He was an insatiable robber and a cruel conqueror.

He captured merchant vessels all along the coast as high up as New England, and then he came down again and stopped for a while before Charles Town harbor, where he took a couple of prizes, and then put into one of the North Carolina harbors, where it was always easy for a pirate vessel to refit and get ready for further adventures.
Bonnet's vessel was named the _Revenge_, which was about as ill suited to the vessel as her commander was ill fitted to sail her, for Bonnet had nobody to revenge himself upon unless, indeed, it were his scolding wife.

But a good many pirate ships were then called the _Revenge_, and Bonnet was bound to follow the fashion, whatever it might be.
Very soon after he had stood upon the quarter-deck and proclaimed himself a pirate his men had discovered that he knew no more about sailing than he knew about painting portraits, and although there were under-officers who directed all the nautical operations, the mass of the crew conceived a great contempt for a landsman captain.

There was much grumbling and growling, and many of the men would have been glad to throw Bonnet overboard and take the ship into their own hands.

But when any symptoms of mutiny showed themselves, the pirates found that although they did not have a sailor in command over them, they had a very determined and relentless master.