Benjamin Hornigold seize other vessels with impunity. Hornigold's second-in-command during this period was Edward Teach, who would later be better known as the pirate Blackbeard. When Hornigold took command of the "Ranger", he delegated the captaincy of his earlier sloop to Teach. In the spring of 1717 the two pirate captains seized three merchant ships in quick succession, one carrying 120 barrels of flour bound for Havana, another a Bermudian sloop with a cargo of spirits and the third a Portuguese ship travelling from Madeira with a cargo of white wine. In March 1717, Hornigold attacked an armed merchant vessel sent to
William Fox (pirate) to be reclaimed but by a halter.” The next appearance of Fox is aboard the former East Indiaman "Cassandra", which had been captured in the Indian Ocean by Edward England. After England was deposed from his command it was captained by Olivier Levasseur, who then traded it to England’s associate Richard Taylor. Fox may have crossed the Atlantic with Porter and joined them on the return trip: Porter was known to be in the vicinity at the time, meeting with Bartholomew Roberts alongside fellow pirate Richard Tookerman. Taylor, Fox, and others had sailed back to the Caribbean and petitioned the