“Thus Tyrant-like they lived, fearing and feared by all; and in this situation they were found by Captain Woods Rogers when he went to Madagascar in the Delicia, a ship of forty guns, with a Design of buying Slaves in order to sell them to the Dutch at Batavia or New Holland. He happened to touch upon a part of the Island where no Ship had been seen for seven or eight Years before; here he met with some of the Pyrates, when they had been upon the Island above 25 Years, having a large motly Generation of Children and Grandchildren descended from them, there being, at that Time, eleven of them remaining alive.... Thus he left them as he found them, in a great Deal of dirty State and Royalty, but with fewer Subjects than they had. One of these great Princes had formerly been a Waterman upon the Thames, where having committed a Murder, he fled to the West Indies, and was of the number of those who run away with the Sloops; the rest had been all foremast men, nor was there a Man amongst them, who could either read or write.”
Such is Captain Charles Johnson’s account. There are several difficulties about accepting his narrative about Avery. From whom could he have obtained the story? Possibly a part of it from the pirates who obtained their pardon from William III, but not as to the end of John Avery.
The story as told in (c) is quite different. According to Adrian van Broeck, Avery did not desert the Consort, the Duchess, nor the sloops, but all together went to Madagascar and settled there. In that settlement, his wife, the daughter of the Mogul, bore him a son, and died of a broken heart.
The second in command was a M. de Sales, who after a while, impatient at being second, organized a revolt among the Frenchmen who were there, captives from a French vessel taken by the pirates. As soon as the watch-bell sounded they were to seize the principal fort, and not spare any man, woman, or child. One of de Sales’ crew, named Picard, betrayed the plot to a Cornishman named Richardson, who told it to Avery, and precautions were taken to surround the French on parade, and make all prisoners. Avery had every man impaled who had been engaged in the conspiracy.
Avery was anxious to obtain his pardon, and wrote a letter to Captain Pitt, Governor of Fort St. George, near Madras, which he was to transmit to England, but the East India Company would not present it to the Government.
Avery next attacked and destroyed Fort Ste. Marie of the French East India Company on the north of Madagascar.
Adrian van Broeck managed to make his escape from the settlement on board an East India Company vessel; and with that the narrative abruptly terminates.
The two narratives are irreconcilable, and where the truth lies is impossible to determine. It is conceivable that after van Broeck’s visit—if it ever took place—Avery may have made his way to England to dispose of his jewels, but we have no dates in the Dutchman’s narrative, and no dates, and no authority quoted by Johnson for his account of the last days of Avery. No reliance whatever can be placed on Defoe’s Life and Adventures of Captain John Avery, “the King” in Madagascar, 1720. Consequently the end of Avery remains, and probably will remain, a mystery unsolved. Andrew Brice in his Geographical Dictionary, published in 1759, under the heading of “Madagascar,” says: “Pirates have had stations in these Harbours, among whom was Avery, so much talked of 40 or 50 years ago.” Had Avery died at Bideford, Brice as a Devonshire man would most likely have heard of it. Salmon, in his Universal Traveller, 1759, says: “What became of Avery himself I could never learn; but it is probable he is dead, or remains concealed in the Island of Madagascar to this time; for he can expect no Mercy from any of the Powers of Europe, if he should fall into their hands, but as to being in such circumstances, as to lay the Foundation of a New State or Kingdom in this Island, this report possibly deserves little Credit. We should have heard more of him after so many years elapsed, if he had made any figure there.”
According to Captain Johnson’s account, as we have seen, a Captain Wood Rogers of the Delicia, a ship of forty guns, touched at Madagascar with a design of purchasing slaves, and came on the settlement of the crews of the two other vessels, but did not meet with Avery himself.