CAPTAIN JOHN AVERY TAKING THE GREAT MOGUL’S SHIP
From a rare engraving in the Harry Elkins Widener Collection, Harvard College Library
The booty on the Mogul’s ship was immense and consisted of diamonds, pearls and valuable jewels and also great sums of money intended to meet the cost of the pilgrimage, an amount said to have been over £325,000. Not content with this, Avery ravished the young princess and eventually took her in his ship to Madagascar where he had a child by her. When the Great Mogul learned what had happened, it aroused a fanatical resentment against the English factories that was only appeased by the promise of the governor to send out two ships of the East India Company to convey the pilgrims to Jedda.
Meanwhile, large rewards for his capture were offered by the British Government and Avery abandoned the Perim rendezvous and effected a settlement on Madagascar where he built a strong fortification and organized a rude form of government that exacted a tenth of the value of all captures and required tribute from the native princes on the island. This tribute commonly took the form of their daughters and other young girls who were added to the harems of the pirates. Many slaves were employed in cultivating rice, fishing and hunting and for a time a powerful settlement existed that was resorted to by pirates from all parts of the world. When Capt. Woods Rogers went to Madagascar in the “Delicia,” in 1722, to buy slaves to sell to the Dutch at Batavia, he touched at a part of the island where he met some of the pirates who had been living there for more than twenty-five years and were surrounded by a motley collection of children and grandchildren.
Avery ruled his little kingdom for a time but at last wearying of it, planned with some chosen spirits to make his way to America. While cruising with other vessels, one night his ship steered another course and in the morning the others were no longer in sight. The first land they made was the island of Providence, one of the Bahamas, where the ship was sold[171] and in a sloop they touched at several American ports at each of which some of the company disappeared. Avery intended to settle in Boston but finding that Puritan town no safe market for the display or sale of his store of diamonds, he sailed for Ireland and eventually reached Bideford in Devonshire, where he changed his name and lived quietly.[172] Through a friend he delivered his ill-gotten fortune to Bristol merchants to be converted into money. Needing funds he applied for an accounting and was shocked to discover that there were as good pirates on land as he had been at sea. He died June 10, 1714 not leaving money enough to buy a coffin.
While the founding of a pirate colony on the island of Madagascar is generally credited to Avery and other pirate captains of his time it is likely that at some earlier date a base had been established there by buccaneers from the west coast of South America who, after looting the wealth of Peru and Mexico, came in search of a hiding place at which to enjoy their gains. The first rendezvous of the pirates was in Masseledge Bay on the northwest coast of Madagascar, but later an important settlement grew up on the island of St. Mary, or Nosy Boraha, on the east coast, about three leagues from the mainland, which for some time was the resort of Avery and Plantain, the celebrated Jamaica pirate. Here came Burgess, Clayton, Taylor, Congdon, England and other successful leaders. The island stronghold was established, it is said, by Mission and Carracioli, who named it Libertatia. It was fortified and from here marauding expeditions were fitted out on a large scale. Pirates gorged with plunder settled on plantations where they surrounded themselves with native “wives” and slaves. The native tribes brought down their cattle from the interior and exchanged them for European trinkets provided by the pirates, who also incited the numerous chiefs to war with their neighbors and then bought their prisoners of war to be sold to slavers and taken to the plantations in the West Indies and America.
The pirate settlements on the Madagascar coast increased in population and required various goods and supplies necessary not only for human comfort but also to continue the trade of plundering,—powder and shot and the like. This demand was supplied by vessels sailing at somewhat regular intervals from New York, Newport and Philadelphia and furnished with passes from Governor Fletcher of New York or some other person in authority. It was said in London that in Philadelphia they “not onlie wink att but Imbrace pirats, Shipps and men.”[173] In 1697 many returned pirates were living in Philadelphia and Governor Basse of New Jersey reported that colony to be a favorite resort for such gentry. The daughter of William Penn’s agent in Pennsylvania is said to have married one of these retired freebooters.[174] In 1699, Bellomont, the new governor of New York, reported that over forty of these returned pirates were in custody in New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
But the ships continued to clear from the port of New York bound for Madagascar. In the year 1699, four vessels were cleared at one time. The merchandise brought back so glutted the markets that some kinds of European and Oriental goods could be bought in the Colonies cheaper than in London; and this was at a time when all European goods, by law, must be imported through London. One of Captain Avery’s men testified in Admiralty Court that “Captain Gough, who keeps a mercer’s shop at Boston, made a good estate” dealing in piratical plunder.
Rev. John Higginson, the minister at Salem, Massachusetts, had a son Thomas, who sailed for Arabia in a privateer before 1696 and nothing was heard from him afterward. Another son was in command at Fort George, in Madras, and in 1699 he wrote that Thomas’ “unhappy miscarriage” had troubled him much. Although he had met several who had been taken by pirates and afterwards escaped he could learn nothing of the erring Thomas. Four men-of-war had recently arrived in India having touched at Madagascar on the way out, but met no pirate vessels. The Salem minister replied in October, 1699:—
“I am sorry to hear there is such a crew of pirates in your parts; and do doubt not that what you intimate of New York, Providence, and the West Indies is too true. Frederick Phillips of New York, it is reported, has had a pirate trade to Madagascar for near twenty years, and it is said has attained an estate of 100,000 pounds. But I assure you the government of this place has always been severe with all such; and, at this time, there are many now in our gaol for piracy; namely, Captain Kidd, who went from England with a ship and commission to take pirates, but turned pirate himself, and robbed many ships in the East Indies, and thence came into the West Indies, and there disposed of much of his wealth; and at last came into these parts with some of his stolen goods; who was here seized, and some of his men, and goods, who are in irons, and wait for a trial. And there was one Bradish, a Cambridge man, who sailed in an interloper bound for India, who, in some part of the East Indies, took an opportunity, when the Captain and some of the officers were on shore, to run away with the ship, and came upon our coast, and sunk their ship at Block Island, and brought much wealth ashore with them; but Bradish, and many of his company, and what of his wealth could be found, were seized and secured. But Bradish, and one of his men, broke prison and run away amongst the Indians; but it is supposed that he will be taken again.”[175]
