Gov. Francis Nicholson was nothing if not a man of action.
Long before coming to Virginia in 1698, he'd shown his mettle time and time again, fighting Moors in North Africa, English rebels at the battle of Sedgemoor and hostile Indians in New York and New England.
Still, no one would have raised an eyebrow had he hesitated on the afternoon of April 28, 1700 - when a Royal Navy officer interrupted him at a prominent Hampton home with news of pirates.
Even the other navy captain in the room - who'd stopped to pay his respects - had no doubts about leaving the protesting governor behind as he rushed to the King Street docks and readied his ship for battle.
By 10 p.m, however, Nicholson had not only alerted the militia on the south side of the James but made his way across the dark waters on a rowboat to board the HMS Shoreham.
By 7 a.m. the next day, he was standing on the Shoreham's quarterdeck, firing his pistols at close range in a bloody, 10-hour clash that defined him as one of the era's great pirate hunters.
"I can't think of any other battle like it," says Mark G. Hanna, a University of California-San Diego historian who studied colonial piracy at the College of William and Mary's Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.
"Nicholson went toe to toe with the pirates - and ended up being a huge story in London. He was a hero."
Nicholson's daring and resolve may have been born of frustration.
Just nine months earlier, the small, inadequately armed HMS Essex Prize had been outgunned and outsailed in a humiliating Chesapeake Bay clash with a pirate pretending to be the dreaded Capt. William Kidd.
And while the newly arrived Shoreham - with its 32 guns - introduced a larger, far more potent warship as the sentinel of the Chesapeake - Capt. William Passenger had been forced to make do with a short-handed crew weakened still more by inexperienced and underage sailors.
Still, the captives scooped up by French pirate Louis Guittar as he bore down on the Virginia capes from the West Indies knew nothing about this recent change of guard.
Not until his ship had overwhelmed eight rich merchant vessels - including one carrying an intoxicating cargo of strong beer and red wine - did a tortured carpenter finally reveal the potential challenge waiting on the other side of Hampton Roads.
Emboldened by their successes and the alcohol, however, Guittar and the 150-man crew of the 20-gun La Paix scoffed at the threat and focused instead on plundering the small fleet of prizes they'd anchored off Lynnhaven Inlet.
They were still groggy from drink when the Shoreham sent a shot across their bow just after dawn, setting the stage for what would become a murderous battle.
"It was a tough, close fight with severe casualties. Peter Heyman - the Hampton customs collector - was killed by a volley from the La Paix as he stood next to Nicholson firing from the Shoreham's deck," Colonial Williamsburg historian Carson Hudson says.
"At times, they were blasting away at each other from pistol range - only 20 to 30 yards - and the pirate ship was shot to pieces."
Knowing they would be hanged if taken, Guittar and his crew fought for their lives, firing broadside after broadside as they attempted to maneuver in and board their outnumbered foe for a more favorable fight at close quarters.
But time after time, Passenger rallied his crew of boys in a heroic display of courage and seamanship, maintaining his distance and his advantage on the windward side of the clash even as his short-handed gunners struggled to answer the pirates' volleys.
Spectators watched from the shore as the grisly fight wore on, felling so many pirates they clogged the decks and had to be thrown overboard. Others looked on from Old Point Comfort as the Shoreham's mainmast fell in the thunderous cannon fire and gunpowder smoke filled the approach to Hampton Roads.
Not until late afternoon did the Royal Navy's slow but superior fire finally prevail. Consuming nearly 30 barrels of powder, its guns fired 1,671 rounds in a determined attack that "shot all his masts, yards, sailes, rigging all to shatters, unmounted several guns and hull almost beaten to pieces," an observer reported.\
The end came soon after the Shoreham's guns blasted the La Paix's rudder, leaving the floating wreck helplessly grounded. But as the pirates lowered their blood-red flag, their captain played one last gambit.
Priming 30 barrels of explosives with a trail of gunpowder, Guittar vowed to blow up his ship and 50 captives if not given quarter. Nicholson replied with the pirates' threats of "Broil! Broil! Broil!" ringing in his ears, scrawling a note that promised to "referr him and his men to the mercy of my Royal Master King William the third ..."
Of the 124 buccaneers who surrendered, 111 were manacled and transported from Hampton to London, where they were tried and condemned to death.
Three others were convicted in an admiralty court at Hampton and hanged on the beaches overlooking the scene of the battle.
Customs officer Peter Heyman was buried in the yard at Hampton's third St. John's Church, where his grave is still marked by a stone Nicholson commissioned.
"(He) went voluntarily aboard ye king's Shippe Shoreham in pursuit of a pyrate who greatly infested this coast," it reads.
"After he had behaved himself seven hours with undaunted courage (he) was killed with small shot ...(as) he stood next ye Govenour upon the quarter deck ..."
For more on the history of Hampton Roads during the Golden Age of Piracy, click here.
-- Mark St. John Erickson