The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down

by Colin Woodard

  Bellamy, Blackbeard, and Vane didn't start their pirate society from scratch. They had a role model in Henry Avery,* a "pirate king" who was said to have led his fellow crewmen from oppression between the decks to a life of unimaginable luxury in a pirate kingdom of their own. Avery's feats were accomplished while Bellamy, Blackbeard, and Vane were still children, and had become legendary by the time they were young men. His adventures inspired plays and novels, historians and newspaper writers, and, ultimately, the Golden Age pirates themselves. The romantic myth of piracy didn't follow the Golden Age, it helped create it. The pirates' tale, therefore, starts with Henry Avery, and the arrival of a mysterious ship in Nassau three centuries ago.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE LEGEND

  1696

  THE SLOOP ARRIVED in the afternoon of April Fool's Day 1696, swinging around the low, sandy expanse of Hog Island and into Nassau's wide, dazzlingly blue harbor.

  At first, the villagers on the beach and the sailors in the harbor took little notice. Small and nondescript, this sloop was a familiar sight, a trading vessel from the nearby island of Eleuthera, fifty miles to the east. She came to Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, on a regular basis to trade salt and produce for cloth and sugar, and to get news brought in from England, Jamaica, and the Carolinas. The bystanders expected to see her crew drop anchor, load their goods into their longboat, and row toward the beach, as the capital had no wharves or piers. Later, their cargoes disposed of, the crew would go drinking in one of Nassau's public houses, trading updates of the ongoing war, the movements of the infernal French, and cursing the absence of the Royal Navy.

  But not on this day.

  The sloop's crew rowed ashore. Its captain, a local man familiar to all, jumped onto the beach, followed by several strangers. The latter wore unusual clothing: silks from India, perhaps, a kerchief in bright African patterns, headgear from Arabia, as rank and dirty as the cheap woolens worn by any common seaman. Those who came near enough to overhear their speech or peer into their tanned faces could tell they were English and Irish mariners not unlike those from other large ships that came from the far side of the Atlantic.

  The party made its way through the tiny village, a few dozen houses clustered along the shore in the shadow of a modest stone fortress. They crossed the newly cleared town square, passing the island's humble wooden church, eventually arriving at the recently built home of Governor Nicholas Trott. They stood barefoot on the sun-baked sand and dirt, the fecund smell of the tropics filling their nostrils. Townspeople stopped to stare at the wild-looking men waiting on the governor's doorstep. A servant opened the door and, upon exchanging a few words with the sloop's master, rushed off to inform His Excellency that an urgent message had arrived.

  ***

  Nicholas Trott already had his hands full that morning. His colony was in trouble. England had been at war with France for eight years, disrupting the Bahamas' trade and supply lines. Trott received a report that the French had captured the island of Exuma, 140 miles away, and were headed for Nassau with three warships and 320 men. Nassau had no warships at its disposal; in fact, no ships of the Royal Navy had passed this way in several years, there not being nearly enough of them to protect England's sprawling empire. There was Fort Nassau, newly built from local stone, with twenty-eight cannon mounted on its ramparts, but with many settlers fleeing for the better protection of Jamaica, South Carolina, and Bermuda, Trott was finding it almost impossible to keep the structure manned. There were no more than seventy men left in town, including the elderly and disabled. Half the male population was serving guard duty at any one time in addition to attending to their usual occupations, which left many of them, in Trott's words, "terribly fatigued." Trott knew that if the French attacked in force, there was little hope of holding Nassau and the rest of New Providence, the island on which his tiny capital was perched. These were Trott's preoccupations when he received the merchant captain from Eleuthera and his mysterious companions.

  The strangers' leader, Henry Adams, explained that he and his colleagues had recently arrived in the Bahamas aboard the Fancy, a private warship of forty-six guns and 113 men, and sought Trott's permission to come into Nassau's harbor. Adams handed over a letter from his captain, Henry Bridgeman, containing a most outlandish proposition. The Fancy, Bridgeman claimed, had just arrived in Eleuthera from the coast of Africa, where he had been slave trading without the permission of the Royal Africa Company, which owned a monopoly over such activities. Captain Bridgeman's letter explained that the Fancy had run low on provisions and its crew was in need of shore leave. Were the governor to be so kind as to allow the ship into the harbor, he would be amply rewarded. Every member of the crew would give Trott a personal gift of twenty Spanish pieces of eight and two pieces of gold, with Bridgeman, as commander, kicking in a double share. The strangers were offering him a bribe worth some £860 at a time when a governor's annual salary was but £300. To top it off, the crew would also give him the Fancy herself, once they had unloaded and disposed of the (as yet) unspecified cargo. He could pocket nearly three years of wages and become the owner of a sizeable warship simply by letting the strangers ashore and not asking any pointed questions.

  Trott pocketed the letter and called an emergency meeting of the colony's governing council. The minutes of that meeting have since been lost, but from the testimony of others in Nassau at the time, it's clear that Governor Trott neglected to mention the bribes to the councilmen. Instead, he appealed to their shared interest in the colony's security. The Fancy, he pointed out, was as large as a fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, and her presence might deter a French attack. The addition of her crew would nearly double the number of able-bodied men on New Providence, ensuring that Fort Nassau's guns would be manned in the event of an invasion. And besides, where would they be if Bridgeman chose to refit his vessel at the French port of Martinique or, worse, decided to attack Nassau itself? Violating the Royal Africa Company's monopoly was a fairly minor crime, an insufficient reason to deny him entry.

  The members of the council concurred. The governor gave Henry Adams a "very civil" letter welcoming the Fancy to Nassau, where she and her crew "were welcome to come and to go as they pleased."

  Not long thereafter, a great ship rounded Hog Island,* her decks crowded with sailors, her sides pierced with gun ports, and her hull sunk low in the water under the weight of her cargo. Adams and his party were the first to come ashore, their longboat filled with bags and chests. The promised loot was there: a fortune in silver pieces of eight and golden coins minted in Arabia and beyond. Longboats ferried the crew ashore throughout the day. The rest of the crew resembled the landing party: ordinary-looking mariners dressed in oriental finery, each bearing large parcels of gold, silver, and jewels. The man calling himself Captain Bridgeman also came ashore and, after a closed meeting with Trott, turned the great warship over to him. When the governor arrived aboard the Fancy, he found they had left him a tip: The hold contained more than fifty tons of elephant tusks, 100 barrels of gunpowder, several chests filled with guns and muskets, and a remarkable collection of ship's anchors.

  Trott would later claim to have had no reason to suspect the Fancy's crew of being involved in piracy. "How could I know it?" he testified under oath."Supposition is not proof." Captain Bridgeman and his men had claimed to be unlicensed merchants, he added, and the people of New Providence "saw no reason to disbelieve them." But Trott was no fool. He had been a merchant captain himself and well knew that treasures of the sort the Fancy carried were not the product of some unsanctioned bargaining with the people of Africa's Slave Coast. Standing aboard the Fancy, her hold filled with ivory and weapons, her sails patched from cannonball damage and musket balls embedded in her deck work, Trott was forced to make a choice: enforce the law or pocket the money. He didn't ponder very long. On the governor's orders, boats began ferrying the Fancy's remaining cargo ashore. Soon the beach was littered with chests of ivory tusks and firearms, pile
s of sails, anchors and tackle, barrels of gunpowder and provisions, heavy cannon and their ammunition. Trott put his personal boatswain and several African slaves aboard the ship. The ivory tusks, the pieces of eight and bags of gold coins were delivered to his private quarters. Captain Bridgeman and his men were free to drink and carouse in Nassau's two pubs and could leave whenever they wished.

  So it was that England's most wanted man bought off the law and sold his pirate ship to one of His Majesty's own governors. Captain Bridgeman was in reality Henry Avery, the most successful pirate of his generation, a man whose exploits were already becoming the stuff of legend. At that moment, dozens of ships, hundreds of officials, thousands of sailors, informers, and soldiers around the world were searching for Avery, his crew, and a king's ransom in stolen treasure. East India Company agents were following up rumors about his having been sighted near Bombay and Calcutta. Royal Navy captains were hunting for the Fancy off the shores of West Africa, Madagascar, and Arabia. Bounty hunters sailed the Indian Ocean and the approaches to the English Channel. Few would guess that Avery and his men were, at that moment, relaxing in the shadow of an English fort.

  ***

  Henry Avery had spent most of his thirty-six years at sea. Born outside the coastal town of Plymouth in the English West Country, he went to sea as a young man and served as mate on a number of trading vessels. Shortly after England went to war with France in 1688, Avery enlisted in the Royal Navy, serving as a junior officer aboard HMS Rupert and HMS Albemarle and seeing combat on both frigates. Along the way, he and his fellow sailors had experienced beatings and humiliations from officers, eaten rotten or substandard food courtesy of corrupt pursers, and their salaries had gone unpaid for years on end. It was a beggar's life for shipmates who lost arms, legs, hands, feet, or eyes in accidents or battle. Sailors said that prisoners led a better life, and after more than two decades at sea, Avery had to agree.

  In the spring of 1693, he thought he'd found a better deal. He heard that a group of wealthy merchants was assembling a squadron of merchant ships for an unusually daring mission. Four heavily armed ships were to leave England, collect necessary documents in Spain, and sail for the Caribbean. Once there, they would conduct trade with the Spanish colonies and attack and plunder French ships and plantations. The merchants were paying well and, most importantly, their contract promised more certain prospects: a guaranteed monthly wage at fair rates, with one month's pay advanced before the ships even left England. Avery knew there would be better food and drink than aboard the king's ships, as well as the possibility of pocketing a small share of the plunder along the way. He applied for a position and, with his top-notch references and distinguished service record, was hired as first mate aboard the expedition's forty-six-gun flagship, Charles II, under Captain Charles Gibson.

  In early August, before the squadron sailed, the men received, as promised, their first month's wages. More encouraging, the squadron's chief owner, Sir James Houblon, personally came aboard the ships, assuring the men that they or their families would be paid every six months throughout their deployment. With that, the Charles II and her three consorts, the James, Dove, and Seventh Son pulled up anchor and floated down the River Thames. For Avery and his shipmates, it appeared to be the beginning of a profitable adventure.

  Things went badly from the start. The journey to La Coruna in northern Spain should have taken two weeks, but for some reason it took the Charles II and her consorts five months. Upon arrival they discovered that the privateering documents they needed had yet to arrive from Madrid, so they sat at anchor and waited. A week passed, then two, and then a month, with no indication that the wheels of Spanish bureaucracy were turning. Aboard the crowded ships, the men grew restless, and some began asking why their promised semiannual salary payment had not yet been made. They sent a petition to Sir James Houblon, asking that salaries be paid out to the sailors or their wives, as previously agreed. In response, Houblon told his agent to put several petitioners in irons and lock them in the ships' dank brigs.

  Such reaction did not put the sailors' minds at rest. While visiting other vessels in La Coruna's sleepy harbor, some of the married sailors were able to send word back to their wives in England. A letter informed the women of their husbands' plight and urged them to meet Houblon in person to demand the wages they no doubt needed to survive. The women then confronted Houblon, a wealthy merchant and founding deputy governor of the Bank of England, whose brother was chief governor of the Bank and would soon become Lord Mayor of London. His response chilled them to the bone. The ships and their men were now under the king of Spain's control and as far as he was concerned the king could "pay them or hang them if he pleased."

  When word of Houblon's response got back to La Coruna, the sailors began to panic. Several pleaded with the captain of a visiting English warship to take them back, but were refused. Captain Gibson's personal steward, William May, offered to forsake £30 in back wages were he allowed to leave the Charles II; Gibson told him to return to duty or he would be thrown in jail. The ship's company concluded they had been sold into the service of the king of Spain for "all the dayes of their lives."

  Henry Avery came up with a solution. On May 6, 1694, four months after arriving in La Coruna, he and some of his fellow sailors rowed into town. Wandering the narrow, winding streets, they gathered up men from the other English ships in the harbor. He had a plan to gain their freedom.

  At nine o'clock the following evening, several of these recruits set out from the Charles II in a small boat. When they came alongside the James, one of the sailors hailed a figure on deck using a prearranged password: "Is your drunken boatswain on board?" This failed to elicit the expected response, so they spoke more plainly, something along the lines of: "We're part of the secret plan to seize control of the Charles, so all you mutineers hop on board and we'll row you over there." Unfortunately the man on the deck of the James was not a member of the conspiracy and he ran off to alert his captain. Before the captain sounded the general alarm, however, twenty-five conspirators from the James launched the ship's pinnace—the largest of her boats—and rowed off after their colleagues in the direction of the Charles.

  Back on the Charles, Avery heard the sounds of commotion echoing across the harbor from the James. He knew they could wait no longer. He and two dozen of his men rushed out on deck, seized the watchman, and took control of the quarterdeck, where the helm and many of a ship's other controls were located. As their co-conspirators from the other ship arrived in boats, the captain of the James opened fire, sending two cannonballs splashing into the harbor next to the Charles. The cannon fire alerted the Spaniards manning La Coruna's medieval fortress, who were now readying its guns. Avery barked out orders. Men rushed forward to cut the ship's thick anchor lines or clambered up the ratlines to unfurl the sails; the helmsman brought the ship off the wind, while others hauled the sails into place. Slowly, the Charles pulled out of the harbor, under the guns of the fort, and into the open Atlantic.

  A few miles out of port, Avery went below decks to speak with Captain Gibson, who was ill and bedridden, and the second mate, Jonathan Gravet, both of whom were now under guard in their respective cabins. By their accounts, Avery treated them with courtesy and even offered Gibson command of the Charles if he joined their conspiracy. He refused. Avery nonetheless promised to let both men go ashore come morning in one of the boats, along with any other men who wished to leave. Avery gave Gravet three parting gifts: a coat, a waistcoat, and his own commission as first mate. Gravet later recalled that Gibson's steward, William May, "took me by the hand and wished me well home and bid me remember him to his wife."

  In the morning, Gibson, Gravet, and fifteen other men got into one of the Charles II's launches and rowed off toward the mainland. "I am a man of fortune, and must seek my fortune," Avery told Gibson before they parted.

  ***

  Later that day, Avery held a general meeting of the ship's company: eighty-five men in all, e
ach of them there voluntarily except for the ship's doctor, whose services they were unwilling to part with. Avery proposed a new and better way of providing for themselves and their families: They would raid ships and settlements as originally planned, only not in the Caribbean, and not for the profit of Houblon. Instead they would sail for the Indian Ocean, where they would go after the richly laden merchantmen of the Orient and keep the plunder for themselves. He'd heard that the island of Madagascar would make a perfect base of operations; located off the southeastern coast of Africa it had no European presence, hundreds of miles of secluded coastline, and natives who would happily trade food and other necessities. When it was all over, Avery told them, they could quietly slip back into England with their riches.

  Avery must have been persuasive because the men agreed to his plan and appointed him as their captain. Collectively they laid out an equitable scheme for sharing future plunder. While on most privateering vessels, the captain got between six and fourteen shares to the ordinary seaman's one, Avery would receive only one extra share, his mate an extra half. They would make all major decisions democratically, except during combat, when Avery's command would be absolute. They also voted to rename the ship: From here on out she would be called the Fancy.

  They spent the month of May sailing down the Atlantic, stopping at the island of Moia in the Cape Verde Islands, 350 miles off the West African coast. Moia was a depressing place, a treeless island baking under the tropical sun. It was frequented by mariners for its expansive inland salt ponds, salt being the main food preservative of the era. In the bleak cove that served as Moia's harbor, they found three English merchant ships loading salt the natives had piled for them on the beach. Faced with the Fancy's overwhelming firepower, the captains surrendered without a fight. Avery relieved them of provisions and an anchor to replace the one he'd left on the bottom of La Coruna harbor, but politely gave them a receipt for everything he had stolen. Less thoughtfully, he forced nine members of their crew to join his pirate band, probably because they, like the doctor, had special skills required to keep the Fancy operational.