Chapter Seven
Bonny & Read
I had my fill of fine gentlemen in the sugar plantations....They can't ask a
girl for what they want without simpering and playacting. And then along came
Calico Jack like a great roaring stallion.
-- Anne Bonny, in the 1934 play Mary Read, by James Bridie
On a balmy tropic evening in November 1720, a privateer commanded by Captain
Jonathan Barnet raised a black-hulled sloop lying dark and silent at Negril
Point. This was buccaneer territory, off the extreme western end of the island
of Jamaica, and Barnet — like Kidd twenty-five years previously — had a
commission to hunt down pirates. The privateer coasted along slowly, studying
this enigmatic stranger. Silence, save for the ripple of silky water along the
run of the hull — and then, the sudden sound of a gun. Barnet ordered a change
of course to investigate. At the sight of his craft, the black ship hurriedly
began to put on sail, looking more furtive than ever, so Barnet gave the order
to make chase.
It is easy to recapture the stream of commands, from a stirring
near-contemporary description. "Out with all your sails, a steady man at the
h ... read full excerpt from She Captains: Heroines and Hellions of the Sea ebook
