We have made reference during the course of our story to the grave risks which were run by the mercantile East Indiamen in regard to pirates and privateers. It will now be our duty to give some instances of these and to show that if the captains and officers of the Company’s ships received big rewards for their few voyages, they were certainly entitled to a high rate of remuneration considering the dangers which had to be encountered as regards ships, cargoes and human lives. The very essential basis of overseas trade is that trade-carriers shall be able to go about their lawful business with some certainty of not being attacked on the way. To-day, if a war broke out between our own and some other country possessing a navy, the merchant ships would be so endangered that they would either have to remain in port or else wait till our cruisers could convoy them.
To a certain extent this happened in the time when the East Indiamen flourished. But some say that to-day privateering could not be revived, and in any case piracy, if not quite dead in the East (and for that matter off the north coast of Africa), has been so heavily crushed, thanks to the good work of the Royal Navy, that it would not avail much292 against our big modern liners and freight-carriers. But in the days with which this present volume is concerned, piracy was a very real, flourishing concern: and quite apart from all the long-drawn-out hostilities between our country and other powers this remained an eternal source of anxiety to an East Indiaman captain. If he could not meet the pirate on an equal footing the end would come quickly and decisively, for the pirate captains were often enough of British origin and just as fine seamen and fighters as any in the employ of the East India Company.
Take the case of Captain John Bowen, who about the year 1700 used to cruise over the Indian Ocean between the Malabar coast and Madagascar, making piracy his serious trade. One day he fell in with an English East Indiaman homeward bound from Bengal under the command of a Captain Conway. In a very short space of time she had been overcome, made a prize of, taken into port, and both her hull and her cargo put up for sale to the highest bidders, which consisted of three merchants glad to obtain the spoil at their own price. A little later on the East Indiaman Pembroke, having put into Mayotta for water, and being promptly boarded by the boats of the pirates, whose men killed the chief mate and one seaman, the ship was taken. Some idea of the experiences which beset the East Indiamen may be gathered from a letter dated from Bombay on 16th November 1720 by a certain Captain Mackra, who was in command of one of the Company’s ships.
“We arrived on the 25th of July last,” he writes, “in company with the Greenwich, at Juanna, an island not far from Madagascar. Putting in there to refresh our men we found fourteen pirates who293 came in their canoes from the Mayotta, where the pirate ship to which they belonged, viz, the Indian Queen, two hundred and fifty tons, twenty-eight guns, and ninety men, commanded by Captain Oliver de la Bouche bound from the Guinea Coast to the East Indies had been bulged [i.e. “bilged”], had been lost. They said they left the captain and forty of their men building a new vessel to proceed on their wicked designs. Captain Kirby and I concluding that it might be of great service to the East Indian Company to destroy such a nest of rogues, were ready to sail for that purpose on the 17th of August, about eight o’clock in the morning, when we discovered two pirates standing into the bay of Juanna, one of thirty-four, and the other of thirty-six guns. I immediately went on board the Greenwich, where they seemed very diligent in preparation for an engagement, and I left Captain Kirby with mutual promises of standing by each other. I then unmoored, got under sail, and brought two boats ahead to row me close to the Greenwich: but he being open to a valley and a breeze, made the best of his way from me: which an OstenderH in our company, of twenty-two guns, seeing, did the same, though the captain had promised heartily to engage with us, and I believe would have been as good as his word, if Captain Kirby had kept his. About half-an-hour after twelve, I called several times to the Greenwich to bear down to our assistance, and fired a shot at him, but to no purpose: for though we did not doubt but he would join us because, when he got about a league from us he brought his ship 294to and looked on, yet both he and the Ostender basely deserted us, and left us engaged with barbarous and inhuman enemies, with their black and bloody flags hanging over us, without the least appearance of ever escaping, but to be cut to pieces. But God, in his good providence, determined otherwise: for notwithstanding their superiority, we engaged them both about three hours: during which time the biggest of them received some shot betwixt wind and water, which made her keep off a little to stop her leaks. The other endeavoured all she could to board us, by rowing with her oars, being within half a ship’s length of us above an hour: but by good fortune we shot all her oars to pieces, which prevented them, and by consequence saved our lives.
THE “VERNON,” EAST INDIAMAN, 1,000 TONS.
(By courtesy of Messrs. T. H. Parker Brothers)
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“About four o’clock most of the officers and men posted on the quarter-deck being killed and wounded, the largest ship making up to us with diligence, being still within a cable’s length of us, often giving us a broadside, there being now no hopes of Capt. Kirby coming to our assistance, we endeavoured to run ashore: and though we drew four feet more of water than the pirate, it pleased God that he struck on a higher ground than happily we fell in with: so was disappointed a second time from boarding us. Here we had a more violent engagement than before: all my officers and most of my men behaved with unexpected courage: and, as we had a considerable advantage by having a broadside to his bow, we did him great damage: so, that had Captain Kirby come in then, I believe we should have taken both the vessels, for we had one of them sure: but the other pirate (who was still295 firing at us) seeing the Greenwich did not offer to assist us, supplied his consort with three boats full of fresh men. About five in the evening the Greenwich stood clear away to sea, leaving us struggling hard for life, in the very jaws of death: which the other pirate that was afloat seeing, got a warp out, and was hauling under our stern.
“By this time many of my men being killed and wounded, and no hopes left us of escaping being all murdered by enraged barbarous conquerors, I ordered all that could to get into the long-boat, under the cover of the smoke of our guns: so that, with what some did in boats, and others by swimming, most of us that were able got ashore by seven o’clock. When the pirates came aboard, they cut three of our wounded men to pieces. I with some of my people made what haste I could to King’s town, twenty-five miles from us, where I arrived next day, almost dead with the fatigue and loss of blood, having been sorely wounded in the head by a musket-ball.
“At this town I heard that the pirates had offered ten thousand dollars to the country people to bring me in, which many of them would have accepted, only they knew the king and all his chief people were in my interest. Meantime I caused a report to be circulated that I was dead of my wounds, which much abated their fury. About ten days after, being pretty well recovered, and hoping the malice of our enemy was near over, I began to consider the dismal condition we were reduced to: being in a place where we had no hopes of getting a passage home, all of us in a manner naked, not having had time to bring with us either a shirt or a pair of shoes, except what we had on. Having obtained leave to go on board296 the pirates with a promise of safety, several of the chief of them knew me, and some of them had sailed with me, which I found to be of great advantage; because, notwithstanding their promise, some of them would have cut me to pieces, and all that would not enter with them, had it not been for their chief captain, Edward England, and some others whom I knew. They talked of burning one of their ships, which we had so entirely disabled as to be no farther useful to them, and to fit the Cassandra in her room. But in the end I managed the affair so well, that they made me a present of the said shattered ship, which was Dutch built, and called the Fancy: her burden was about three hundred tons. I procured also a hundred and twenty-nine bales of the Company’s cloth, though they would not give me a rag of my own clothes.
“They sailed on the 3rd of September: and I, with the jury masts, and such old sails as they left me, made a shift to do the like on the 8th, together with forty-three of my ship’s crew, including two passengers and twelve soldiers: having no more than five tuns of water aboard. After a passage of forty-eight days, I arrived here on the 26th of October, almost naked and starved, having been reduced to a pint of water a day, and almost in despair of ever seeing land, by reason of the calms we met with between the coast of Arabia and Malabar.
“We had in all thirteen men killed and twenty-four wounded: and we were told that we destroyed about ninety or a hundred of the pirates. When they left us, there were about three hundred whites and eight blacks in both ships. I am persuaded had our297 consort of the Greenwich done his duty, we had destroyed both of them, and got two hundred thousand pounds for our owners and selves: whereas the loss of the Cassandra may justly be imputed to his deserting us. I have delivered all the bales that were given me into the company’s warehouse, for which the governor and council have ordered me a reward. Our governor, Mr Boon, who is extremely kind and civil to me, had ordered me home with the packet: but Captain Harvey who had a prior promise, being come in with the fleet, goes in my room. The governor had promised me a country voyage to help to make up my losses, and would have me stay and accompany him to England next year.”
This Captain England was a notorious sea-pirate and had made many a capture of an innocent merchant ship, and now commanded the Victory, which as the Peterborough he had previously captured. He used Madagascar as his base for attacking East Indiamen, though he had sailed into most of the seas of the world on the look-out for his victims. It was only after remaining a short time at Madagascar that they had proceed to Juanna and fallen in with the two English East Indiamen and one Ostender. Captain Mackra was certainly lucky to have got off with his life and also with even a crippled ship to reach India. But England, villain that he was, respected Mackra as a brave seaman, and with difficulty succeeded in restraining the pirate crew from exhausting their fury upon the East Indiaman captain. In fact th............