by Travers, Tim
If any person who uses those Parts, should think it worth while to dig a little way at the upper End of a small sandy Cove, where it is convenient to land, he would soon find whether the Information I had was well grounded. Fronting the Landing-Place are five Trees, amongst which, he [Silvestro] said, the Money was hid.
Downing added a rather plaintive request that if any one should benefit from his account, he hoped that they would remember him for his information. Downing obviously hoped for a finder’s fee, but as of the present, no one has yet found any of Blackbeard’s treasure at Mulberry Island, or anywhere else. Another explanation for the lack of success in finding this treasure is that Downing or Silvestro confused the Blackbeard story with the story of the burial of treasure from Captain Stratton’s ship, previously mentioned, since that burial of treasure took place in exactly the same location, at the head of the York River in Chesapeake Bay, as recounted above. Moreover, Downing himself happened to give evidence to the High Court of the Admiralty only a year or two after the Stratton case was heard by the same High Court, so Downing probably confused the two stories in his memory.65
One last place where pirate treasure can actually be found is in the wrecks of pirate ships. The most famous of these so far is the Whydah, the ship captained by the pirate Samuel Bellamy. This ship was lost in a gale near Cape Cod in April 1717, with 144 onboard, of which only two survived. The Whydah was carrying four and a half tons of treasure, mainly gold and silver, but the ship was wrecked in only a quarter of an hour, and the remains of the wreck then spread out along the coast for some four miles. Scavengers quickly arrived on the scene, but the Whydah itself vanished under the sea until the wreck was rediscovered in 1984 by underwater searchers led by Barry Clifford. A large amount of treasure has been recovered from the Whydah wreck so far, including over 8,000 coins, 17 gold bars, 14 gold nuggets, and assorted amounts of gold dust and gold nuggets. This is certainly a very large treasure trove, yet the Whydah clearly held more when she sank. Another wreck that has been recovered is that of Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge, which grounded at Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina. Many objects, including cannon, a ship’s bell, and a urethral medical instrument for treating venereal disease, have been recovered, but so far no treasure.66 Finally, it is of interest that the pirates themselves looked for ship wrecks in order to recover whatever treasure they could. One such wreck was found at Salt Key, near the Turks Islands, in 1686, where a ship with a great deal of bullion had gone down on a half moon reef. Divers went down soon after and recovered a large amount of bullion. The wreck was reported as lying at Latitude 20 degrees, 15 minutes north, not far from Porto Plato.67
Weapons
What weapons did the pirates fight with, and how were they used? The first and most obvious weapon was the Cutlass. In the cinema, pirates are often seen fighting with straight swords, such as a rapier. These straight swords took a considerable length of time to learn to use effectively, and so they were not used by pirates. Instead, pirates most often owned the cutlass, a shorter, heavier, curved sword. The cutlass seems to have come into use from about the 1590s onward, and proved valuable because it was effective in close quarter fighting, which was the normal situation when pirates boarded another ship, or were defending their own ship. Cutlasses were also strong enough to cut heavy tackle, ropes and wood. It was very important, too, that cutlasses were easy to learn to use.
Knives, daggers and machetes were also carried, and were obviously valuable for a variety of tasks onboard ship, as well as for fighting. The next most useful weapon was the Pistol. Pirates found pistols very handy for the quick, sharp moments when a ship was being boarded and rapid fire power was needed. However, not every one possessed pistols, which could normally only be obtained by capturing them from pirate victims, or from a captured ships’ armory.
It is important to note that pistols changed from the very awkward match lock pistol to the more convenient flint lock pistol around 1700. Both types of pistol had to be loaded from the muzzle, with the ball and powder rammed home, plus a wad, and then the pan filled with powder and closed. But with the match lock a burning match had to be applied to the pan, while the flint lock only required a spark from the flint to set off the pan, and thus the pistol itself. When the powder was damp from rain or humidity, or there was a high wind, pistols could easily misfire (a ‘flash in the pan’ only), and this happened frequently. Nevertheless, with the flint lock pistol, the pirate system was to wrap two or three pistols in a sash hung over the shoulder. This meant that one pistol could be fired and then another in quick succession, without the time consuming problem of reloading – and generally only two or three shots were needed in the short, sharp fights that pirates found themselves in. Pistols could also be tucked into the waistband, although this was awkward, uncomfortable and unsafe. Fire-power could also be obtained through the musket. This weapon required the same reloading system as the pistol, and also changed from match lock to flint lock around 1700. Occasionally, pirates found muskets useful as ships approached each other, since a few musket shots might frighten the opponent and bring the fight to a quick conclusion. But muskets were not as common as pistols in the pirate armory.
Pirates spent a lot of time boarding ships, and here the grenade was critical. For example, Blackbeard’s crew used grenades, which were thrown onto the deck of the target ship just before boarding, and which burst with clouds of smoke as well as throwing off pieces of metal. This obviously aided the attack through injury, intimidation, noise and confusion. Charles Johnson describes Blackbeard’s ‘several new fashioned sort of grenades, viz. case bottles filled with powder and small shot, slugs, and pieces of lead or iron, with a quick match in the mouth of it … and as it is instantly thrown onboard, generally does great execution, besides putting all the crew into confusion…’68
The heaviest weapon the pirates used was the cannon. Most pirate ships carried cannon, which could be used to disarm or frighten other ships into surrender, but, most importantly, to fight off naval ships or larger merchant ships that also carried cannon. By and large, the more cannon onboard the better, because this naturally created a more powerful pirate ship. Normally, however, pirates wanted to capture ships intact and not sink them, so pirate crews tended to find large numbers of men more valuable than cannon, since these large numbers of men could more easily overwhelm their victims. Thus cannon would only be used as a last resort. One instance, in which a pirate crew did not succeed in a cannon fight occurred in 1697 when the Mocha frigate, captained by the pirate Robert Culliford, came across the well armed merchant ship Dorrill, which had about 30 guns. The Mocha had 22 cannon, a relatively large number for a pirate ship, and came up with the Dorrill, at which point the Mocha fired two:
…forechaser [bow] Guns into her, but before they had fired another they had received both his broadsides … they were as good as the Pirates Guns they had not past 3 or 4 broadsides … soe the Pirates disheartened, said they [would] get nothing here but broaken bones & if we loose a mast where shall we get others they had then rec’d a shott in their foremast a 6 pounder which had gone right through the hart of it…
The pirate crew voted against continuing the fight and the Mocha sailed away. This was the normal result when a pirate ship faced a well armed opponent, since gunnery required more skill and discipline than a pirate ship usually possessed.69
Cannon came in various sizes and shapes, ranging normally from the large and very heavy twenty-four pounder to the smaller six or eight pounder – measured according to the size and weight of the cannon ball. Cannon were muzzle loaded, and had to be run out to fire outside the gun port. This was heavy work and required a number of sailors. Then the recoil of the shot would send the cannon back inboard for re-loading. The kind of shot fired from a cannon could be varied according to the target – cannon could be loaded with missiles of different kinds for anti-personnel work, sometimes called small shot; there was chain and bar shot for damaging sails and masts; or round sh
ot for smashing the opponent’s ships’ sides and opposition cannon. Pirates might also carry a carronade, a short heavy weapon for a quick, devastating fire, or swivel guns for anti-personnel work. Gunnery was a difficult art, and so gunners were much sought after by pirate crews and given higher rewards when prizes were captured – in Captain Roberts’ articles, gunners received a share and a half, along with masters and boatswains, while Captain Phillips’ articles gave gunners a share and a quarter, along with masters, boatswains and carpenters. Captain Lowther’s articles also gave gunners a share and a quarter, together with doctors, mates, and boatswains.
Cruel Pirates?
Sometime during the night of 4 June 1629, the Dutch East India Company ship, the Batavia, struck a reef off the west coast of Australia. The reef was part of the Abrolhos Islands, 80km off the mainland, and the Batavia was on its way from Holland to Batavia (modern Djakarta), to trade in spices. Among the officers of the Batavia was the commander, Francisco Pelsaert, the skipper Ariaen Jacobsz, and Jeronimus Cornelisz, in charge of the ship’s cargo. The Batavia was the flag ship of the Dutch East India Company, and was large enough so that it carried 341 people onboard, including thirty-eight passengers – men, women and children. During the voyage, trouble arose when Jacobsz assaulted two women onboard, while Jacobsz and Cornelisz also hatched a plot to mutiny and take over the ship, which was carrying a very great deal of coins, gold, and goods, to the value of half a million pounds sterling. Their strange plan was to attack a female passenger, as a result of which Pelsaert would discipline the crew, which would be viewed as too harsh, and which would then lead to mutiny. In fact Pelsaert did not make any arrests, and the plan failed. As part of the plan, Jacobsz deliberately steered the ship off course, which only led to the wreck of the ship. After surveying the islands on which the ship was wrecked, Pelsaert, Jacobsz and a few others set off for Batavia in an open boat, to bring rescue to the wrecked survivors. The boat voyage itself was epic, and took thirty-three days. The boat arrived safely at Batavia, and Pelsaert then set off back to the wreck site in a Dutch ship, the Saardam.
Meanwhile, back at the wreck site, Cornelisz had been busy. He was a bankrupt pharmacist from Haarlem in Holland, and also a member of a heretical Anabaptist sect, which probably forced him to leave Holland. The ship-wrecked Cornelisz decided that his mutiny could still work if he recruited a small group of followers. He was aware, too, that Jacobsz would blame him for the previous attempt at mutiny, and the wreck of the Batavia. So Cornelisz planned to capture the rescue ship when it arrived, and depart with his followers and the treasure of the Batavia. If Pelsaert did not return, then they would simply build a boat and still depart with the treasure. In the mix was the idea, undoubtedly derived from his religion, that he would create a new kingdom. In order to achieve all this, Cornelisz decided that he and his followers had to kill all the rest of the passengers and crew of the Batavia that had survived the wreck. There then ensued a bloody regime that rivals any other pirate murders in history. Cornelisz did not do the killings himself, but his personal charisma and religious fervor compelled his followers to do the dirty work. Thus:
Jan Hendrycks confesses that one day he had been called by Jeronimus [Cornelisz] into his tent and that he gave him to know that at night time he must help with the murder of the Predikant’s family. At night, Zeevonk [another mutineer] has called outside Wiebrecht Clausen, a young girl, whom Hendrycks stabbed with a dagger, and inside all people – the mother with her six children – had their heads battered in with axes…70
This scene was repeated until some 125 men, women and children were murdered. When Pelsaert returned with the rescue ship, a short battle took place, and Cornelisz and his mutinous followers were defeated. Retribution was predictably fierce – Cornelisz had his hands cut off and he was hung. Other mutineers were flogged, keel hauled and hung from the yard arm. Cornelisz’s second in command was broken on the wheel. Altogether seven mutineers were executed, and two were marooned. Jacobsz survived, because, even under torture, he did not confess to planning mutiny, and since he was part of the boat that sailed with Pelsaert to Batavia, he was not implicated with Cornelisz. He probably wound up in prison in Batavia.71
The wreck of the Batavia unleashed terrible cruelty by the mutineers, who can be seen as pirates through their mutiny. Perhaps Cornelisz used radical religion as a motivation for his crimes, or perhaps he was simply an unbalanced individual with considerable powers of persuasion. Yet in regard to pirates generally, the application of torture and cruelty was varied, as might be expected. Some pirates were cruel, and some were not. However, it was a rough age, and in the East it seems that torture among captives taken by Chinese pirates was sometimes unusually brutal. According to an account by John Turner, chief mate of the Tay, captured by the Chinese pirate Ching Yih in 1806–1807, one prisoner ‘was fixed upright, his bowels cut open and his heart taken out, which they afterwards soaked in spirits and ate…’72
Among Western pirates, by far the most common reason for cruelty was when captives were tortured to reveal where treasure could be found aboard the ship or port the pirates had just captured. Other reasons for cruelty were because the ship attacked by the pirates offered resistance, causing death and injury to the pirates, or because a harsh and disliked captain and officers happened to be captured by pirates who knew them from previous experience. Some pirates might also have revenge in mind from their unpleasant previous service in the merchant or naval marine, or if the captured ship had harmed friends or compatriots. Some pirates had ideological reasons, for example, hatred of Spain, because of previous cruel treatment by Spaniards of their captives. And in general, the first moments when pirates swarmed onto a ship and captured it, and then began furious looting, tended to be the most dangerous moments for the officers and crew of the captured ship. Finally, another reason for cruelty was that a pirate captain might simply be an unbalanced and sadistic individual.
Typical of a situation where torture was applied to find hidden wealth was the Red Sea capture by Henry Avery of the Muslim ship, the Gunsway or Ganj-i-Sawai, belonging to the Moghul emperor Aurangzeb. According to one eye witness, the treasure in the Gunsway was very great, but ‘little in Comparison to what was onboard, for tho’ they put severall to the torture they would not Confess where ye [the] rest of their treasure lay…’ Probably there was no more treasure because it seems very unlikely that among all those tortured nobody would reveal the location of more treasure.73 Equally unpleasant treatment was meted out by the pirate Captain Low (or Lowe) who took a Portuguese ship, which offered some resistance. According to Johnson, ‘Low tortured several of the men, to make them declare where the money (which he supposed they had onboard) lay, and extorted by that means, a confession that the captain had, during the chase, flung out of the cabin window, a bag with 11,000 moidores (Portuguese gold coins), which as soon as he was taken, he cut the rope off; and let it drop into the sea.’ This was enough to set Low off, who ‘raved like a fury, swore a thousand oaths, and ordered the captain’s lips to be cut off; which he broiled before his face, and afterwards murdered him and all the crew, being thirty two persons.’74 Low and his crew continued their bloody ways when they next captured a Spanish sloop of six guns and seventy men in the Bay of Honduras in March 1722 or 1723, which had previously taken five English sloops. Possibly this was the reason that the crew voted to kill all the Spaniards. So the pirates ‘fell pell-mell to execution with their swords, cutlasses, pole axes and pistols, cutting, slashing and shooting the poor Spaniards at a sad rate.’ Some Spaniards jumped into the sea, but a canoe chased after them, and the majority were hit on the head and drowned. One unfortunate Spaniard, weak and suffering from wounds, came back to Low’s ship, and begged for quarter (mercy). This was not forthcoming because, ‘one of the villains took hold of him, and said G__d d__n him, he would give him good quarters presently, and made the poor Spaniard kneel down on his knees, then taking his fusil [musket], put the muzzle of it into his mouth, a
nd fired down his throat.’75
This cruelty was not practiced in order to discover where treasure was located, but as a more general rage against opponents, especially those who resisted the pirates’ attacks. And perhaps the pirate violence of the 1720s was a reaction against the ruthless war being waged against them by the authorities.76 Nevertheless, Low was evidently an unbalanced individual, distinguished by his cruelty. Among Low’s other cruel exploits was the burning alive of a cook on a captured French ship, since the cook ‘was a greasy fellow [who] would burn well in the fire; so the poor man was bound to the main-mast, and burnt in the ship…’ Then there were the Portuguese friars who were hung at the fore-yard, but let down before they were dead, and this was repeated several times ‘out of sport’, wrote Johnson. Another Portuguese passenger looked too sad for one pirate, who cut open the passenger’s bowels with his cutlass, which immediately killed him. Low seemed also to specialize in cutting off the ears of his chief captives, thus Captain Willard from the New England ship Amsterdam Merchant, lost his ears, his nose was slit, and he suffered other cuts to the body. Nathan Skiff, captain of a whaler from Nantucket was bloodily whipped around the deck, then his ears were cut off, and he was shot dead. The masters of two more captured whale boats near Rhode Island suffered miserably, one was ripped up and his entrails taken out, the other had his ears cut off, and he was forced to eat them, seasoned with salt and pepper. Captain Thompson, commanding a ship of 14 guns, was forced to surrender to Low because his crew would not fight, and he too had his ears cut off. Possibly the ear cutting was symbolic – perhaps to silence authority?77