for enterprise and industry, which gave him a very important position as a commerce destroyer, and a large man-of-war did not think that he was too small game for her to hunt down, and so she set forth to capture or destroy the audacious Worley.  But never a Worley of any kind did she see.  While the Phoenix was sailing along the coast, examining all the coves and harbors of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the New York’s Revenge put out to sea, and then proceeded southward to discover a more undisturbed field of operation.

We will now leave Worley’s vessel sailing southward, and go for a time to Charles Town, where some very important events were taking place.  The Governor of South Carolina had been very much afraid that the pirates in general would take some sort of revenge for the capture of Stede Bonnet, who was then in prison awaiting trial, and that if he should be executed, Charles Town might be visited by an overpowering piratical force, and he applied to England to have a war-vessel sent to the harbor.  But before any relief of this kind could be expected, news came to Charles Town that already a celebrated pirate, named Moody, was outside of the harbor, capturing merchant vessels, and it might be that he was only waiting for the arrival of other pirate ships to sail into the harbor and rescue Bonnet.

Now the Charles Town citizens saw that they must again act for themselves, and not depend upon the home government.  If there were pirates outside the harbor, they must be met and fought before they could come up to the city; and the Governor and the Council decided immediately to fit out a little fleet.  Four merchant vessels were quickly provided with cannon, ammunition, and men, and the command of this expedition would undoubtedly have been given to Mr. Rhett had it not been that he and the Governor had quarrelled.  There being no naval officers in Charles Town, their fighting vessels had to be commanded by civilians, and Governor Johnson now determined that he would try his hand at carrying on a sea-fight.  Mr. Rhett had done very well; why should not he?

Before the Governor’s little fleet of vessels, one of which was the Royal James, captured from Bonnet, was quite ready to sail, the Governor received news that his preparations had not been made a moment too soon, for already two vessels, one a large ship, and the other an armed sloop, had come into the outer harbor, and were lying at anchor off Sullivan’s Island.  It was very likely that Moody, having returned from some outside operation, was waiting there for the arrival of other pirate ships, and that it was an important thing to attack him at once.