the new world. He had also been told of a few hundred other villagers who were not engaging in piracy. However, he expected these men to be former pirates or equally corrupt men who made their living off the spoils which the pirates had stolen. He knew he faced a murderer’s row of pirate Captains; men whose mere name struck fear into the hearts of honest merchants from Halifax to Barbados. Notorious brigands like Benjamin Hornigold, Charles Vane, Henry Jennings, and John Cockram had siphoned the wealth of the new world for a generation. Yet he, Woodes Rogers, would be the Governor who tamed the bunch.

Piracy dominated commerce such that it affected the entire European economy. Countless honest men had been ruined when their cargoes and ships had been stolen. It was impossible to guess how much of the tax revenue needed to govern England had not been collected due to the contraband nature of the trade. All of England suffered higher prices, higher unemployment, and less public assistance due to the greed of these thieves. Also, with war looming, The King could not afford to plunge deeper in debt. Every shilling would matter should the war begin.

Despite this, Rogers knew these men, or their type. He’d sailed with them himself many times. Only a few were corrupt to their core. The rest had been driven outside the law due to desperation and circumstances beyond their control. He did not plan to eradicate them. He planned to pardon them. Before leaving England, he had persuaded The King that these were, in their hearts, good men. If they were offered a pardon instead of a death sentence, Rogers believed most would gladly return to the right side of the law. He would offer them a fresh start and he believed most would take it. They would rather be honest merchants themselves, welcome in any port, rather than fearing the gallows with each landfall. My father would have been proud, he thought, the son of a fisherman, having an audience with The King himself!

Rogers had everything riding on this assumption. He’d already received a governorship in the plan. The idea of his star rising further yet appealed to him. Who knows how far that star might rise? If he could tame the Caribbean, his future would know no limits. If the rumored war with Spain were to ignite, Rogers would suddenly find himself in a strategic position with hundreds of experienced men who had seen combat. These former pirate ships could easily sail under an “Admiral” Rogers and strike a blow for England here in the New World. A successful governorship, scouring the area of pirates, and a successful war - perhaps he might even be elevated to The Peerage? Lord Rogers has quite the ring to it, he thought with a smile. To say nothing of the lands and wealth that accompanied the title. And if I’m wrong about the pardons, he continued, I have 60 guns at my disposal to persuade them.

When at last the Delicia did reach land, he would face his first major decision. He wished to surprise the island, but that would mean risking the reefs at night. He’d been told of a fort on a small hill guarding the bay and he hoped that even if it didn’t have an accompanying lighthouse, its elevated position and lights would at least serve as something of a beacon to light his way into the harbor. The lighthouse, or at least the fort, would guide him into the harbor and likewise he would guide these men back to the light of His Majesties good graces. While a full moon would have helped him, the half-moon reflected just enough light to make sailing through the shallows possible. Rogers could imagine the reaction of the men on the island awakening to see The Union Jack once again unfurled over the harbor. The day of reckoning loomed close. He retreated to his cabin and poured himself a mug from the final cask of heather-beer left on the ship. Rogers sipped, savoring the bitter-sweet flavors, and thought, for perhaps the hundredth time, of the men he considered his two main obstacles in this endeavor.

His first adversary was Benjamin Hornigold. The Crown believed Hornigold spent most of his time in Nassau these days, rather than at sea. He had accumulated such wealth and power that he had other captains sail his ships for him; essentially a pirate admiral, although he did not claim the rank. He counted among his subordinates none other than Edward Teach – AKA Blackbeard. The broadsheets painted Blackbeard as the most fearsome pirate on earth, yet as fearsome as he was, he in turn sailed at the pleasure of Benjamin Hornigold. While men like Teach roamed the seas and gathered spoils, Hornigold could be found recruiting men and acquiring ships. More than any other man, he represented what passed for government in Nassau.

Hornigold was also believed to be expanding. He understood that if Nassau fell, then with it fell the entire pirate power-base. To prevent that he needed to grow. If the pirates could recontrol places like Port Royal and Tortuga, plus expand their operations to locations like St. Christophers, Bermuda, and perhaps even the new Carolina colony, Charles Town, these bases could support each other and offer refuge in case of attack. If one base fell, the pirates could flee to another until things calmed. The Navy couldn’t be everywhere all at the same time.

Under this strategy, the so-called Pirate Republic could then expand across the Atlantic to the Cape Verdes or São Tomé, off the coast of West Africa, then to Madagascar and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. They would threaten shipping for the entire globe. Even mere fishermen, like his father, would ultimately not be safe.

In truth, Rogers believed Hornigold’s plan to be a fool’s errand. The more power Hornigold accrued, the more European powers would need to crush him. Rogers also understood that Hornigold would be much more easily de-fanged now, before he could expand. If all he did in his life was defeat Hornigold and prevent the expansion of the Pirate Republic, Rogers could return home to his friends and family in Bristol and hold his head high. To do that, he simply planned to offer Hornigold the pardon. When Hornigold saw that his plays were foiled before they started, Rogers hoped he would accept the pardon and use is wealth in a life of leisure. If Hornigold took the pardon, he would influence countless others.

Even beyond Hornigold, perhaps the most powerful opposition lie in Henry Jennings, present location unknown. Jennings’s motivations might be even more severe. He was a Jacobite – which is to say a Christian who believed the exiled James Stewart, son of king James II, to be the rightful heir to the throne. James would be turning 17 shortly, old enough now to rule a nation, and young enough to fight a war for the crown. Should James ascend to the throne, England would yet again have its national religion changed, this time from Protestantism back to Catholicism. Henry Jennings was believed to have accumulated so much wealth that he could sail to France, retrieve James and ferry him to England. From there, the wealth could be spent recruiting an army and placing James on the throne. While England and France may be allies against Spain in the forthcoming war, that would likely not stop King Louis from interfering yet again in English politics.

With Henry Jennings wealth and King Louis’s additional backing, such an audacious plan actually had a realistic chance of success. As a protestant, Woodes Rogers could not allow this to happen. Nearly all of Bristol, and specifically his friends and family, were all protestants. Things had gone hard for them under the previous catholic monarchs, and they would likely suffer again should James depose King George. Finally, as a logical man, he understood that King George himself was the one who had named him Governor of Nassau and provided him the ships and men to fulfill his mission. He would certainly not find the same favor with a catholic monarch. He was firmly King George’s man, both out of loyalty and practicality. Any threat to The King was a threat to him as well, and could not be allowed to succeed. Thus, Henry Jennings could not happen under any circumstances. Rogers hoped Hornigold would take the pardon and make it impossible for Jennings to operate, thus forcing Jennings to accept the pardon as well. However, if he did not take the pardon, he would find himself at the end of a rope. Jennings, much like Rogers himself, had everything to gain, yet also had everything to lose.

Just then the ship made a violent lurch and slowed dramatically.

“Captain!” a voice yelled as he stood. He opened the door and a foul stench greeted him. Rogers gagged as he stumbled amidships.

“The sea’s come alive,” the Ensign Simms reported, “one minute we were sailing as normal and the next the water, well, look for yourself, sir.”

Rogers went to the rail, eyes tearing from the foul odor, and gazed over. Sure enough, the ship was surrounded on all sides by bubbling pools. The water seemed to boil but instead of steam, the bubbles released a green, noxious gas. He’d seen something similar before in the rivers of Africa, but there the noxious green gas came from the flatulence of giant pink African river-horses. Many did not believe they exist, yet Rogers had seen them firsthand. His guts churned at the memory. You could smell the fouled river before you could even see water. Yet this wasn’t a river and the noxious gurgling appeared on all sides. The ship was surrounded by mud volcanos, some little, some not little at all. All bubbling noxious gas up from the depths.

“Check the stern, sir,” the Ensign continued.

Captain Rogers looked and saw a rope – coarse braided hemp as big around as a man’s fist – stretched behind, but instead of the rope holding the ships pinnace fast. It angled sharply underwater.

“They watched it happen in the crows nest, sir. One moment all was normal, the next all this chaos. The bubbles erupted right below the pinnace and it just sank into the sea! The rope is the only thing saving it from the briny deep!”

Captain Rogers looked at the frothy water, thought for a moment, then ordered, “get a grew together and pull the rope until it surfaces. And have someone go down to the slop chest and make some masks out of the rags.”

Rogers stomped away, giving the men room to work. He didn’t need to supervise; he had bos’ns for that task. They’d yell and cajole and the men would haul on the rope and the bos’ns would beat any who shirked in the duty. Eventually they’d save the pinnace and find a place to lash it to the ship long enough to make any necessary repairs. The Delicia ran slow even without this setback. Her undersides had been thoroughly fouled by the months at sea and she handled like a pig. Once he settled into Nassau, the ship badly needed a careening. The sunken pinnace may as well be a giant underwater bucket tied to the ship, slowing her down even further. They'd be lucky to make three knots dragging this mess.

While the men scurried about ship, he walked over to the starboard rail and peered again at the sky. He wanted to escape to his cabin but it would do the men good to see him suffering the fumes alongside them. Instead, he did his best to act as if his guts weren’t churning. He ignored the worsening situation in his bowels and instead gazed at the stars. Each night, if clear, he gazed to the stars and tried to locate the five planets. Few things relaxed him quite like the tranquility of the infinite cosmos. It never ceased to amaze him that other worlds existed up there. He wondered if they had creatures as well. Perhaps a man on Jupiter sailed the seas there, staring out at Earth and wondered the same? Tonight, he located Jupiter, Mars, and Venus with practiced ease. He almost never spotted Mercury. He knew where to find Saturn, but it hadn’t yet entered the sky.

A chill breeze from the west disturbed the evening. Rogers looked to the bow and saw an ominous layer of clouds ahead. They hadn’t been there when last he looked. In an instant, it seemed, the breeze strengthened to a steady fifteen knot wind. He considered ordering the stunsails rigged, but decided that at this stage of the voyage, the ship probably couldn’t handle the stress; especially dragging the submerged pinnace. As he observed, a tube of white seemed to emerge from the clouds and sink down towards the ship. Like the finger of God, it curled down out of the sky at them, accusing the ship of unknown transgressions. A severe chill arrived with it. The cloud-fingertip crept ever closer to the sea, seeming to aim directly for the Delicia. By now the lookouts had spotted it as well. Rogers heard cries of “the Devil’s triangle!” and “we’re all going to die!” from the mouths of panicked men. Worse, somehow the wind did not blow away the stench of what he thought of as the mud volcanoes.

The cloud-finger from aloft hit the surface like a giant cannonball, exploding outward in a giant squall line of wind and water. The sea erupted in an utter maelstrom of chaos. The wind shrieked to 70 knots, Rogers guessed. The seas, practically calm before, churned and waves began to break over the sides.

“Lower all sails and get down from the rigging!” he bellowed. Yet it was too late. Canvas already started to rip. Some men tried to cut away the tatters and lower what could be spared, yet they risked their lives to do so. The lookouts in the crow’s nest ignored the order. Attempting to climb down in this wind would be suicide. Instead, they did their best to lash themselves in and ride out the storm. If their lashings broke, they’d be flung far out to sea. In these conditions, there’d be no hope of rescue. Likewise, if the mast snapped, they would die. Yet they guessed their odds better up top in minimal shelter than trying to descend in the exposed rigging. Other men clung to the ratlines as best as they could, slowly inching their way down. Some made it. Some did not, their dying screams overpowered by the wind and rain.

“Baton all the hatches and get below!” Rogers ordered, yet he may as well have screamed into the void. None heard him. He ran to a nearby mate and had to yell the order in his ear for the sailor to comprehend. As he did, he felt a tap on his shoulder. The Ensign.

“Sir!” he yelled, yet even face to face Rogers could barely hear, “I tried to get your attention sir! You need to see this!”

The Ensign half-dragged The Captain back to the quarterdeck and into the semi-shelter of the wheelhouse. The young man, little more than a boy, pointed at the compass. It didn’t point North. It didn’t even shake in the storm, vibrating in that general direction. Instead, it seemed to have developed a mind of its own. One minute it pointed vaguely north. Then it spun and settled on southeast. It only stayed on the southeastern bearing for a few seconds before it spun the other direction several times until settling a few points north of west. An instant later it spun again, and indicated east.

God's balls, what's next? Rogers thought.

"We cannot be sure of any direction,” the Ensign shouted. “Everything is wrong... strange... even the ocean doesn't look as it should!”

Captain Rogers said nothing, but inside he agreed with the boy. He kept quiet, rather than adding to the panic, yet he had never seen anything like it either. Rogers had sailed ‘round the world three times in his life. He had perhaps seen more of the sea than any man in history, yet he’d never seen anything like this. It all felt unnatural. He thought of the men yelling of The Devil’s Triangle. He’d always dismissed the idea as foolish. The Sargasso Sea had been rumored to swallow ships since ancient times, yet that seemed folly to his modern brain. Yet now? Looking at the unnatural sea before him? He no longer dismissed the men as fools. There was something unholy about this sea, as if the Devil himself had taken interest. Perhaps the Devil wished for the pirates to continue wreaking their havoc? Rogers couldn’t say. He would ponder this later. First, he had a ship to save.

He thought he heard a cannon shot. Then, a streak across the deck. The rope which held the pinnace had snapped. The crew tumbled across the deck, and the frayed end whipped into a man. The man fell to the deck, holding his injured face. Rogers thought he saw an eye ripped from its socket, but he couldn’t be sure. For a brief moment the wind calmed and the entire ship could hear the wailing of the agonized man. Then the wind shrieked again and a wave washed the poor sailor overboard. Rogers cursed. Storms were supposed to give warning! Compounding matters, if this unholy storm continued to batter the Delicia, the crew might need that pinnace for rescue. Rogers began to order the bos’n in charge of the pinnace detail to get his men below, but the bos’n had already begun the task. The bos’n had them holding hands on the slippery deck and making their way towards a solitary hatch which hadn’t yet been dogged. At least one man had risen to the occasion. He’d make it a point to praise the bos’n in front of the crew in the morning if they survived.

Then an odd light appeared overhead. As best he could tell, it streaked out of the east, like a bird engulfed in an incredible greenish white flame, yet impossibly fast. No bird ever flew so fast. Then the peculiar light stopped and seemed to hover over the ship. For several minutes it hovered, seeming to observe the chaos below. Rogers wasn’t sure it was real until he saw other men pointing at it. Even then he couldn’t tell if it truly hovered or if that were just a trick of the storm. The curious light hung above the ship for a few moments, so close you could touch it, yet an eternity away. Then in a blink, it continued away to the west, again at a speed beyond comprehension, leaving a faint, glowing purplish-green trail in its wake.

“Rogue Wave!” a voice screamed over the wind.

Rogers looked around. There it was, off the stern, so big he thought it was a shadow at first. A wall of water of epic proportions raced towards the ship. Its whitecap probably stood taller than the mast and it bore down upon the Delicia at a furious pace. Rogers had seconds to act, but there was no order he could issue. Instead, he yelled “hang on!” as if anyone could hear him. He knew the warning was futile.

The leviathan wave rushed towards the ship faster than a cavalry charge. Seconds seemed like eternity as the wall of water behind them grew larger. Rogers could now see menacing ripples in the wall as it rushed them. The stern lifted first. The captain couldn’t help but laugh in the face of the chaos as he realized the transom would finally be scoured from three months of sailors dropping their breeks and hanging over the sides. Fear would drive many men to release those same bowels belowdecks instead in the next few moments. As the stern lifted, the captain looked ahead. The bow now rode at a decidedly downward angle, and growing more severe by the moment. The wind was shifting to blow on the top of his head, rather than his face.

As the angle steepened, he and the Ensign were both flung forward and down against the wheel. Faster and faster the wave flung the huge frigate forward. Higher and higher the stern climbed. The deck scuppers emptied as the deck water now rushed down off the bow into the sea. “Up” had become “straight ahead.” The wave seemed determined to fling the Delicia forward into the sea, as if the frigate were a mere child’s toy.

Foot by foot, the stern rose. If the ship started sliding down the wave, all would be lost. She would plunge into the depths and the wave would capsize her. She would only emerge in pieces. Rogers looked behind him, up, and could see rivulets of water cascading down the wall as it hurled forward. Yet he could also see the whitecaps at the top appearing larger as the ship climbed up the wave. He dared hope that they might live. Even if the ship didn’t plummet into the depths, if the stern managed to pass over the top of the bow, she would tip upside-down and capsize.

Then, as quickly as the wave arrived, she slipped past. The peak crashed around the frigate, and suddenly she was on the back side as the wave rushed forward. The stern, which had risen overhead so high, now rushed back down to the sea. Here timbers shook to her very keel as she slammed down upon the sea. Rogers couldn’t be sure she hadn’t broken in half from the impact.

He looked over at Simms, face white, both arms and legs wrapped around the wheel in terror.

“Get below, find The Mate, and get a damage report from him. Report back to me when you have it.”

“Yes sir!” the boy replied. With a task to do, some vigor replaced the terror. He still shook, yet he set about his work.

The rogue wave seemed to have taken the teeth out of the storm as well. The wind still howled and the water still churned, yet now it seemed manageable. The Delicia had ridden out nor’easters back home which were comparable. It wouldn’t be fun but they’d still sail.

Rogers put a lash on the wheel for a moment, then stuck his head down the nearest hatch.

“Get me a single sheet on the main!” he bellowed, then returned to steer.

Down below, he could sense the return of organized chaos as various teams set about various tasks. Weight had shifted and now the bow rode low. She still handled like a pig, but the Delicia was again sailing, rather than just surviving. The giant wave seemed to have swept the bubbling mud volcanos away, and better yet, the compass had returned to showing a steady bearing.

As the damage control parties worked to restore order, another light appeared; this one faint, off the port quarter. He thought briefly that the green light had returned, but no. This one burned white, with a hind of yellow/orange. It held steady, always staying just a hint above the horizon as the ship bobbed in the swells. This was fire. It meant land! Could it be Nassau? That was the only settlement it could be. It had to be Nassau!

“Land!” he bellowed as he turned the wheel to port, “off the port quarter! Blessed land!”

Somehow, they sailed for a full hour before the outlines of land began to appear in the night. That speck of deliverance should never have been visible from such a distance, yet it was. It burned through the clouds, as a beacon towards land. The lookouts could now see the ocean in front of them and steered the Delicia around the telltale whitecaps which indicated shallow reefs. Little by little, the details emerged. To the right, a tiny isthmus, sheltering the harbor from the weather. To the left, up on the outline of a little hill, stood a ragged fort. It didn’t have a lighthouse, yet a beacon of salvation burned on the ramparts. It probably was lit to keep the insects at bay as much as it burned to signal incoming ships. Dead ahead lay deliverance from the trials of the sea. The harbor awaited them and behind it lay Captain Rogers’s new home. Nassau.


AUTHORS NOTE: All of the historical facts presented in this story are true, right down to the phase of the moon that night. Woodes Rogers was a real person. His plot to tame the Pirate Republic by pardoning the pirates really did work. Henry Jennings sailed to Bermuda and accepted the pardon there. Not only did Benjamin Hornigold accept the pardon, but he then went to work for Governor Rogers as a pirate hunter. Even today, the main road through Nassau bears his name - Woodes Rogers Boulevard. He is one of the great forgotten historical figures. Among his other exploits he was probably the first man to circumnavigate the earth not once, not twice, but three times. Additionally, his ship was the one which rescued Alexander Selkirk, who had been marooned for several years in the South Pacific. Rogers shared Selkirk's story with Daniel Defoe and the result became Robinson Crusoe. The looming war - The War of the Quadruple Alliance - had broken out in Europe by the time Rogers made landfall, but word had not yet reached him. Ensign Simms is entirely fiction. The storm and the surrounding chaos are also fictitious, yet I owe Mother Nature a debt of gratitude. Without her, there is no story.