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Operation Nemesis and Other Historic Paybacks

Khalid Elhassan November 17, 2019 32 min

Armenian Genocide - 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

Stede Bonnet hanging. The Way of Pirates

30. The End of the Road at the End of a Noose

Bonnet came across Blackbeard in Florida, who befriended and persuaded him to give up command of the Revenge because of his utter incompetence at piracy. Bonnet transferred to Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge, where he remained as a guest, while his own ship, the Revenge, was taken over by one of Blackbeard’s lieutenants. Soon thereafter, Bonnet accepted a royal pardon but returned to piracy in July, 1718.

Hapless as ever, Bonnet thought that adopting the alias “Captain Thomas” and changing the name of his ship to Royal James would mask his identity. It did not. The following month, a British naval expedition came across Bonnet at anchor in the Cape Fear River estuary, and after a fight, captured him and his crew. Bonnet escaped, but was recaptured after a few weeks on the lam, and taken to Charleston. There, he was tried, convicted, sentenced to death, and hanged on December 10^th, 1718.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.