HMS Pearl (1708)

By 1718 the Pearl was stationed in Virginia, under Captain George Gordon, and with Robert Maynard as her first lieutenant. That year, Governor Alexander Spotswood issued an order for the capture of the pirate Blackbeard. Blackbeard, who had supposedly retired, was living in the neighbouring Province of North Carolina, and Spotswood felt that he was an immediate threat to Virginia commerce should he resume his pirating career. Using information gathered from a captured member of Blackbeard's crew, Spotswood dispatched 33 crewmen from the Pearl and 24 crewmen from HMS Lyme and commandeered two merchant sloops, which they used to sail down the coast to North Carolina. With Maynard in command, the group finally located Blackbeard's ship, the Adventure, and attacked, resulting in his subsequent death and post-mortem decapitation by Maynard.^[2]

The Pearl remained in American waters until 1719, returning to Britain to be paid off in December 1719.^[1] She was broken up at Deptford Dockyard between December 1722 and January 1723.^[1] The succeeding HMS Pearl, launched in 1726, was ordered as a rebuild of the 42-gun ship.^[1]