BLACKBEARD; OR, THE PIRATE OF THE ROANOKE. A Tale of the Atlantic. BY B. BARKER, ESQ. _Author of 'The Sea Serpent,' 'Dwarf of the Channel,' 'Mornilva,' &c._ BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY F. GLEASON, AT THE FLAG OF OUR UNION OFFICE, CORNER OF COURT AND TREMONT STREETS. 1847. _Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847, by F. Gleason, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts._ CHAPTER I. _The Island of Trinidad. Landing of the Earl of Derwentwater and his party upon the Isle--Its Enchanted Scenery. Unnatural Sounds. Sudden appearance of the Notorious Pirate Blackbeard._ Situated upon the broad bosom of the vast Atlantic Ocean, about two hundred leagues from the coast of Brazil, is a small but fertile island, which has retained from the period of its first discovery, the familiar name of Trinidad. This beautiful island, although a lovely and sequestered spot, has been for various general reasons, but rarely visited by the hardy mariners of the deep, and never permanently settled or inhabited by man. Its surface is agreeably diversified with high hills and low beautiful valleys, whilst its circumference is almost wholly surrounded by a chain of dark, rocky cliffs, which gives to this remote island a somewhat fantastic appearance to the eye of the beholder, as he approaches it from the sea. On this circumscribed but favored spot of earth, nature seems to have reveled in almost boundless profusion, scattering here and there throughout its valleys her choicest favors, in the shape of delicious tropical fruits, and ever green luxuriant herbage, whose fragrance as it mingled with the pure fresh breeze of the ocean, has proved to be a sweet balsam of health to many a sick and weary mariner as he sailed within reach of its invigorating influence. Although this fair island possessed no convenient harbor for