In pursuit of Roberts, the British Government despatched Captain Challoner Ogle, with the Swallow and Weymouth.  Failing to find him in American waters.  Ogle steered for the African shore, and, on the 5th February, 1722, when separated from the Weymouth, he came on the pirates at anchor off Cape Lopez.  Putting the Swallow about, and handling his sails as if in confusion and alarm, Ogle stood out to sea, pursued by the Ranger.  When well out of sight of land, the Ranger was allowed to draw up, and the pirate crew suddenly found themselves under the fire of a sixty-gun ship, for which their own thirty-two guns were no match, and after a short engagement the black flag was hauled down.  On the 10th, Ogle stood in again to engage the Royal Fortune, disposing his flags to make the pirates believe his ship had been captured by the Ranger.  Roberts fought with desperation when he discovered the ruse.  Dressed in rich crimson damask, a scarlet feather in his hat, a gold chain with large diamond cross round his neck, he made a resistance worthy of his reputation, determined to blow up his ship rather than yield.  At the main he hoisted a black flag, on which were displayed a skeleton and a man with a flaming sword; the jack was black, showing a man standing on two skulls, and St. George’s ensign was at the ensign staff.  After a desperate encounter, Roberts was slain by a grape-shot, and the Royal Fortune carried by boarding, the pirates resisting to the last.  Out of two hundred and seventy-six men captured in the two ships, fifty-two were executed, all of them Englishmen.  Ogle was knighted for his able and gallant conduct.

The re-establishment of authority at the Bahamas had led to an increase in the numbers of the Madagascar pirates; so Commodore Thomas Matthews was despatched to the East Indies with a strong squadron, consisting of the Lyon, 50 guns; Salisbury, 40 guns; Exeter, 50 guns; and Shoreham, 20 guns.  The Company’s ship Grantham was also placed under his orders, to act as a store-ship.  In Byng’s successful action with the Spanish, off Cape Passaro (August, 1718), Matthews had commanded the Kent with credit; but with the exception of courage, he apparently failed to possess a single quality for independent command.  Irascible, domineering to his subordinates, and insolent to all others he was brought in contact with, he was entirely devoid of judgment or discretion.  Twenty years later, when he became better known, Walpole wrote of his ‘brutal manners,’ and Horace Mann nicknamed him ‘Il Furibondo.’  There could not have been a worse selection for the work in hand.

The desire of the Directors was that the squadron should, before going to Bombay, proceed to St. Augustine’s Bay and St. Mary’s.  Thence, that a ship should be detached to Bourbon, where it was supposed a new pirate settlement was being formed; after which, they wished the squadron to proceed to the mouth of the Red Sea, where pirates would in all probability be found waiting for the Indian ships in July and August.  But Matthews had views of his own, and was not much concerned with the wishes of the Directors, who had designs of opening up trade with Madagascar, and, as a preliminary step, desired to see the pirate settlements rooted out.