[Taltarzac725]

Politics was another problem Governor Alexander Spotswood had along with Blackbeard. Lt. Governor Spotswood was quite put out by the politics in Virginia concerning trade with North Carolina and other matters. The House of Burgesses of VA members had even snubbed his lavish birthday celebration for George I on May 28, 1718 to go to their own bonfire for his Majesty. They did not even want to have lunch with the Good Governor. Into Spotswood's very narrow purview came reports from what passed as the police in 1718 VA. that William Howard, Quartermaster of Blackbeard's ship Queen Anne's Revenge, had visited various Virginia seaport taverns along with his two Negro slaves. Spotswood could adapt this to his benefit as he could have misplaced the paperwork of Howard's amnesty from piracy from the September 5, 1717 Royal Proclamation, if there even was such paperwork and sweat Howard for any and all information about Blackbeard's whereabouts. Spotswood had a Justice of the Peace arrest Howard after he tracked him down. The arrest was on the trumped up charge of Howard being a vagrant seaman made after the Justice of the Peace confiscated the 50 pounds Howard had on him. Howard found however one of the best lawyers in VA at that time, John Holloway, who made sure that Howard was protected by the King's Amnesty Proclamation even after Spotswood had Howard tried and condemned to die on the gallows. Spotswood gave the information gleamed from the questioning and the trial about Blackbeard's location to Captains George Gordon and Ellis Brand of the British men-of-war, Pearl and Lyme respectively. Spotswood though still had to defend to the Crown his plan to invade the province of North Carolina at Bath Town as well as Ocracoke Inlet. Based on letters from Spotswood as researched by Robert E. Lee in Blackbeard the Pirate: A Reappraisal of His Life and Times, 1974.