AS SEEN (AND READ ABOUT) ON TV: BLACK JACK BELLAMY

A little something different for "As Seen On TV"........

BLACK JACK BELLAMY

AS SEEN IN:
'The Glades'

From the episode "Booty":

LONGWORTH
So, how exciting would it be if Johnny Hasker actually found the treasure from the Magdalena?

CALLIE
Johnny Hasker found the Magdalena?

LONGWORTH
Are you saying that would excite you enough to help me?

CALLIE
No, seriously. he actually found it?

LONGWORTH
Yeah, I'm thinking he did.

CALLIE
Why?

LONGWORTH
Well, because that's what everyone's fighting about. His business partner and his family thought the only way to turn Johnny's business around and the Haskers' fortune around was to find the Magdalena.

CALLIE
And Johnny was the only one with the smarts to actually do it.

LONGWORTH
Not that you needed that to get excited about.

CALLIE
Yeah, okay, whatever. Do you want to know about the Magdalena or not?

LONGWORTH
I'm all ears.

CALLIE
Okay. (reading)
"Benito Francisco, a rich colonial official, and his young bride were heading back to spain with his fortune on the ship he'd named after her, when they were attacked on August 7, 1753, "

LONGWORTH
Black Jack Bellamy? Really?

CALLIE
"The pirate took off with the Magdalena, the bride, and all the riches, leaving Francisco and his crew adrift at -#"

LONGWORTH
That's the romance you're talking about? Okay. I'm listening.

CALLIE
"Francisco survived and went after the Magdalena. There was a battle, and both ships sank, dragging Black Jack Bellamy, Francisco and his bride, and all the treasure to the bottom of the [ocean]"

From the Frommer's Guide To Cape Cod:

From a 1999 National Geographic article:
The Whydah's story begins in London in 1715 when the hundred-foot [31-meter] three-master was launched as a slave ship under the command of Lawrence Prince. Named for the West African port of Ouidah (pronounced WIH-dah) in what is today Benin, the 300-ton [272-metric-ton] vessel was destined for the infamous "triangular trade" connecting England, Africa, and the West Indies. Carrying cloth, liquor, hand tools, and small arms from England, the Whydah's crew would buy and barter for up to 700 slaves in West Africa, then set out with them on three to four weeks of hellish transport to the Caribbean. Once there, the slaves were traded for gold, silver, sugar, indigo, and cinchona, the last being a source of quinine, all of which went back to England.

The Whydah was fast—she was capable of 13 knots—but in February of 1717, on only her second voyage, she was chased down by two pirate vessels, the Sultana and Mary Anne, near the Bahamas. Led by Samuel "Black Sam" Bellamy, a raven-haired former English sailor thought to be in his late 20s, the pirates quickly overpowered the Whydah's crew. Bellamy claimed her as his flagship, seized a dozen men from Prince, then let the vanquished captain and his remaining crew take the Sultana.

By early April the pirates were headed north along the east coast, robbing vessels as they went. Their destination was Richmond Island, off the coast of Maine, but they diverted to Cape Cod, where legend says Bellamy wanted to visit his mistress, Maria Hallett, in the town of Eastham near the cape's tip. Others blame the course change on several casks of Madeira wine seized off Nantucket. Whatever the reason, on April 26, 1717, the freebooter navy sailed square into a howling nor'easter.

According to eyewitness accounts, gusts topped 70 miles [113 kilometers] an hour and the seas rose to 30 feet [9 meters]. Bellamy signaled his fleet to deeper water, but it was too late for the treasure-laden Whydah. Trapped in the surf zone within sight of the beach, the boat slammed stern first into a sandbar and began to break apart. When a giant wave rolled her, her cannon fell from their mounts, smashing through overturned decks along with cannonballs and barrels of iron and nails. Finally, as the ship's back broke, she split into bow and stern, and her contents spilled across the ocean floor.

In his 1724 book, "A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates", the novelist and journalist Daniel Defoe quotes Bellamy through a secondary source, a Captain Beer who did battle with the Whydah from his sloop. "I am a free Prince," Bellamy is said to have speechified, "and I have as much Authority to make War on the whole World as he who has a hundred Sail of Ships at Sea and an Army of 100,000 Men in the Field; and this my Conscience tells me."

BCnU!