The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago | Page 7

that
after a two days' chase he had brought them to, when they turned out to
be two Danish ships, with two prizes they had taken. They showed him
their commission, authorizing them to make reprisals on the Mogul's
subjects for affronts offered to Danish traders; so he left them alone. A
few months later the Portuguese factory at Cong, in the Persian Gulf,
was plundered by an English pirate; another was heard of in the Red
Sea, while Philip Babington an Irish pirate, was cruising off Tellichery
in the Charming Mary.
By 1689 a number of sea rovers from the West Indies had made their
appearance, and the factory at Fort St. George reported that the sea
trade was 'pestered with pirates.' The first comers had contented
themselves with plundering native ships. Now their operations were
extended to European vessels not of their own nationality. In time this
restriction ceased to be observed; they hoisted the red or black flag,
with or without the colours of the nationality they affected, and spared
no vessel they were strong enough to capture.
The Armenian merchants were loud in their complaints. An Armenian
ship, bound from Goa to Madras, with twenty thousand pagodas on
board, was taken by a pirate ship of two hundred tons, carrying
twenty-two guns and a crew of sixty men. Another Armenian ship, with
fifty thousand xeraphims, was taken near Bombay, on its voyage from
Goa to Surat. Besides those that beset the Malabar coast, there were
pirates in the Persian Gulf, at the mouth of the Red Sea, and in the
Mozambique Channel, while five pirate vessels were cruising off
Acheen. During the next ten years the losses caused by the pirates were

prodigious.
Ovington mentions that at St. Helena (1689) they were told, by a slaver,
of three pirates, two English and the other Dutch, so richly laden with
booty that they could hardly navigate their ships, which had become
weather-beaten and unseaworthy from their long cruises off the Red
Sea mouth. Their worn-out canvas sails were replaced with double silk.
"They were prodigal in the expences of their unjust gain, and quenched
their thirst with Europe liquor at any rate this Commander (the slaver)
would put upon it; and were so frank both in distributing their goods,
and guzzling down the noble wine, as if they were both wearied with
the possession of their rapine, and willing to stifle all the melancholy
reflections concerning it."
Such an account was bound to fire the imagination of every seaman
who heard it.
The number of pirates was increased by the interlopers, merchant
adventurers trading without a licence, who, like John Hand, when they
failed to get cargoes, plundered native ships. Their proceedings were
imitated by the permission ships, vessels that held the Company's
licence for a single voyage. Not seldom the crews of interlopers and
permission ships rose and seized the vessel against the will of their
owners and commanders and hoisted the Jolly Roger. Commissions
were granted to the East India Company's commanders to seize
interlopers; but the interlopers, as a rule, were remarkably well able to
take care of themselves. As pirates and interlopers alike sailed under
English colours, the whole odium fell on the English. In August, 1691,
a ship belonging to the wealthy merchant, Abdul Guffoor, was taken at
the mouth of the Surat river, with nine lakhs in hard cash on board. A
guard was placed on the factory at Surat, and an embargo laid on
English trade. As the pirate had shown the colours of several
nationalities, the authorities were loth to proceed to extremities.
Fortunately for the English Company, a member of the pirate crew was
captured, and proved to be a Dane; so the embargo on English trade
was taken off.

Though they plied their calling at sea, almost with impunity, the pirates
occasionally fell victims to Oriental treachery on shore. Thus, James
Gilliam, a rover, having put into Mungrole, on the Kattiawar coast, was
made welcome and much praised for the noble lavishness with which
he paid for supplies. Soon there came an invitation to a banquet, and
Gilliam, with some of his officers and crew, twenty in all, were
received by the representative of the Nawab of Junaghur with excessive
ceremony. Much polite curiosity was evinced about the noble strangers.
"Why did they always go armed? Were their muskets loaded? Would
they discharge them to show their host the European method?" The
muskets were discharged, and immediately the banquet was announced.
"Delay to reload the muskets was inexpedient. It would be time to
recharge their weapons after the feast." And then, when seated and
defenceless, there was an irruption of armed men, and Gilliam, with his
followers, were seized and fettered. For a year they lay at Junaghur,
where