Stede Bonnet–one of the biggest damned fools you’ll ever meet in history
Imagine a young man, 28, who had a wife and children, a secure and honorable position in society, and more than adequate wealth…
Who tossed it all away to be a pirate (http://newswithviews.com/Duigon/lee158.htm).
It’s cold and rainy today, I can’t go outside to work on my book–and for some odd reason, my thoughts turned to Stede Bonnet, the man described above. Once upon a time I tried to write a novel about him. I did the research, including a reading of the whole transcript of his trial. But I gave it up because, no matter how much research I did, I simply couldn’t explain why Major Bonnet threw his life away–
Any more than I can understand why ours and other Western countries seem to be throwing away everything they have worth saving. Sanity? We don’t need no stinkin’ sanity! No! We want open borders, transgender, and a Green New Deal–just for starters.
Time and time again Bonnet passed up chances to save himself. Piracy wasn’t even a capital crime in 1718. He could have accepted amnesty. He could have gotten off with little or no punishment. But when the city of Charleston attempted to arrest him, Bonnet chose to fight it out, killing 20 of the city’s volunteers before they captured him. So they had him dead to rights for murder, and they hanged him for it.
What drives a man to make one disastrously bad decision after another? There was never a chance that anything he ever decided to do would turn out well.
If he were alive today, he’d be in Congress.