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
Edward Collier (pirate) Edward Collier (pirate) Edward Collier was an English buccaneer who served as Sir Henry Morgan's second-in-command throughout much of his expeditions against Spain during the mid-17th century. In command of one of the ships which took part in Sir Henry Morgan's raid on Portobello in 1668, he was given command of the 34-gun "Oxford" with a commission as a pirate hunter before the end of the year and eventually captured Captain la Veven and his ship, the "Satisfaction." Rejoining Morgan in his later raids on Maracaibo and Gibraltar, Venezuela, an explosion aboard his ship would kill many of the officers