A General History of the Pirates

of these commodities to have been found. It was in 1722, resettled by the French, who have a fort at another neighbouring island, called Don Mascarine, and are touched at for water, wood, and refreshments, by French ships bound to, or for India; as St. Helena and Cap de Bonne-Espérance, are by us and the Dutch. From this place, Captain England and his companions having made a little boat of staves and old pieces of deal left there, went over to Madagascar, where they subsist at present on the charity of some of their brethren, who had made better provision for themselves, than they had done.

The pirates detained some officers and men belonging to Captain Mackra, and having repaired the damages received in their rigging, they sailed for India. The day before they made land, saw two ships to the eastward, who at first sight, they took to be English, and ordered one of the prisoners, who had been an officer with Captain Mackra, to tell them the private signals between the company’s ships, the Captain swearing he would cut him in pound pieces, if he did not do it immediately; but unable, was forced to bear their scurrility, till they came up with them, and found they were two Moor ships from Muscat, with horses; they brought the captain of them, and merchants, on board, torturing them, and rifling the ships, in order to discover riches, as believing they came from Mocha; but being baulked in their expectation, and next morning seeing land, and at the same time a fleet in shore plying to windward, they were puzzled how to dispose of them; to let them go, was to discover and ruin the voyage, and it was cruel to sink the men and horses with the ships, (as many of them were inclined to,) therefore, as a medium, they brought them to an anchor, threw all their sails overboard, and cut one of the ship’s masts half through.

While they lay at an anchor, and were all the next day employed in taking out water, one of the aforementioned fleet bore towards them with English colours, answered with a red ensign from the pirates, but did not speak with one another. At night they left the Muscat ships, weighed with the sea wind, and stood to the northward after this fleet: about four next morning, just as they were getting under sail, with the land wind, the pirates came amongst them, made no stop, but fired their great and small guns very briskly, till they got through; and as daylight cleared, were in a great consternation in their minds, having all along taken them for Angria’s fleet; what to do was the point, whether run or pursue? They were sensible of their inferiority of strength, having no more than 300 men in both ships, and 40 of them Negroes; besides, the Victory had then four pumps at work, and must inevitably been lost before, had it not been for some hand-pumps, and several pair of standards brought out of the Cassandra, to relieve and strengthen her; but observing the indifferency of the fleet, chose rather to chase than run; and thought the best way to save themselves, was to play at bullbeggar with the enemy: so they came up with the sea wind, about gunshot to leeward, the great ships of the fleet ahead, and some others astern; which latter they took for fire-vessels: and these ahead gaining from them by cutting away their boats, they could do nothing more than continue their course all night, which they did, and found them next morning out of sight, excepting a ketch and some few gallivats, (small sort of vessels something like the feluccas of the Mediterranean, and hoists, like them, triangular sails.) They bore down, which the ketch perceiving, transported her people on board a gallivat, and set fire to her; the other proved too nimble and made off. The same day they chased another gallivat and took her, being come from Ghogha, bound for Calicut with cotton. Of these men they enquired concerning the fleet, supposing they must have been in it; and although they protested they had not seen a ship or boat since they left Ghogha, and pleaded very earnestly for favour; yet they threw all their cargo overboard, and squezed their joints in a vice, to extort confession: but they entirely ignorant of who or what this fleet should be, were obliged not only to sustain this torment, but next day a fresh easterly wind having split the gallivat’s sails, they put her company into the boat, with nothing but a trysail, no provisions, and only four gallons of water, (half of it salt,) and then out of sight of land, to shift for themselves.

For the better elucidating of this story, it may be convenient to inform the reader, who Angria is, and what the fleet were, that had so scurvily behaved themselves.

Angria is a famous Indian pirate, of considerable strength and territories, that gives continual disturbance to the European (and especially the English) trade: his chief hold is Callaba, not many leagues from Bombay, and has one island in sight of that port, whereby he gains frequent opportunities of annoying the company. It would not be so insuperable a difficulty to suppress him, if the shallowness of the water did not prevent ships of war coming nigh: and a better art he has, of bribing the mogul’s ministers for protection, when he finds an enemy too powerful.

In the year 1720, the Bombay fleet consisting of four grabs, (ships built in India by the company, and have three masts, a prow like a row galley, instead of a bowsprit, about 150 tons; are officered and armed like a man-of-war, for defence and protection of the trade,) the London, Chandois, and two other ships with gallivats, who besides their proper complements, carried down 1,000 men to bombard and batter Gheria, a fort