by Frank Sherry
While it is necessary to infer much of Every’s character from contemporary accounts and from events in his career, a few solid facts do exist about his early life.
He was born near Plymouth, England, about 1653, the son of poverty-stricken parents. He went to sea as a boy some time around 1665 and is supposed to have served in the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean. Bright and willing, he learned to read and write, a rare accomplishment among ordinary sailors of the time. He also had a predilection for mathematics, and became a first-class navigator. While still a young man—despite the pervasive prejudices of the day—he became a ship’s officer, serving aboard a series of merchant vessels. At one point he served aboard a slave ship that worked the west coast of Africa in the service of the royal governor of Bermuda. He apparently employed his native ruthlessness and persuasiveness to good effect in filling the holds of his ships with human cargo, for he soon gained a reputation along the coast as a most successful practitioner of the gruesome trade in “black ivory.” He must have remained in the slave trade for a number of years, because as late as 1693, a Royal African Company officer wrote: “I have no where upon the coast met the negroes so shy as here, which makes me fancy they have had tricks play’d them by such blades as Long Ben, alias Every, who have seiz’d and carry’d them away.”
Probably it was while employed in the vile slave trade that Henry Every gained both his knowledge of command and the deep streak of contempt for humanity that was so evident in his piratical career.
In any event, Every had long since made himself into a master mariner and a practiced manipulator of men when, in May 1694, he found himself serving aboard the privateer Charles II.
Although nominally second-in-command under the drunken Captain Gibson, there is little doubt that Every was, in fact, the real leader of the discontented crew of the Charles II. He had helped recruit many of the ship’s crew off the docks of Bristol. Many of them, no doubt, had sailed with him on slaving voyages in the past. They would have had no hesitancy about disclosing to Henry Every their dissatisfaction about the Charles II’s cruise—and he would have had no scruple about manipulating the crew’s ire for his purposes.
The men aboard the Charles II must have already heard the first reports of the voyage of Captain Thomas Tew in the Amity, and the rich score that he had made. There must have been many nights, as the Charles II lay at La Coruña and Captain Gibson lay drunk in his cabin, when Henry Every whispered to his shipmates that they too might become rich. They had only to seize the Charles II and take her to the East.
Doubtless Every, using such blandishments, had little trouble recruiting a full complement of mutineers.
(It is not beyond the realm of possibility, as some suggest, that Every had planned to seize the Charles II from the very outset of her cruise. Given his devious nature, he might very well have recruited some of his old Bristol shipmates from slaving days specifically for purposes of mutiny.)
Having made sure of sufficient support among the crew, Every set forth a simple straightforward plan for taking the Charles II.
Every’s plan revolved around the fact that it was captain Gibson’s habit to go ashore almost every night and get blind drunk in a favorite tavern. He suggested that the mutineers simply wait for a night when the tide would be running out to sea and the moon obscured. While Captain Gibson was ashore getting drunk, they would take control of the ship and set adrift any dissenters to their enterprise. Then, after riding the tide far enough offshore, they would set sail and be away to gain their fortune. All agreed with Every’s scheme.
But on the designated night, Captain Gibson did not go ashore. Instead he got drunk in his cabin.
The cool Every merely altered his plan.
He waited until the captain had drunk himself into his usual stupor. Then Every and his mutineers weighed anchor—so stealthily that they neither woke the drunken captain nor disturbed other members of the crew asleep below.
They headed the Charles II out to sea on the tide. Defoe tells the story from this point on in crisp detail.
The Charles II was far offshore when at last the motion of the ship and the sound of the sails being worked finally roused Captain Gibson.
The befuddled captain rang the bell in his cabin, signaling for his second-in-command. Every, who had been expecting the summons, entered the captain’s cabin accompanied by two of his mutineers. (It is easy to imagine the portly Every, with a cocked pistol in his belt, smiling down on the confused, disheveled Gibson sprawled out in his nightshirt on his bunk.)
“What is the matter?” asked Captain Gibson, sitting up and pointing to the lamp in his cabin, swinging with the movement of the ship. “What is the matter?”
“Nothing is the matter,” Every replied smoothly.
“Something’s the matter with this ship,” insisted Gibson, emerging now a little further out of his alcoholic fog. “What weather is it?”
“No, no,” soothed Every. “We’re at sea with a fair wind and good weather.”
“At sea!” the captain cried. “How can that be?”
“Come,” Every murmured, the smile remaining on his face. “Don’t be in a fright. Put on your clothes, and I’ll let you into a secret.”
Now, as the astounded Captain Gibson listened wide-eyed and struggled into his clothes, Every matter-of-factly spelled out the new status of the Charles II and those who sailed in her.
Said Every: “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.”
Every, maintaining his tone of sweet reason, then went on to explain that Captain Gibson had only two choices open to him. He could join the mutiny as Every’s second-in-command (provided he was willing to give up drinking), or Every would give him a ship’s boat and let him find his way to shore.
Captain Gibson recognized that he no longer commanded his ship. He chose to be set ashore. Every agreed. The mutiny was over.
Now, with his purpose accomplished, Every and his mutineers called together the rest of the crew. Every explained what had happened, and the mission he now proposed for the Charles II. The great majority of the crew overwhelmingly approved Every’s enterprise and enthusiastically elected him captain.
Six crewmen who did not endorse Every or his program were then put into an open boat along with the deposed Captain Gibson and allowed to row back to La Coruña. (By the time they reached the safety of the port, and told their story, Every was far out of reach.)
Every now renamed the ship the Fancy—a name soon to become famous. He then ran up the flag of St. George—a banner flown by many English ships—and his own personal flag: four silver chevrons on a red field, a flag soon to become infamous. He then set a course that would take Fancy around the Cape of Good Hope to the East, where Tew had won his fortune.
It was not long before Fancy took her first victims. In the vicinity of the Cape Verde Islands, located off the northwest coast of Africa, Every halted three English ships and helped himself to supplies from their larders. Although minor in scope, this offense against English ships was, in fact, an unpardonable act of piracy, one that put Every and his men irrevocably outside the law. Perhaps the devious Every deliberately chose to plunder these English ships in order to commit his men to him and to their mission. In any event, Fancy continued on her voyage southward along the African coast. Along the way she took two Danish ships, which yielded only a few ounces of gold for each man in Every’s crew. But it was a taste of what was to come.
After rounding the Cape of Good Hope, Every fetched up at Johanna Island, a pleasant, well-watered island just off the northwest corner of Madagascar. Johanna was a popular place for mariners to victual, water, and clean their hulls. Here Every careened the Fancy and scraped her hull of marine growth so that she would slide more smoothly through the water. He also took this opportunity to remove much of Fancy’s “upperwork
” such as her deck cabins, forecastle bulwarks, and hatches. The idea was to achieve a “flush” deck that would give her more speed—a crucial requirement, Every felt, for success in the mission ahead.
While at Johanna an incident occurred that further illustrates Every’s capacity to make swift, unsentimental judgments for the benefit of himself and his enterprise.
A French pirate ship, loaded with loot taken from Mogul ships, came into Johanna for water.
Every quickly assembled his men and pointed out that England and France were at war. He then suggested that it was their duty to their king to seize the French pirate. To the ordinary sailors who heard Every, the proposition seemed plausible, not to mention attractive. Without hesitation Every’s men piled aboard the French pirate, and soon took control of the ship and her contents.
Every then invited the defeated French crew to join the crew of Fancy. Most of them, along with a dozen other Frenchmen, who had previously been shipwrecked at Johanna, did so with alacrity, obviously impressed with Every. They no doubt saw clearly that service with a captain who knew what he wanted and how to get it would bring considerable profit.
While at Johanna, Every also composed a cunning letter that he gave to a native chief to pass on to the first English ship that arrived in the harbor after he had departed. It is classical Every:
To All English Commanders:
Let this satisfy that I was riding here at this instant in the ship Fancy, man-of-war, formerly the Charles of the Spanish Expedition who departed from La Coruña 7th May 1694, being then and now a ship of 46 guns, 150 men and bound to seek our fortunes. I have never as yet wronged any English or Dutch or ever intend whilst I am Commander. Wherefore as I commonly speak with all ships, I desire whoever comes to the perusal of this to take this signal, that if you or any whom you may inform are desirous to know what we are at a distance, then make your ancient [ship’s flag] up in a ball or bundle and hoist him at the mizzen peak, the mizzen being furled. I shall answer with the same, and never molest you, for my men are hungry, stout, and resolute, and should they exceed my desire I cannot help myself. As yet, an Englishman’s friend,
At Johanna 18th February 1695
Henry Every
P.S. Here is 160 odd French armed men at Mohilla who waits for opportunity for getting any ship, take care of yourselves.
This mixture of threats and assurances was received by the English captain of an East Indiaman only a few days after Every sailed north from Johanna. It was eventually forwarded to London with a request for stronger measures against the growing pirate menace in the Indian Ocean.
Every’s purpose in writing this cleverly contrived letter was to confuse the authorities regarding his purpose. He had hoped, also, to give the impression that if his men committed crimes, it was beyond his power to stop them, and he should not be held accountable. Always thinking of himself above all, Every appears to be trying to disassociate himself personally, in advance, from the crimes that he knew he and his men would soon be committing. By adding the postscript about the French threat at Mohilla (Mohéli), he was probably attempting to convince the ultimate readers of the letter, the authorities in London, that despite all appearances to the contrary, he remained a loyal Englishman in service to the king.
But Every’s ploy, which he had probably regarded as a long shot in any case, failed to achieve its purpose. The authorities in London set Henry Every down in their books as an outright pirate.
Meanwhile, Fancy was on her way northward, bound for the mouth of the Red Sea. Every’s plan was to patrol the narrow Gulf of Aden where he hoped to seize a rich, Moorish ship on her way to or from India. (English-speaking sailors began around this time to call all Muslim vessels “Moorish.”)
On the voyage from Johanna to the Red Sea, Fancy was joined by two smaller pirate ships from America. It was agreed the two Americans would operate jointly with Fancy, and that Every would serve as overall commander of the little fleet.
In August 1695, Every and his companion ships arrived at their destination and began their predatory patrol. Every soon learned from Muslim fisherman he had captured that the annual convoy of the Great Mogul’s treasure ships was due to leave soon from the Red Sea port of Mocha for the return trip to India. The Arab prisoners said that in addition to precious cargoes of gold, jewels, and silks, the Mogul fleet would also be carrying wealthy pilgrims, returning home to India after visiting the Holy City of Mecca. Every ordered a round-the-clock watch for the Moorish convoy.
Now, as Fancy and her consorts waited for their Mogul prey to appear, two more American ships came into the area. One of them turned out to be the famed Amity, under the celebrated Captain Tew. The newcomers also agreed to join the pirate flotilla under Henry Every’s command.
Day after day the pirate ships cruised, scouring the area for their victims. Although each ship patrolled independently, each kept within range of the flagship, the Fancy.
Then, on a moonless night, the Mogul convoy sailed. Despite the sharp vigil being kept aboard the pirate ships, the Mogul fleet, twenty-five ships in all, slipped past the pirate lookouts unseen.
When the sun rose the next morning the enraged pirates discovered that most of the long-awaited convoy had gotten too far beyond their picket lines to be caught. Every, however, refused to allow disappointment or anger to cloud his judgment. Examining the retreating convoy through his glass, he decided that two of the Mogul ships might still be within range. The nearest of these possible victims was a small vessel, while the other, farther off, was an enormous ship, clearly so powerfully armed that she would outgun any of the pirate fleet—including Fancy—by a wide margin. Nevertheless, Every ordered his ship to pursue the fleeing Moors.
Aboard Amity, which was closer to the two Mogul ships than Fancy was, Captain Tew also decided to pursue. Crowding on all sail, Tew chased after the smaller of the two Moors. Fancy followed.
After a time Amity caught up with her quarry, whose Arabic name was Fateh Mohamed. There was an exchange of fire. Both ships recoiled from the shock. Men screamed oaths. Muskets cracked. Then, suddenly, Amity disengaged. A cannon shot from Fateh Mohamed had killed Captain Tew. The men of Amity, shocked by the death of their captain, turned away.
Fateh Mohamed sailed on. But she did not escape.
Every’s speedy Fancy overtook her. His tough crew swarmed aboard her. The Fateh Mohamed’s crew, outnumbered and outgunned, this time decided not to fight. Every’s men quickly ransacked the Mogul vessel, bellowing with joy when they discovered that the Fateh Mohamed carried some £50,000 in gold and silver, which they quickly transferred to Fancy.
Now Every exhibited the daring and steely resolve that was also part of his character. He saw that the other Moorish ship—much larger than the Fateh Mohamed—was still within range. It seemed to him that this great ship now lumbering toward the horizon might be carrying a cargo even more valuable than the treasure they had just taken from the Fateh Mohamed, for surely a ship so large and so heavily armed must be transporting the dearest treasures of the Great Mogul himself. As formidable as this Moorish giant might be, Every told himself, she was also the sort of prize that freebooters could hope to encounter only once. He sensed the chance of a lifetime—and he seized it without hesitation.
He broke out every scrap of sail. Fancy began the chase.
In fact, the ship Every was pursuing was the Gang-I-Sawai.
She was, in the words of Indian historian Khafi Khan, “the greatest ship in all the Mogul dominions.” She carried sixty-two guns and five hundred soldiers. She also carried six hundred passengers among whom were a number of high-ranking officials of the Great Mogul’s court who were returning from their pilgrimage to Mecca. She was also carrying, in her capacious holds, 500,000 gold and silver pieces. Her destination was the port of Surat on India’s west coast.
Inexorably Fancy closed the gap between herself and the giant Mogul ship. Before long the men aboard the Fancy could make out the gaping muzzles of the Gang-I
-Sawai’s cannon and the heavily armed, turbaned soldiers crowding her decks. But despite being outgunned and outnumbered better than four to one, the crew of Fancy prepared for action, confident of their ability to overcome their Moorish enemy.
As her ponderous quarry came into range of Fancy’s cannon, Every broke out his flag of silver chevrons as a sign that he was willing to give quarter if the Moors surrendered. There was no response to his signal. Every then ran up a plain red flag, the “bloody flag” as his men called it, signifying that the offer of quarter was withdrawn.
The battle was on.
Fancy fired a broadside. The Muslim guns replied. But as the Moorish broadside was fired, one of the Gang-I-Sawai’s cannon suddenly exploded, killing a number of her well-trained gun crews and sending lethal fragments of metal scything across her decks, compelling her soldiers to take cover in confusion and terror. Fancy fired again. A lucky shot crashed into the Mogul ship’s mainmast, disrupting her rigging and slowing her even more. With her rigging badly damaged, the Gang-I-Sawai soon became almost unmaneuverable.
Fancy now broke off firing and swung in alongside her much larger quarry whose gunports towered over her. As soon as the two ships touched, Every’s crew, cutlasses and pistols at the ready, scrambled up the sides of the Gang-I-Sawai and hurled themselves against the Muslim soldiers who awaited them.