It’s also possible that the plan was foiled thanks to two prisoners who persuaded Blackbeard’s servant not to strike the match. However, the attack had already damaged the ship’s defenses enough that Teach’s intended blaze of final glory never came to pass. According to an account kept by Captain Charles Johnson (probably a pseudonym for either Daniel Defoe, of Robinson Crusoe fame, or Nathaniel Mist), before the ship was overrun, Blackbeard stationed his faithful servant down below with orders to set the powder room alight should defeat seem inevitable. If the treasure was on board the Adventure-the ship that North Carolina governor Charles Eden handed off to Teach (along with a pardon) after he’d ditched the QAR-when Lieutenant Robert Maynard’s posse of four ships finally took the pirate down, then it came very close to meeting a violent end of its own. IN A BLAST PATTERN OFF THE COAST OF OCRACOKE ISLAND Divers aren’t done exploring the wreck, though, and only the ship herself knows what they’ll find. Since its discovery in 1996, the QAR has delivered hundreds of thousands of artifacts to probing researchers, including many of the ship’s 40 cannon, assorted weaponry and tools, and even a small amount of gold dust-but no treasure heaps as yet. OFF THE COAST OF NORTH CAROLINA, ON THE QUEEN ANNE ’ S REVENGEĪfter the French slave ship La Concorde was stolen by Blackbeard and renamed the Queen Anne’s Revenge in 1717, it served a short but profitable stint as absolute hell-on-a-hull until the pirate ran it aground in North Carolina’s Beaufort Inlet later that same year. Most historians suspect that Teach (like most pirates) didn’t get around to making desert-island deposits of gold and jewels during his reign, but there are still several places where, given what we’ve learned about him in the past three centuries, the treasure could have ended up. However, his legend has only grown stronger with time, keeping the hunt for his supposed hidden treasure alive. for a brief spell in the early 18th century. Little is known about the early life of privateer-turned-pirate Edward “Blackbeard” Teach, whose massive, knotted beard struck fear in the hearts of seamen throughout the Caribbean and Eastern U.S.
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