Raiders and Rebels

by Frank Sherry

  3. What happened to Amity and her crew after the death of Captain Tew is unclear. It appears, however, that the surviving crewmen participated later in a prearranged rendezvous with the other sea raiders with whom they had been operating, and took a share of the loot that these others had taken from Mogul prizes. It is said that some of Amity’s men returned home, while others went pirating on their own. As for Amity, it appears that she ended up as a pirate vessel, passing through many hands and eventually being wrecked or abandoned in Madagascar.

  Two: A Brilliant Time, a Brutal Time

  1.The Holy Roman Empire was the rather anomalous designation applied to a shifting, amorphous, political entity of Europe created by Pope Leo III in A.D. 800 as an attempt to re-create the Western Roman Empire, which had collapsed in A.D. 476—an event that led to the so-called Dark Ages.

  The first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was Charlemagne. Although it persisted—at least in name—until 1806, the empire was always an unstable entity since it did not rest on any national foundation. Generally speaking, the Holy Roman Empire was a political union of many German-speaking states, including Austria, parts of Italy, and a number of principalities of central Europe. Although the empire was politically important for approximately four hundred years after its establishment, its influence in European political and religious development declined during and after the thirteenth century. In the middle of the seventeenth century, after the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ War with its divisive religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, the Holy Roman Empire, for all practical purposes, ceased to exist in all but name. Its constituent states became virtually independent duchies, principalities, and “free cities.” The Hapsburg rulers of Austria, however, who had since the thirteenth century held the title Holy Roman Emperor, continued the fiction of the empire’s existence until Francis II, the last of the emperors, formally dissolved it on August 6, 1806, and instead proclaimed the Empire of Austria. Voltaire delivered what was probably the most telling assessment of the Holy Roman Empire when he declared that it was “neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.”

  2.Even the offspring of royalty died young. England’s Queen Anne, who succeeded William III, gave birth sixteen times, but none of these potential heirs to the throne even lived to puberty.

  Three: A Seaman’s Lot

  1.It was common practice in the days of sail for warships to take prizes and to sell the captured vessel and its cargo to interested merchants, and then divide the proceeds among the officers and men of the ship that had made the capture. In the Royal Navy, prize money was usually divided according to the following formula: The captain took three eighths of the total, with the officers dividing one eighth and the Admiralty receiving one eighth. The remaining three eighths would be shared among the crew members. Thus, unless a prize realized a great sum at sale, which happened very seldom since merchants were usually buying damaged goods at bargain prices, the share of each individual crewman would amount to relatively little, usually only a few pounds, but often only a handful of shillings. For example, if a prize fetched £1,600, which would be a relatively good price, the crew’s share would amount to some £600 and would, depending on the size of the crew, fetch each sailor £2 or £3. It was a tidy sum, probably the equivalent of $400 to $600, but it was hardly equitable. Moreover, prizes of such worth were rare. Only a few warships took prizes, and even when they did, prize money usually had to be shared among several ships, since men-of-war seldom acted alone.

  The Royal Navy formula for sharing prize money was also the formula generally followed by merchant vessels, including the vessels of the East India Company. Privateers, on the other hand, generally divided prize money into equal shares, with the captain or other officers receiving an additional amount, depending upon the agreement stipulated for the privateering voyage. Almost without exception, prize money realized by privateers was shared out in a generally fair manner, which was one of the circumstances that made privateering so attractive to the ordinary sailor.

  2.Much of what we know about the buccaneers comes from a memoir written by one John Esquemeling who was probably a Fleming or a Hollander and who published a history of the buccaneers of America in Amsterdam in 1678. Esquemeling apparently arrived at the island of Tortuga in 1666 as an indentured servant and, after a number of misadventures, joined the buccaneers, remaining with them until 1672. Apparently Esquemeling served the buccaneers as a barber-surgeon and was present at many of their exploits. His firsthand observations are generally considered the only truly authentic history of the buccaneers of the Spanish Main.

  3.Although the buccaneer brotherhood was already past its glory days on the Spanish Main when King William’s War broke out, French buccaneers continued to play an important part fighting for France during the war. Although described by French officials in the Caribbean as “refuse” and as “men without honor and without virtue,” the French buccaneers were accorded special privileges by France and utilized in devastating raids against the old English buccaneer island of Jamaica. Although they never managed to take Jamaica for France, they caused immense damage and took much booty. The French buccaneers also participated in the capture and sack by a powerful French fleet of the heavily fortified Spanish port of Cartagena. Located on the coast of South America in what is now Colombia, Cartagena fell to the French and their buccaneer allies in June 1697. It was the last major victory of the buccaneers. In succeeding decades the French joined with the Spanish and the English in suppressing them.

  English buccaneers, centered mainly in Jamaica during King William’s War, played little part in the war, unlike their French counterparts. Some turned to outright piracy. A few settled down as planters on Jamaica, fiercely resisting French efforts to take Jamaica for France. Henry Morgan, the quintessential English buccaneer, had died in 1688 at the age of fifty-three, so bloated from drink that he could not move from his hammock. Perhaps, if he had lived, the English buccaneers of Jamaica would have played a more important role in King William’s War. But this is doubtful, given the fact that Morgan’s incessant drunkenness had caused him to be ousted not only as lieutenant governor but also from the governing council of Jamaica.

  Another event that did much to cripple the fighting capacities of the English buccaneers was the catastrophic earthquake that struck Port Royal, Jamaica’s main town, in June 1692. The quake leveled a third of Port Royal and dumped it into the sea. More than two thousand of the town’s inhabitants were killed. Some said the quake was God’s judgment upon the wicked buccaneers.

  Four: The Very Model of a Pirate Villain

  1.Bristol, England’s second-largest city at the time, was the home port for most of Britain’s slave ships. In the late seventeenth century it was also the prime territory for recruiting sailors for privateer missions. The thinking was that men hardened by the slave trade would make excellent privateers. Many of the toughest pirates ever to sail under the black flag called Bristol their home.

  Five: The Outlaw Nation

  2.The origin of the term “Jolly Roger” as the name for the pirate flag is obscure, although there are at least two possibilities. The first holds that French buccaneers, with Gallic irony, called their blood-red flag joli rouge, meaning, roughly, “pretty red.” Untutored English sailors corrupted this to “Jolly Roger,” and the name was later applied to the black flag. This seems a very likely explanation, since English sailors were responsible for other similar corruptions, such as turning the Dutch word vrijbuiter, meaning “plunderer,” into “freebooter.”

  A second theory about the origin of the Jolly Roger also involves the English sailors’ propensity for mispronouncing foreign words. According to this version, Muslim pirates operating in the area of Indonesia often gave themselves the Tamil title Ali Raja meaning “King of the Sea.” These eastern pirates also flew a red flag, and it is easy to imagine English sailors supposing, in error, that the term “Ali Raja” referred to the flag—and then further corrupting the term
to something like “Olly Roger,” which then easily becomes “Jolly Roger.”

  Another explanation begins with the fact that in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the Devil was often called by the slang term “Old Roger.” According to this explanation, pirates simply adopted the slang term for their flag.

  Six: The Rage of Rich Men Balked

  1.In fact, the competition between the two companies proved ruinous to both of them, and after only four years of head-to-head competition, the two companies began to cooperate in 1694—in effect restoring the monopoly that had existed for almost one hundred years. Although for an additional fifteen years the two companies continued to maintain the fiction that they were separate competitors, in reality they were one enterprise. But it was not until 1709 that they formally amalgamated under the name The United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies.

  2.Oddly enough, one of the most important figures in the company’s history was an American who entered the company’s employ about this time. He later became governor of Madras and amassed an immense fortune in India, returning to his home in Connecticut to endow the university named after him. He was Elihu Yale.

  3.These native pirates, called the Malabar Coast pirates, were every bit as vicious and in many ways even more successful than the European pirates who came to Indian waters in these years. Under the leadership of one Kanhoji Angria, the Malabar Coast pirates terrorized the waters off India, taking not only Mogul ships but East India Company ships as well. Aurangzeb and his successors failed completely to root out Angria and his cohorts. By 1715 Angria had under his command a total of twenty-six coastal forts in the area south of Bombay. Under the guns of these sanctuaries, Angria’s fleets could find protection after pirating voyages far out into the Indian Ocean. Angria died in 1729 and his five sons quarreled among themselves for leadership of his pirate kingdom. In 1743 one of the sons, Tulaji, finally gained control of the pirate dominion established by his father. Under Tulaji’s leadership the Malabar Coast pirates grew stronger than ever. Then the British government, finally fed up with the depredations of these native brigands, sent a Royal Navy squadron to put an end to them. In April 1755 four British warships under Commodore William James began a two-day bombardment of the pirates’ main stronghold. The pirates held out until a powder magazine inside the fortress blew up; then Tulaji and his men abandoned it. Subsequently Commodore James bombarded other pirate forts into submission. Tulaji himself was captured in February 1756 by a second English squadron operating in the area, and with him the reign of the Malabar Coast pirates came to an end.

  4.Before the East India Company is blamed too much for a shortsighted niggardly attitude in arming and crewing its ships, it should be remembered that the company was caught in a double bind. If it made no profit, it would soon cease to exist. In order to maintain profits in the face of competition from rivals, it had to keep costs down and tonnage of cargoes up. Company officials certainly knew that they were risking both ship and cargo by underarming and undercrewing their vessels. But they also knew that the chances were better than fifty-fifty that an underarmed and undercrewed East Indiaman would get through and make a big profit, while the chances were absolutely 100 percent that a properly armed and properly crewed vessel would lose money. The only sensible course open to the company was to take the fifty-fifty bet and continue to operate its ships with too little armament and too few crewmen.

  5.Not all stories of pirate cruelty and punishments were true, however. For example, there is absolutely no record of pirates forcing anyone to “walk the plank.” This pirate punishment, like such pirate lore as the “black spot” and buried treasure, is largely the invention of fiction writers of the nineteenth century.

  6.Another peculiar tactic employed by pirates to create terror was the creation of a cacophony, by beating on drums and cymbals, when a pirate ship neared its victim. Apparently many pirates believed that by setting up a horrible din, they would make themselves seem like madmen to their victims, who would then more readily surrender. It is not clear whether this tactic actually struck terror into pirate victims or merely confused them. It seems highly unlikely that sensible people would more readily surrender themselves to madmen than to rational beings.

  7.Perhaps it was no more than the bitter gossip of men who feared for their fortunes, but a number of investors in the East India Company believed that the real reason a Royal Navy force was not sent to Madagascar was because William of Orange, now King William III of England, had no love for the East India Company. As a Dutchman, William, prior to his becoming king, must have resented the East India Company’s private wars with Dutch merchant companies. As the Parliament’s chosen ruler, William must also have harbored suspicions about the company’s close ties with the deposed Stuarts. Further, it was William who had affixed his royal signature to the license of the competitive English East India Company voted into existence by Parliament in 1688. Whatever the reality may have been, the Royal Navy was not sent eastward to Madagascar.

  Seven: On the Account

  1.The term “on the account” as a euphemism for piracy traces back to the early seventeenth century when crewmen aboard merchant ships were sometimes allowed to bring small amounts of freight or cargo on a voyage to trade “on their own account” at the ports visited by the vessel. The custom was not apparently very widespread since only a few seamen could afford to do this. It was, however, often a poor sailor’s ambition to accumulate enough cash to buy trade goods for his own account. Later in the century, when every inch of cargo space was extremely valuable, the custom of allowing individual sailors to trade privately was gradually discontinued. But the term “on the account” remained in usage, transformed by the rough humor of sailors into a euphemism for piracy.

  2.The chances of a pirate’s being caught were probably about as great as the chances of any other criminal’s being caught; that is, the longer a pirate kept at it, the more likely the law was to catch up with him. There are instances of pirates “retiring” after making a big score, but most of them—even if they did score big—stayed in the life or around its fringes because the life itself was what attracted them. Many, when they grew too old for the life, or too infirm, retired by accepting pardons that were periodically offered by governments more intent on halting the sweet trade than on hanging sailors. Nevertheless, the record is clear that pirates who went pirating too long, or who—like Henry Every’s men—tried to return to a society where the law was strong and vindictive, usually ended up paying the price for their crimes. It is also important in this connection to make the point that although the noble concept of individual liberty was the lure that drew men to piracy, the desire for freedom does not by itself make men noble, nor does it excuse crimes. Pirates wanted to live free, but they also often behaved abominably, and they frequently committed terrible crimes to maintain their freedom. To be motivated by a noble concept is not necessarily ennobling, as history makes plain over and over again.

  3.It is interesting to note that although boys were common aboard pirate ships, some ships—most notably Bartholomew Roberts’s vessels—specifically excluded them, as they did women. It is possible to infer from this fact that for the strait-laced Roberts at least, boys aboard ship could cause as much trouble as women—and perhaps for the same reason.

  4.For all their barbaric cruelty, however, pirates could be capriciously generous to those they liked. They often made magnificent gifts to the whores who eased their nights. Old shipmates and comrades, especially if they had fallen upon hard days, were often the objects of their generosity. Many pirate ships included in their crews men who had lost an eye or a limb in previous service, whose usefulness to the ship was now doubtful at best but who were kept on at a full or half share out of affection and remembrance of past services.

  5.Loss of an arm was always worth more in compensation than the loss of a leg—and the loss of the right arm or leg was worth more than the loss of either left l
imb. Curiously, the loss of an eye ranked only with the loss of a finger. Generally speaking, pirates compensated the loss of a left leg with 400 pieces of eight, while a right leg was worth 500. The loss of a left arm was worth 500 pieces of eight, while a right arm was worth 600. The loss of an eye earned the wounded man only 100 pieces of eight. Compensation for total loss of sight was usually decided by a special vote. The amounts paid for wounds of all kinds, however, varied greatly from crew to crew.

  Eight: The Trusty and Well-beloved Captain

  1.There were a number of reasons why Bellomont’s backers might have wanted to keep their names out of the business. First, as parliamentary grandees not particularly friendly to the East India Company, they might have been reluctant to have their names associated with an effort that could be construed as bailing out the company. Second, and far more likely, as close associates of the king, they might have wished to shield the sovereign from any embarrassment should the enterprise go wrong in any way. Third, and the most likely of all, there was a whiff of “something not quite right” about the whole idea of profiting by plundering the plunder of pirates. Seizing pirate loot might be judged in some quarters as just another form of piracy or, at the very least, an unsavory game for lords of the realm to be playing. It is worth noting in this regard that although the king had originally stated his willingness to buy a share in a pirate-killer privateering venture, in the end he did not participate. Perhaps, upon reflection, he did not consider it suitable. More probably he was away in Flanders prosecuting his war at the time Bellomont was forming his syndicate.

  2.According to tradition, Kidd was the son of a Calvinist minister, the Reverend John Kidd, of Greenock, Scotland. Yet there is no record of a minister by that name serving in Greenock around the year 1645 when, according to informed conjecture, William Kidd was born. In reality, the records tell nothing about Kidd’s birth or his parents. The only incontrovertible fact about Kidd’s origin is that he was a Scot, a fact no doubt deduced from his accent. Even Kidd’s birth date is open to some question, although the year 1645 seems about right since, at the time of his death in 1701, the chaplain of Newgate Prison, where Kidd spent his last days, reported his age as “about 56 years.”