He would revenge himself upon Blackbeard! The implacable Bonnet sailed out to sea in a truly warlike frame of mind.

He was not going forth to prey upon unresisting merchantmen; he was on his way to punish a black-hearted pirate, a faithless scoundrel, who had not only acted knavishly toward the world in general, but had behaved most disloyally and disrespectfully toward a fellow pirate chief.

If he could once run the _Revenge_ alongside the ship of the perfidious Blackbeard, he would show him what a green hand could do.
When Bonnet reached Ocracoke Inlet, he was deeply disappointed to find that Blackbeard had left that harbor, but he did not give up the pursuit.

He made hot chase after the vessel of his pirate enemy, keeping a sharp lookout in hopes of discovering some signs of him.

If the enraged Bonnet could have met the ferocious Blackbeard face to face, there might have been a combat which would have relieved the world of two atrocious villains, and Captain Maynard would have been deprived of the honor of having slain the most famous pirate of the day.
Bonnet was a good soldier and a brave man, and although he could not sail a ship, he understood the use of the sword even better, perhaps, than Blackbeard, and there is good reason to believe that if the two ships had come together, their respective crews would have allowed their captains to fight out their private quarrel without interference, for pirates delight in a bloody spectacle, and this would have been to them a rare diversion of the kind.
But Bonnet never overtook Blackbeard, and the great combat between the rival pirates did not take place.