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• 1 media/1933-sea-raiders-4-avery-discussing-ex-5-54028.jpg 2017-12-07T07:58:19-08:00 Of Captain Avery [Part i] 33 A General History of the Pyrates plain 2021-03-21T14:41:40-07:00 NONE of these bold Adventurers were ever so much talked of, for a while, as Avery; he made as great a Noise in the World as Meriveis does now, and was looked upon to be a Person of as great Consequence; he was represented in Europe, as one that had raised himself to the Dignity of a King, and was likely to be the Founder of a new Monarchy; having, as it was said, taken immense Riches, and married the Great Mogul’s Daughter, who was taken in an Indian Ship, which fell into his Hands; and that he had by her many Children, living in great Royalty and State; that he had built Forts, erected Magazines, and was Master of a stout Squadron of Ships, mann’d with able and desperate Fellows of all Nations; that he gave Commissions out in his own Name to the Captains of his Ships, and to the Commanders of his Forts, and was acknowledged by them as their Prince. A Play was writ upon him, called, the Successful Pyrate; and, these Accounts obtained such Belief, that several Schemes were offered to the Council for fitting out a Squadron to take him; while others were for offering him and his Companions an Act of Grace, and inviting them to England, with all their Treasure, least his growing Greatness might hinder the Trade of Europe to the East-Indies.
  
  Yet all these were no more than false Rumours, improved by the Credulity of some, and the Humour of others who love to tell strange Things; for, while it was said, he was aspiring at a Crown, he wanted a Shilling; and at the same Time it was given out he was in Possession of such prodigious Wealth in Madagascar, he was starving in England.
  
  No doubt, but the Reader will have a Curiosity of knowing what became of this Man, and what were the true Grounds of so many false Reports concerning him; there fore, I shall, in as brief a Manner as I can, give his History.
  
  He was born in the West of England near Plymouth in Devonshire, being bred to the Sea, he served as a Mate of a Merchant-Man, in several trading Voyages: It happened before the Peace of Ryswick, when there was an Alliance betwixt Spain, England, Holland, &c. against France, that the French in Martinico, carried on a smuggling Trade with the Spaniards on the Continent of Peru, which by the Laws of Spain, is not allowed to Friends in Time of Peace, for none but native Spaniards are permitted to Traffick in those Parts, or set their Feet on Shore, unless at any Time they are brought as Prisoners; wherefore they constantly keep certain Ships cruising along the Coast, whom they call Guarda del Costa, who have the Orders to make Prizes of all ships they can light of within five Leagues of Land. Now the French growing very bold in Trade, and the Spaniards being poorly provided with Ships, and those they had being of no Force, it often fell out, that when they light of the French Smugglers, they were not strong enough to attack them, therefore it was resolv’d in Spain, to hire two or three stout foreign Ships for their Service, which being known at Bristol, some Merchants of that City, fitted out two Ships of thirty odd Guns, and 120 Hands each, well furnished with Provision and Ammunition, and all other Stores; and the Hire being agreed for, by some Agents for Spain, they were commanded to sail for Corunna or the Groine, there to receive their Orders, and to take on Board some Spanish Gentlemen, who were to go Passengers to New-Spain.
  
  Of one of these Ships, which I take to be call’d the Duke, Capt. Gibson Commander, Avery was first Mate, and being a Fellow of more Cunning than Courage, he insinuated himself into the good Will of several of the boldest Fellows on Board the other Ship, as well as that which he was on Board of; having sounded their Inclinations before he opened himself, and finding them ripe for his Design, he, at length, proposed to them, to run away with the Ship, telling them what great Wealth was to be had upon the Coasts of India. It was no sooner said than agreed to, and they resolved to execute their Plot at Ten a Clock the Night following.
  
  It must be observ’d, the Captain was one of those who are mightily addicted to Punch, so that he passed most of his Time on Shore, in some little drinking Ordinary; but this Day he did not go on Shore as usual; however, this did not spoil the Design, for he took his usual Dose on Board, and so got to Bed before the Hour appointed for the Business: The Men also who were not privy to the Design, turn’d into their Hammocks, leaving none upon Deck but the Conspirators, who, indeed, were the greatest Part of the Ship’s Crew. At the Time agreed on, the Dutchess’s Long-Boat appear’d, which Avery hailing in the usual Manner, was answered by the Men in her, Is your drunken Boatswain on Board? Which was the Watch-Word agreed between them, and Avery replying in the Affirmative, the Boat came aboard with sixteen stout Fellows, and joined the Company.
  
  When our Gentry saw that all was clear, they secured the Hatches, so went to work; they did not slip the Anchor, but weigh’d it leisurely, and so put to Sea without any Disorder or Confusion, tho’ there were several Ships then lying in the Bay, and among them a Dutch Frigate of forty Guns, the Captain of which was offered a great Reward to go out after her; but Mynheer, who perhaps would not have been willing to have been served so himself could not be prevail’d upon to give such Usage to another, and so let Mr. Avery pursue his Voyage, whither he had a Mind to.
  
  The Captain, who by this Time, was awaked, either by the Motion of the Ship, or the Noise of working the Tackles, rung the Bell; Avery and two others went into the Cabin; the Captain, half asleep, and in a kind of Fright, ask’d, What was the Matter? Avery answered cooly, Nothing; the Captain replied, something’s the Matter with the Ship, Does she drive? What Weather is it? Thinking nothing less then that it had been a Storm, and that the Ship was driven from her Anchors: No, no, answered Avery, we’re at Sea, with a fair Wind and good Weather. At Sea! says the Captain, How can that be? Come, says Avery, don’t be in a Fright, but put on your Cloaths, and I’ll let you into a Secret: — You must know, that I am Captain of this Ship now, and this is my Cabin, therefore you must walk out; I am bound to Madagascar, with a Design of making my own Fortune, and that of all the brave Fellows joined with me.
  
  The Captain having a little recovered his Senses, began to apprehend the meaning; however, his Fright was as great as before, which Avery perceiving, bad him fear nothing, for, says he, if you have a Mind to make one of us, we will receive you, and if you’ll turn sober, and mind your Business, perhaps in Time I may make you one of my Lieutenants, if not, here’s a Boat a-long-side, and you shall be set ashore.
  
  The Captain was glad to hear this, and therefore accepted of his Offer, and the whole Crew being called up, to know who was willing to go on Shore with the Captain, and who to seek their Fortunes with the rest; there were not above five or six who were willing to quit this Enterprize; wherefore they were put into the Boat with the Captain that Minute, and made their Way to the Shore as well as they could.
  
  They proceeded on their Voyage to Madagascar, but I do not find they took any Ships in their Way; when they arrived at the N. E. Part of that Island, they found two Sloops at Anchor, who, upon seeing them, slip’d their Cables and run themselves ashore, the Men all landing, and running into the Woods; these were two Sloops which the Men had run away with from the West-Indies, and seeing Avery, they supposed him to be some Frigate sent to take them, and therefore not being of Force to engage him, they did what they could to save themselves.
  
  He guessed where they were, and sent some of his Men on Shore to let them know they were Friends, and to offer they might join together for their common Safety; the Sloops Men were well arm’d, and had posted themselves in a Wood, with Centinels just on the out-side, to observe whether the Ship landed her Men to pursue them, and they observing only two or three Men to come towards them without Arms, did not oppose them, but having challenged them, and they answering they were Friends, they lead them to their Body, where they delivered their Message; at first, they apprehended it was a Stratagem to decoy them on Board, but when the Ambassadors offered that the Captain himself, and as many of the Crew as they should name, would meet them on Shore without Arms, they believed them to be in Earnest, and they soon entered into a Confidence with one another; those on Board going on Shore, and some of those on Shore going on Board.
  
  The Sloops Men were rejoiced at the new Ally, for their Vessels were so small, that they could not attack a Ship of any Force, so that hitherto they had not taken any considerable Prize, but now they hop’d to fly at high Game; and Avery was as well pleased at this Reinforcement, to strengthen them, for any brave Enterprize, and tho’ the Booty must be lessened to each, by being divided into so many Shares, yet he found out an Expedient not to suffer by it himself as shall be shewn in its Place.
  
  Having consulted what was to be done, they resolved to sail out together upon a Cruize, the Galley and two Sloops; they therefore fell to work to get the Sloops off, which they soon effected, and steered towards the Arabian Coast; near the River Indus, the Man at the Mast-Head spied a Sail, upon which they gave Chace, and as they came nearer to her, they perceived her to be a tall Ship, and fancied she might be a Dutch East-India Man homeward bound; but she proved a better Prize; when they fired at her to bring too, she hoisted Mogul’s Colours, and seemed to stand upon her Defence; Avery only canonaded at a Distance, and some of his Men began to suspect that he was not the Hero they took him for: However, the Sloops made Use of their Time, and coming one on the Bow, and the other on the Quarter, of the Ship, clapt her on Board, and enter’d her, upon which she immediately struck her Colours and yielded; she was one of the Great Mogul’s own Ships, and there were in her several of the greatest Persons of his Court, among whom it was said was one of his Daughters, who were going on a Pilgrimage to Mecca, the Mahometans thinking themselves obliged once in their Lives to visit that Place, and they were carrying with them rich Offerings to present at the Shrine of Mahomet. It is known that the Eastern People travel with the utmost Magnificence, so that they had with them all their Slaves and Attendants, their rich Habits and Jewels, with Vessels of Gold and Silver, and great Sums of Money to defray the Charges of their Journey by Land; wherefore the Plunder got by this Prize, is not easily computed..
   
• 1 media/General History Pyrates volume 2 ii.jpg 2017-10-19T08:10:01-07:00 A General History of the Pyrates 23 An Introduction plain 2017-12-31T11:30:40-08:00 The General History of the Pyrates was first published in 1724 by an author known as "Captain Charles Johnson," although as of yet there is no reliable information that links a known historical figure by that name to the authorship of the text.   By the mid-20th century, most copies were printed with an attribution to the famous English novelist Daniel Defoe, of Robinson Crusoe fame.  As a fabled (and prolific) journalist and novelist, Defoe churned out hundreds of articles and several dozen novels and novellas -- and all during a time when definitions of authorship, intellectual property and plagiarism were murky by today's standards. J.R. Moore, who initially attributed the General History  to Defoe in the 1930s, acknowledged that just as “Shakespeare is said to have created the modern conception of fairies, it is hardly too much to say that the author of the History has created the modern conception of pirates,” and that its success had virtually exterminated all other accounts “out of the general knowledge" (127).
  
  While Moore's assessment of the importance of this text is accurate,  Defoe’s authorship of this (and dozens of other texts) has been brought into question by most recent scholars. Despite the fact that many current editions of this popular text continue to name Defoe as the author there is little to tie Defoe to the text in any meaningful way.  Although the temptation is strong, given Defoe's interest in maritime affairs, criminality and the well-being of the working classes, the General History  is attributed to Johnson for the purposes of this study.
  
  The uncertainty over the author is mirrored by the uncertainty of the provenance of much of the information contained inside;  the text is a fabulous mix of painstakingly transcribed records from contemporary trials, confessions, newspaper accounts and interviews...alongside passages, and even a complete chapter, of  fiction.  As Margarette Lincoln points out, the work and its reception reception show the "desire to pin down the shifting identities of contemporary pirates figures" in the public record; while modern readers often struggle with a text that so skillfully weaves fact and fiction together, she points out, readers in Johnson's time would have "understood 'history' to include accounts of wondrous happenings and other non-factual material" so the book "challenges the modern reader to distinguish historical event from fiction" (16). 
  
  Literary scholars often read the text as a celebration (or, at least, an investigation) of the subaltern rogue, giving insight into the working man's experience with  a growing imperial and commercial national infrastructure.  It inspired not only contemporary audiences, but also later readers such as Byron (who would produce The Corsair) and Stevenson (whose Treasure Island utilizes a variety of names and customs gleaned from the General History). Because there are so few extant records written by pirates themselves, this quasi-factual anthology (which does include facts from reliable journalistic sources and trials...alongside huge swathes of complete fiction) is of great importance. Some of the most famous aspects of this subaltern culture are detailed throughout the General History. Several of the accounts list the ship’s articles, for example, which provide valuable insight into the early modern pirate’s creed, also known as the Jamaica discipline: each man holds a vote, only the captain and his officers receive more than one share of a prize, there is to be no gaming and no women aboard ship, and desertion can be punished with death or marooning. Rather than existing in a cultural vacuum aboard widely dispersed ships, many of these policies were taken from vessel to vessel during the generally cooperative interactions between pirate vessels with national or religious connections. 
  
  
  
  The first edition of the General History commenced with the life of Henry Avery, included in this book.  His is one of several chapters in which the pirates shift their attention to the east. The shipping lanes of the Atlantic and Caribbean had grown far more crowded and policed by the early eighteenth century, and updates to state policy (noted within the chapters and also in the "Contemporary Documents" section) made it easier for the English to prosecute and execute captured pirates. New shipping lanes were being formed to the east, however, and Avery and his crew voted to gamble on the Indian Ocean, both far larger and farther away from European state powers.  Avery's subsequent raid on the Grand Mogul Aurangzeb would not only make international news for its violence, audacity and scope, but also because it would endanger the fledgeling commercial relationship between India and England.
  
  The General History was so popular that additional chapters were added to new editions in an attempt to sustain (and increase) the public’s interest.  The second edition, also published in 1724, came with two new chapters on Captains Phillips and Spriggs.  The latter captain does briefly engage in cannibalism with his crew, and Phillips’s crew swears a series of dramatic oaths aboard the Revenge in the name of piracy, so it appears that the more dramatic examples of piracy sold well.   Five more editions were published before any further changes of any significance were made to the initial content.  Fifteen new pirates were added for the 1726 edition, including the notorious Captains Mission, Kidd, Tew, and Bellamy.  Mission and Tew, also included in this project, are among the most notorious fictional creations in the history of the criminal biography. 
   
  Captain Misson's chapter is almost entirely fictional, although the character does have his origins in real pirates, likely the Captains "Plantain" and Adam Baldridge.  "Plantain" is a shadowy figure, but we know more of Baldridge because of his ties to new world merchants. Bladridge's settlement on Madagascar was, as Ryan Holroyd  points out, "far from being an egalitarian, proto-revolutionary statelet." It was, instead, "a slave-trading entrepôt" at which Captain Baldridge worked for the interests of "an enterprising New York merchant named Frederick Philipse, who specialised in importing goods from the Indian Ocean to British North America, especially slaves," as well as illicit treasure stolen by the pirates, and rewarding the pirates with "liquor, guns, shipping equipment, clothing and other goods" (757). In an interesting historical footnote, it was this tangle of human and illicit cargo between Madagascar and New York that eventually led to the commissioning of one of the most famous pirates of the era, William Kidd. 
  
  Captain Thomas Tew was, by contrast, a very real figure whose years living in the American colonies and Caribbean are fairly well documented. His origins in the General History touch on the historical record, as he was indeed sailing in consort with one Captain Drew (referred to as "Dew" in his chapter), and did receive a privateering commission from that island's governor.  His real exploits are then merged with those of the fictional Mission, rather than those of Avery, with whom he actually joined up with in the Red Sea. It seems likely that Johnson sought credibility for his largely fictional tale of Mission by merging his account with such a well-documented pirate as Tew, given all three men (Avery, Tew and "Misson") raided the same lanes in roughly the same period.  
  
  Mission and then later Tew are credited in their chapters with creating the pirate utopia of Libertalia, a detailed imagining of the anxieties, possibilities and limits surrounding subaltern nation-building. While pirates did in fact establish small bases on the island, and at points appeal to European state powers for clemency and even status as a colony, there is no evidence that a substantial and ongoing settlement like Libertalia truly existed. However, the mere imagining of a land with democratic principles, non-aristocratic leadership and a non-denominational faith was a powerful act.  It shows "how an idealized pirate lifestyle could be depicted as morally superior, or at least made to represent an ideological counterpoint to European societies.  Libertalia has been described as the fictive representation of the living traditions and dreams of sailors then working in the Atlantic trades. [...] The effect of Libertalia on the imagination has arguably been more important over the centuries than its historical veracity" (Lincoln 176).