Raiders and Rebels

by Frank Sherry

  Further, while it is true that the pirates of that era sought to take the treasure of their foes, it was not for treasure alone that the pirate brotherhood waged its war on the world. Most pirates also fought to avenge themselves on an oppressive civilization that they hated and feared. But above all, the rebellious seafarers of that day turned outlaw in order to live as free men in an age that permitted liberty only to the wealthy and the well-born.

  The story of the pirate war against the world begins in 1692 with a fateful voyage eastward.

  1

  The Opening Gun: The Cruise of the Amity

  Captain Thomas Tew, of Newport, Rhode Island, was an easygoing, sociable man in his fifties who doted on his loving wife and two charming daughters.1

  Slim, clean-shaven, and of middle height, Captain Tew usually wore his longish hair in a beribboned queue—as many seafaring men did in the late seventeenth century—although in most other respects he dressed in the style of a prosperous merchant.

  Born of a good Rhode Island family, Captain Tew was liked and respected by his Newport neighbors even though he did have the seaman’s bad habit of bursting into salty language whenever the spirit moved him—which was often.

  Affable and cordial of manner, Captain Tew relished nothing so much as a dinner of turkey and venison with friends at a tavern, followed by a long-stemmed pipe, a noggin of rum, and a convivial evening of storytelling before a comfortable fire.

  But this fond father and jolly companion was also a tough and experienced “privateer” who, by the year 1692, had already enjoyed a long and profitable, if unspectacular, career in the service of England.

  Generally speaking, privateers were “civilians”—privately owned vessels that governments commissioned in time of war, by special “letters of marque,” to attack and capture the shipping of enemy nations.

  Although theoretically privateers might, under some circumstances, serve as auxiliaries to regular naval forces, their chief role was to raid the commerce of the enemy. For the most part privateers avoided hostile naval vessels, preying instead on the more or less helpless merchant ships that fell under their guns.

  Some maritime states, Spain most notably, regarded privateering as no more than a form of legalized piracy.

  During her numerous long wars with England, Spain had suffered greatly at the hands of privateers. Well-armed raiders—based both in England and her American colonies—had found easy pickings among the rich and clumsy Spanish fleets that plied the West Indies. As a result, the Spanish usually refused to recognize privateering commissions—and claimed the right to hang privateers as piratas whenever and wherever they might capture one of these independent operators.

  Despite the attitude of the Spanish and a few critics and lawyers, privateer captains—as well as those who outfitted and backed their enterprises—hotly defended privateering as legitimate warfare, not piracy. Pirates, they argued, sailed “on their own account,” and against all flags, while privateers sailed in the service of their sovereign. If there was profit to be gained thereby, well, so much the better.

  Captain Tew of Newport, amiable as he was on most subjects, certainly resented any suggestion that he was in any sense a pirate. He could point out, in his own defense, that in all his long career he had never fired on any but the king’s enemies. Nor had he ever undertaken a mission without proper papers, or lacking the authorization of His Majesty’s government.

  For such as Captain Tew, privateering was a lawful pursuit, honored by custom, sustained by profit.

  This assertion was heartily supported by the majority of the merchants, bankers, and governors of England’s colonies in North America. For many of these gentry, in fact, privateering had become an almost essential enterprise, as well as a lucrative one. This was largely due to the policy of the English government with regard to trade with the American colonies.

  Beginning in 1651, England had adopted a series of laws that became known as the Navigation Acts. In sum, these laws required English colonies to sell their goods only to England, and to import only English goods, at prices set by English merchants. Further, the Navigation Acts stipulated that all trade between England and her colonies be carried on in English or colonial ships manned by subjects of the Crown.

  Because of the Navigation Acts, England was able to monopolize virtually all trade with her North American colonies. The effect of this enforced traffic on colonial merchants and consumers, however, was pernicious. The colonies could sell their tobacco, farm products, and other commodities only to London brokers at prices lower than they might command in other markets, while they had to buy English manufactured goods at higher-than-free-market prices. In addition, cargoes from England were subject to customs duties that added even more to their costs in the colonies, and non-English manufactures could not be imported except in English vessels and through English merchants. As a result, many items, especially luxuries such as silks, spices, perfumes, and the like, were vastly overpriced or simply not available in the colonies.

  To compensate for this inequity, and to procure otherwise-unobtainable goods, colonial merchants, with the active cooperation of governors, port officials, and the general population, provided a “black market” for privateers—and a few admitted pirates as well—to dispose of their plunder. In colonial cities all along the Atlantic coast, privateer loot was “imported” in defiance of the Navigation Acts and resold openly. In almost every colonial port, privateers could be sure that they would not only find buyers for their booty but also obtain hospitality, provisions, protection, and crewmen for future enterprises. Very often the same merchants and officials who furnished the illegal market for privateer plunder also outfitted expeditions in exchange for guaranteed shares in a ship’s loot. If the selling of privateer loot was against the king’s law, it was not against the law of the sea, or the law of supply and demand. If the more righteous in colonial society regarded privateering with suspicion, they had no compunction about buying the luxuries that privateers made available.

  To the dealers in privateer plunder, Captain Thomas Tew was a much-valued colleague. From Newport to Boston to New York, the trim and jaunty captain had, in the course of his professional pursuits, won a reputation as a fine seaman, a steady leader of men, a man you could rely upon to carry out a task—and, above all, a man of business, a man who would always bring home a rich cargo for sale.

  But in 1692, privateers like Captain Tew, as well as his merchant partners, had fallen upon hard times. England, in a sudden reversal of her long-term policy, had concluded a peace with her old archenemy, Spain, and was now at war with France. Suddenly the days of the easy scores on the Spanish Main were gone. Profitable French cargoes were scarce in western waters, and French men-of-war were far more formidable than the Spanish had been.

  Then, in the spring of 1692, a consortium of tradesmen and government officials in the Crown Colony of Bermuda hit on an idea that might restore their depleted fortunes: a very special, secret privateering venture. They offered the leadership of this clandestine enterprise, as well as a large share of the spoils, to Captain Thomas Tew of Newport.

  After going to Bermuda, hearing the proposal of his backers in detail, and inspecting the 70-ton sloop Amity that the Bermudians proposed to arm and provision for the venture, Captain Tew accepted the proffered commission.

  Over the succeeding weeks and months he oversaw preparations for the voyage. He personally recruited a crew of sixty veteran privateers—tough old dogs who had sailed with him in the past. Tew told his men that Amity had been chartered by the English Royal African Company to carry out a raid on a French trading post on the western coast of Africa. He assured them that at the end of the cruise, there would be “great spoils” to share out. This was a crucial point, since the only wage that privateer crews received was a share of the plunder, which might amount to a considerable sum on a successful cruise.

  When Amity was ready to sail, Captain Tew, meticulous as ever in obtaining legal
license for his enterprises, made sure that his backers purchased a commission from Governor Isaac Richier of Bermuda, authorizing Amity to act as a privateer against French shipping. Without such a warrant, he said, he would refuse to take Amity to sea.

  In December 1692, duly commissioned as a privateer in English service, the Amity—with her eight cannon gleaming and all flags flying—set sail eastward.

  At the outset of her cruise, Amity was joined by another privateer vessel under a Captain George Dew of Bermuda. Privateering ships often sailed together for mutual aid and greater firepower against an armed enemy. But Amity’s companion, damaged in a storm, soon returned to Bermuda. Amity continued on alone into the Atlantic.

  Although he and his backers had given out that Amity was making for Africa, in reality Captain Tew had a different destination, and a much different mission, in mind. It was a venture, Tew recognized, that would require the consent by democratic vote of Amity’s crew in order to succeed. Accordingly, when Amity was far out to sea, Captain Tew assembled his entire crew on deck to explain to them the daring idea that he and his backers had conceived.

  Raiding a French trading post in Africa was all very well, he told his grizzled crewmen, but it would be a difficult task. Furthermore, whatever profit it might bring, the greater part would go to the gentlemen of the Royal African Company who had, supposedly, chartered Amity. On the other hand, he said, he had heard tales that beyond Africa, in the Indian Ocean, the Muslim infidels transported wealth past measure in slow and clumsy vessels that resolute men might easily capture. If they possessed the will and daring, Captain Tew told his crew, he would lead them on a course to ease and plenty for the rest of their days. Further, he promised, they could accomplish their purpose in one bold stroke—and with only slight danger. They would return home, he promised, not only rich but famous.

  Nor was it true piracy, he reassured his veterans, to take treasure from the infidel enemies of Christendom. Besides, they were protected by a license from the king’s own governor.

  The crew acclaimed Tew’s proposition, crying out: “A gold chain, or a wooden leg, we’ll stand by you.”

  At this, Captain Tew set a course for the East, beyond the Cape of Good Hope, where infidel ships carried cargoes of gold and gems for the taking.

  In reality, the tale that Captain Tew had told his men about the fabled riches of India was not much exaggerated.

  The Great Mogul—whose ships Captain Tew intended to hunt—was the Muslim ruler of India. Claiming descent from Genghis Khan (hence the name Mogul, as a corruption of Mongol), the Mogul hordes had conquered Hindu India in the 1520s. By the middle of the sixteenth century, these Muslim invaders from the north had consolidated their power in India. The Mogul rule over the numerous divided peoples of India was a period of matchless splendor and opulence. It was also a time of magnificent artistic achievements—among them the Taj Mahal, built in memory of a favorite wife by the fifth Great Mogul, Shah Jahan.

  No western monarch—not even Louis XIV—could begin to match the grandeur and wealth of the Mogul empire. The Great Mogul issued his decrees from the radiant Peacock Throne, a golden imperial seat studded with rubies, pearls, diamonds, and emeralds—and surmounted by a golden canopy dripping with jewels.

  The sixth Great Mogul, Aurangzeb, who sat upon the Peacock Throne in the 1690s, was the owner of one of the most famous diamonds in history, the 280-carat Koh-i-noor, the “Mountain of Light.” European travelers to Aurangzeb’s court reported that the Great Mogul annually received as personal tribute from his subjects more than £3 million.

  But the wealth of the Great Mogul did not derive solely from the tribute of his subjects. The Muslim Moguls of India carried on a lively and lucrative trade with the Arab world. Fleets of Mogul ships incessantly crossed the Indian Ocean to the Arab ports of the Persian Gulf and Red Sea with cargoes of spices, ivory, silks, drugs, perfumes, and precious stones, returning with chests of gold and silver, the fruit of their commerce.

  These Mogul vessels were extremely vulnerable. Large and slow, their armament was scanty, and their cannoneers and soldier guards poorly trained by European standards. Because of their vulnerability, and the vast loot possible, the ships of the Great Mogul had long been targets of native Indian Ocean pirates, as well as occasional pirates from western nations. Although a plague and a costly vexation to the Mogul merchant fleets, the sea raiders who had preyed in eastern waters up till now had never seriously disrupted Mogul commerce.

  But all that was about to be changed by a chain of events set off by the cruise of a little colonial privateer named Amity.

  It was April 1693 when Amity entered the Indian Ocean and headed north toward the Red Sea. Aboard her hopes were high for a quick kill. But anticipation of a rapid score soon evaporated as Amity began to search these strange, warm seas for the rich prize pledged by her master.

  Day after day, under a broiling sun, Amity scoured the sea routes between Arabia and India, seeking suitable prey. Through storms that threatened to tear the rigging to shreds, and through sultry calms, Amity searched. In all, she voyaged, by Captain Tew’s own reckoning, more than 22,000 miles, crisscrossing the empty waters between the Gulf of Aden and the western coast of India, always hunting a victim.

  From time to time Amity did sight what seemed a fitting quarry. But on each occasion, after chasing down and boarding the prize, the loot proved disappointing—and Amity resumed her quest.

  Despite her discouraging run of ill luck, Amity’s crew never lost faith in their captain. They knew that if and when a treasure ship did cross their path, Captain Tew was the man to find her and take her.

  Then one brilliantly hot day, as Amity was cruising near the well-traveled mouth of the Red Sea, she sighted a magnificent merchant vessel flying the device of the Great Mogul, and apparently making for one of the nearby Arabian ports. The men of Amity had never sighted a Mogul ship of this size and type before.

  Amity immediately gave chase.

  Excitedly the crew of Amity watched as their swift little ship overtook the much larger Mogul vessel. As Amity drew alongside the clumsy merchant, her crewmen—with muskets primed and cutlasses at the ready—crowded to the rails, preparing to board the fat prize that now wallowed awkwardly to starboard. The hard-bitten men of Amity could see, as the two ships drew together, that there were at least five hundred turbaned soldiers on the deck of the huge Mogul ship, all apparently prepared to receive the onslaught of Amity’s boarding party with muskets and wickedly disciplined spears and scimitars.

  Captain Tew now cried out to his crew that the Mogul vessel “carried their fortune.” Nor would she prove difficult to take, he shouted, for in spite of their guns and swords, the men of the infidel ship lacked what they needed most for victory: “courage and resolution.”

  When the time came, the men of Amity never hesitated.

  Shouting oaths and firing off their muskets, Amity’s crewmen swung aboard the Mogul merchant. At this the Indian guards, instead of resisting, threw down their weapons and surrendered. Not a single one of Captain Tew’s men received more than a minor scrape.

  Now Captain Tew’s voracious crew began to ransack their prize. They soon discovered a treasure that exceeded all their hopes. In her capacious holds, the Mogul ship carried chests of spices, bales of rich silks, a great quantity of elephant tusks—and more than £100,000 in gold and silver coin.

  Quickly Captain Tew’s men transferred this immense plunder to their own sturdy ship. Minutes after the last bale of silk had come aboard, Amity cast off from her quarry and set out southward.

  Before heading for home Captain Tew took his agile little sloop to the safe haven of St. Mary’s (now called Sainte-Marie), a tiny island off the northeast coast of Madagascar.

  On the beach of this snug hideout, Captain Tew careened Amity for hull repair and refitting prior to taking her back across the Atlantic.2 It was on St. Mary’s, too, that the shrewd captain shared out the loot according to the agreed-upon sp
lit. After setting aside the backers’ shares, Tew doled out one share for each ordinary seaman, two shares for the captain, and one and a half shares each for the quartermaster and surgeon. Each crewman’s share came to £1,200. This was a splendid sum, more than any of them could make in a lifetime of toil at sea.

  In December 1693 the cleaned and refitted Amity, with her happy crew and her hold bulging with booty, sailed for home. In April 1694, Captain Tew took Amity, with all flags flying, into Newport harbor. Her cruise had lasted sixteen months. The news of her success had already begun to spread, carried by European merchants in the eastern trade.

  The people of Newport—from shopkeepers to leading citizens—hailed Captain Thomas Tew and those who had sailed with him as heroic adventurers. The tavern owners on the docks plied the Amity’s crew with copious amounts of rum that the men soaked up with a will after more than a year at sea. The merchants of the town marveled at the richness of the goods Captain Tew had brought back. And they were only too happy to purchase those goods for profitable, if illegal, resale. Other captains and seamen were astonished at how easily the men of the Amity had made themselves wealthy—and they wondered if they might not do the same.

  Captain Tew himself took great pleasure in his new celebrity. He and his wife and his two daughters were much in demand as dinner guests at the handsome homes of the Rhode Island aristocracy. With great relish, the jolly captain told and retold the story of his voyage, and basked in the adulation poured out upon him.

  He and his little family even went down to New York at the invitation of his old friend Benjamin Fletcher, the royal governor, who had himself invested heavily, and often, in profitable privateering ventures.

  Fletcher, a hearty, beefy man with a worldly, cynical turn of mind, had been appointed governor in 1682. In the twelve years since, he had earned a well-deserved reputation as a man who understood the special needs of privateers. In addition to making his own covert investments in privateering ventures, Fletcher made a business of selling privateering commissions to men such as Captain Tew, and of accepting bribes to allow plunder to be brought ashore for sale. In one notorious incident, a privateer captain, having disposed of his booty for a fortune to New York merchants, gave his ship to Governor Fletcher—who then sold it for the tidy sum of £800. It was a neat, and in this instance quite legal, bribe.