The pirates, about this time, had 11 sail and 1500 men in the Indian seas, but soon separated for the coast of Brazil and Guinea, or to settle and fortify themselves at Madagascar, Mauritius, Johanna, and Mohilla. A pirate named Condin, in a ship called the Dragon, took a vessel from Mocha with thirteen lacs of rupees (130,000 half-crowns), and burning the ship settled at Madagascar. The commander of the English fleet, still in pursuit of these pirates, attempted to prevail on England to serve him as spy and pilot, but in vain.
Taylor, resolving to sail to the Indies, but hearing of the four men-of-war, started for the African main, and put into Delagoa, destroying a small fort of six guns. This fort belonged to the Dutch East India Company, but its 150 men had been deserted, and left to pine away and starve; sixteen turned pirates, but the rest, being Dutch, were left to die. They stayed in this den of fever three months, and having careened, paid the Dutch with bales of muslins and chintzes.
Some now left, and returned to settle in Madagascar. The rest sailed for the West Indies, and, escaping the fangs of two English men-of-war, surrendered themselves to the Governor of Porto Bello. Eight of them afterwards passed to Jamaica as shipwrecked sailors, and shipped for England. Captain Taylor entered the Spanish service, and commanded the man-of-war that afterwards attacked the English logwood-cutters in the bay of Honduras, and caused the Spanish war.
Captain Avery was a more remarkable man than England, and his ambition of a wider kind. He was a native of Plymouth, and served as mate of a merchant vessel in several voyages. Before the peace of Ryswick, the French of Martinique carried on a smuggling trade with the natives of Peru, in spite of the Spanish guarda costas. The Spaniards, finding their vessels too weak for the French, hired two Bristol vessels of thirty guns and 220 men, which were to sail first to Corunna or the Groine, and from thence to the main.
Of one of these ships, the Duke, Gibson was commander, and Avery first mate. Avery, planning with the boldest and most turbulent of the crew, plotted to run away with the vessels, and turn pirates on the Indian coasts.
The captain, a man much addicted to drink, had gone to bed, when sixteen conspirators from the other vessel, the Duchess, came on board and joined the company. Their watchword was, "Is your drunken boatswain on board?" Securing the hatches, they slipped their cable and put to sea, without any disorder, although surrounded by vessels. A Dutch frigate of forty guns refused to interrupt their progress, although offered a reward.
The captain, awoke by the motion of the ship and the noise of working the tackle, rang his bell, and Avery and two others entered the cabin. The captain, frightened and thinking the ship had broken from her anchors, asked, "What was the matter?" Avery replied coolly, "Nothing." The captain answered, "Something has happened to the ship; does she drive? what weather is it?" "No, no," said Avery, "we're at sea with a fair wind and good weather." "At sea?" said the captain, "how can that be?" Upon which Avery told him to get up and put on his clothes, and he could tell him a secret, for he (Avery) was captain, and that was his cabin, and that he was on his way to Madagascar to make his fortune and that of all the brave fellows who were with him.