Robert Maynard, the Man who Killed Blackbeard

[Sully Cross]

   In November 1718, Lt. Robert Maynard was tasked with hunting down the pirate Blackbeard by Governor Spotswood of Virginia. While leading the HMS Pearl, Maynard lured Blackbeard into attacking his ship in the Pamlico Sound off North Carolina, and in the ensuing struggle he and his crew were able to kill Blackbeard and several of his men. Expecting to be rewarded for his actions, Maynard was never fully compensated or paid for the expedition. He was eventually promoted to commander in 1739, and to captain in 1740, before dying at the age of 66 in his home county of Kent, England.

[Stynky Tudor]

On 5/23/2024 at 2:25 PM, Sully Cross said:

Expecting to be rewarded for his actions, Maynard was never fully compensated or paid for the expedition.

Was his expedition to kill Blackbeard, funded out of his/Maynard's own pocket or was he just not fully rewarded as expected?

[Sully Cross]

Lee wrote in his book, Blackbeard the Pirate, that the prize money for capturing Teach was to have been about £400 (£79,000 in 2024), but it was split between the crews of HMS Lyme and HMS Pearl (the two other ships that escorted Maynard. As Captain Brand and his troops had not been the ones fighting for their lives, Maynard thought this extremely unfair. He lost much of any support he might have had though when it was discovered that he and his crew had helped themselves to about £90 of Teach's booty. Brand was the one who had captured Israel Hands and a handful of Teach's crew in Bath. Brand and Maynard did not receive their prize money for another four years, with Brand receiving most of the share.

 

Lee, Robert E. (1974), Blackbeard the Pirate (2002 ed.)