Pirates: A History

by Travers, Tim

  Unhappy with such large scale pirate activities, the Manchu emperor decided it was necessary to eliminate this very significant threat to the coasts of south China. The generals the emperor appointed employed two or three different strategies. First was the ‘militia and local boats’ strategy of General Na-yen-ch’eng, which worked to some extent, but not enough force was applied, and this essentially failed by 1805. Consequently, as in the West, General Na turned to a ‘Pardon and Pacification’ campaign, which also worked to some extent, but not enough pirates surrendered. General Na was dismissed, and General Wu was appointed in his place. Wu also hired local boats, but these were defeated by 1809, so General Wu was replaced by General Pai Ling in 1809. Pai Ling’s concept was to cut off the supplies of the pirates, and among other measures, to protect the salt trade by sending the salt inland instead of by sea. He also hired local ships to attack the pirates, with some success, but this too failed with a big pirate sea victory in 1809. Finally, it was not so much the tactics of the generals as internal dissension among the pirates that saw their reign come to an end in 1810, as mentioned above. In the short period of 1805 to 1810 these Chinese pirates succeeded through charismatic leaders, good organisation, strong discipline, and a keen desire for cash. Initially produced by the Tay-son rebellion, it is also notable that these very large pirate fleets only survived for five years before succumbing to internal rivalry – partly a victim of their own success.13

  The end of the pirate confederation in 1810 did not mean the end of Chinese piracy, which continued well into the twentieth century. Yet there was one significant pirate explosion in the 1840s when the pirate chief Shap-‘ng-tsai, with his lieutenant Chui Apoo, terrorised the area from the island of Hainan in the Gulf of Tonkin to Fukien province. As with previous Chinese pirates, these left the same trail of protection money paid, towns raided, goods stolen, men killed or ransomed, and women taken away for sale or concubinage. Shap’s Chinese pirate fleet numbered some sixty-four junks and 3,000 crew. To counter this threat, a fleet of eight junks from the Chinese navy, three East India Company ships, including the steam paddler the Phlegethon, and the Royal Navy ship Hastings, pursued Shap’s fleet into the Tonkin River in October 1849. The Phlegethon drew little water, and managed to cross a shallow sand bar, and trapped Shap’s fleet in the river. In the late afternoon of 24 October 1849, the pursuing force hotly engaged the pirates, and Shap’s junk blew up with a tremendous explosion. By 8p.m., twenty-seven of Shap’s junks were in flames, and another twenty-four were destroyed. The low, flat islands at the mouth of the river were covered in Chinese pirates attempting to escape but the local Cochin Chinese either captured them, or used sampans to chase down and spear the pirates in the water. Shap himself escaped in a small junk, but later surrendered, and in the previous Chinese tradition of dealing with Chang Pao and Ching Shi, the authorities pardoned Shap and gave him a military commission. Chui Apoo held out for some further time, apparently in 1849 murdering two British officers in Hong Kong who had insulted him. Then his fleet was destroyed in two encounters near Bias Bay, close to Hong Kong. Like Shap, he surrendered to the Chinese authorities, but was kidnapped by the British and landed in a Hong Kong jail. He was sentenced to transportation for life, which he considered so insulting a sentence that he committed suicide in jail in 1851. This ended the Chinese burst of piracy of the 1840s, although much more was to come later.14

  India and the Piracy of Kanhoji Angrey (1690s–1729)

  In contrast to China, a somewhat different kind of piracy was developing along the coasts of India. Pirates had operated off India for centuries, including the Sanganians operating out of Kutch, and the Colee Rovers operating out of Gujerat. Indeed, Marco Polo wrote in the late 1260s that more than a hundred pirate ships came out from Gujerat every summer, bringing their wives and children with them. They stayed out all summer, and formed fleets of twenty to thirty ships, which acted as a sea cordon or blockade, so that no merchant vessel could escape them. There was a special emphasis on the west coast of India, due to strong trading links with the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, and the Red Sea. The west coast of India, sometimes known as the Malabar Coast, meaning the land between Bombay and Cochin, attracted pirates, especially after the coming of the Europeans in the early 1500s, following Vasco da Gama’s arrival on the Malabar Coast in 1498.

  It was along the west coast of India that there developed a remarkable struggle for power between several countries, groups and alliances. This situation was helped by the lack of a single strong power which might have controlled maritime security in the area. Among the contestants were the Europeans, who fought for trade dominance, pitting Portuguese, Dutch and English ships, trading bases, and companies, against each other. Of significance here were the enclaves established along the Indian coast by the Portuguese, especially Goa, as well as the creation of the British East India Company at the beginning of the seventeenth century, based at Surat and Bombay. Other significant competitors in the area included of course the Moghul Indian Empire. However, this empire was starting to break down, partly under the strain of internal feuds, rebellions, and costly military expeditions against the emerging Hindu power of the Marathas. Leading some of these very large Moghul military efforts was the emperor Aurangzeb (1658–1707), who was unable to defeat the Maratha hero, Shivaji (1627–1680). The Marathas thus also came to be a power in the region. Other contestants in the area included the Siddy, a naval force of Muslim descendants of Africans, who inhabited the port and fort of Janjira, and nominally owed allegiance to the sultan of Bijapur. Western pirates were another dangerous part of this coast in the late seventeenth century, including some of the Madagascar pirates such as Avery and Kidd (discussed in Chapter 6). The English sailor Edward Barlow, who unusually kept a diary, noted that he came across Danish pirates near Surat in 1687, who took Muslim ships and the Moghul’s ships, because the Danes theoretically held a reprisal commission from the king of Denmark. Ten years later, in 1697, Barlow was in the same location again, and stated that locals feared what he called black pirates from Diu Point, near Surat. Other pirates included Muscat Arabs, who in 1696 swooped down on Salsette, a Portuguese town twenty miles from Bombay, killing the Portuguese priests and carrying off 1,400 captives. At this time these Muscat pirates possessed a very large and well armed fleet. Into this complicated, warring, and constantly changing mix on the coast of India, arrived Kanhoji Angrey (1669–1729), the founder of a dynasty, which the East India Company and the Portuguese called pirates. Angrey however, was normally allied with the Marathas, and so he can therefore also be seen as a Maratha privateer.15

  Angrey originally served in the Maratha naval fleet – he was named deputy fleet commander in 1690, and perhaps admiral soon after. He continued to serve the Marathas, though endless civil wars within the Maratha ruling family and their supporters made it difficult to decide who exactly to serve. Nevertheless, Angrey insisted that foreign ships should carry his pass, the ‘dastak’, easily purchased for twenty rupees (the same rate as the Portuguese), which offered freedom from pirates and shore based attacks. Those who did not purchase the dastak, Angrey felt free to capture. Angrey strengthened his position by establishing a string of impregnable forts on the coast from Bombay to Goa, and by building up his navy. Around 1703, this navy consisted of ten ghurabs (frigates with sails, but with a bow like a galley) mounting sixteen to thirty cannon each, and fifty gallivats (fast rowing boats with sails) with four to ten cannon each. Singly, these ships were no match for the Europeans, but Angrey devised special tactics which proved very successful. When the larger European ships came close to shore, they slowed down in the shallow waters, which gave Angrey his chance as a large number of gallivats sped out from hiding, followed by the slower but larger ghurabs. The gallivats took care to stay astern of the European ships to avoid their cannon, and tried to cripple their victims and slow them down. Then came the ghurabs, which fired and wheeled away to give others their turn. As much as possible
the shore-based guns of Angrey also came into play. The idea was to eventually board the European ship, relying on the man power superiority of Angrey’s men – who anyway were better in man to man fighting than the Europeans.16

  From around 1710, Angrey happily pursued East India Company ships, and indeed, any European and coastal ships that came into view of his ports. One unusual incident relates to Angrey’s use of ransom as another source of pirate income. The story begins in 1709, when Captain Gerard Cooke and his family, passengers on the Loyall Bliss, were on their way to Calcutta, where Cooke was to become the East India Company engineer. After a rough voyage the ship arrived, and anchored off Karwar. Here the nearly sixty-year-old chief factor of the East India Company, John Harvey, described as deformed, quickly became enamoured of Cooke’s attractive thirteen or fourteen year-old daughter. By offering large sums to the Cooke family as a dowry, which Harvey obtained by private trading, as was usually the case, he secured her hand in marriage. However, Harvey died only two years later, and the fifteen year-old Mrs Harvey rapidly married the new East India Company chief factor at Karwar, Thomas Chown. The Chowns and two other ships set out for Bombay in 1713 and were ambushed by four of Angrey’s ships. A very hot fight ensued, in which Angrey’s ships prevailed, but during the contest Thomas Chown’s arm was torn away by a shot. He died in his recent bride’s bloodstained arms. Angrey brought Mrs Chown and the captains and mates of the East India Company ships to Colaba, Angrey’s capital, where Angrey sought a ransom of 30,000 rupees for his captives. The Bombay Council of the East India Company readily paid the ransom, and Mrs Chown arrived in Bombay, where she very soon married another East India Company man, Thomas Gifford. Subsequently, Thomas Gifford obtained the pepper monopoly at Anjengo on the Malabar Coast, where he became wealthy by cheating both the East India Company and the local merchants. Retribution followed when the locals killed Gifford for cheating them, in 1721. This was not a pleasant demise, since the locals cut out Gifford’s tongue and nailed it to his chest, and then fastened Gifford to a plank, on which he floated down the river. Mrs Gifford, still youthful, but now a widow three times over, escaped to Madras, where she appealed for help. What she wanted was to obtain her triple inheritances, and so she applied to the recently arrived Commodore Matthews, of the Royal Navy. This was the same Matthews who had called in at St Mary’s Madagascar, attempting to capture pirates, but failed to achieve much except for private trading, for which he was court martialled (see Chapter 6). It seems that Matthews was brave, but otherwise ‘void of common sense, good manners, or knowledge of the world’. Matthews quarreled with anybody and everybody, and especially with the Governor of Bombay, over the important question of who should fire the first salute. But in regard to Mrs Gifford, Matthews was very gallant, so that the attractive Mrs Gifford, still only twenty-six, lived in Matthew’s house and then onboard his ship – to the scandal of Bombay. Subsequently, Mrs. Gifford returned to England, and became involved in long court cases against the East India Company over money. Earlier, of course, Angrey had obtained his ransom for Mrs Gifford when she was Mrs Chown, and was satisfied with this means of increasing his revenue, but now found he had to defend his interests when Matthews commanded a fleet in an ill fated attack on Angrey’s fort at Colaba in 1721.17

  Before turning to the question of Matthews and his attack on Colaba, it is worth noting the reason for the long 38 year fight which developed between Angrey and the East India Company. Commencing in 1718 the East India Company allowed Indian ships to fly the English flag, which robbed Angrey of his right to charge customs fees and the dastak from these Indian ships. Angrey strongly objected, and the struggle began. During this long period of warfare, the East India Company indulged in a series of incredibly incompetent attacks on Angrey’s forts, usually resulting in casualties and miserable failure for the East India Company. For example, one such attack took place in November 1718, when one brave military captain marched up to the gates of Angrey’s Khanderi fort, presented his pistol, and tried to shoot the lock off the gate. Instead the ball rebounded, hitting the captain on the nose, which caused him and most of the attackers to retreat. Most of these attacks failed due to lack of proper organization and planning, quite apart from the strength of Angrey’s forts. But in a concerted attempt to deal with Angrey, the English and the Portuguese formed an alliance, and the Royal Navy headed by Commodore Matthews replaced the ineffective East India Company ships and sailors.

  Focussing therefore on Matthews’ attack on Colaba in 1721, some 6,500 Portuguese and English troops trained and secretly prepared to assault Angrey’s fort from the land side, while a fleet of ten ships under Matthews was to bombard the fort in preparation for the assault. However, Angrey found out through his spies that Colaba was to be the target of this allied force, and speedily sought help from the Marathas, who provided 25,000 troops to help defend Colaba. The assault took place on 24 December 1721, and although a few English soldiers and sailors got into the fort, led by a certain Lieutenant Bellamy, who ascended the walls with colours flying, the rest were thrown back. Meanwhile, the Angrians counter attacked with a large force, including elephants, and the besieging army fell into disorder. The Portuguese army started to retreat, and were then routed by the Maratha cavalry. At the same time the English departed for their ships. Commodore Matthews was convinced of Portuguese treachery, and arrived at Portuguese headquarters in such a fury that he struck the Portuguese commander in the mouth with his cane. The Portuguese Viceroy was also badly treated and departed for his ship, claiming sickness, though an English doctor could find nothing wrong with him. Naturally, this violence from Matthews plus mutual recriminations disrupted the allied force. Indeed the Portuguese, who were disgusted at the constant drunkenness and quarreling among the English forces, and their treatment from Matthews, shortly after signed a peace treaty with Angrey.18

  Things went from bad to worse for the East India Company – fighting broke out against the Portuguese, and Commodore Matthews departed on a private trading venture. Angrey began to attack Company ships as well as merchant ships, while Matthews, when he returned to Bombay, seems to have taken the side of Angrey in the latter’s dispute with the East India Company. Astonishingly, as Matthews left Bombay in 1723 with his Royal Navy fleet, he sent word to the Viceroy of Goa that he would present him with an old woman’s petticoat if he, the Viceroy, did not capture every single one of the East India Company’s ships. Bombay was clearly glad to see the last of Matthews, who returned to England, where the Court of the Exchequer obtained judgement against him for private trading and misconduct in the sum of £13,676. Subsequently Matthews was cashiered from the Royal Navy in 1744 for failure and misconduct in a battle against a French and Spanish fleet in the Mediterranean. Bombay and the East India Company were no doubt very pleased that Matthews was now gone, although Angrey remained. Angrey’s acts of piracy, or warfare, depending on one’s point of view, continued until his death in 1729. Angrey is described as a strong man, at home on sea or land, fond of good living, yet deeply religious, a careful and astute leader, employing diplomacy as much as warfare. He collected swords, and encouraged learning. He had three wives, and many concubines, and was the father of seven legitimate children, which led to fighting between his sons for Angrey’s kingdom on his death. Overcoming this, Angrey’s sons continued attacking East India Company ships through the 1730s and 1740s. Especially striking was the capture of the Derby in 1735, a rich Company ship with enough gold onboard for the East India Company to operate for a whole year. It seems that nine Angrian pirate ships attacked the Derby, mostly from the stern as was their custom, a tactic made easier by the lack of wind that day. After losing the main and mizzen masts, the Derby and 115 passengers and crew surrendered. The inside story of this capture is that it was the custom of ships’ captains to bring up two treasure chests to the top deck, containing around £2,000 as prize money to the crew if they fought stoutly and beat off attackers. The captain of the Derby neglected to do this
, and the crew allegedly remained listless in the ship’s defense. When seven men were killed and more were wounded, the captain of the Derby insisted on surrendering.19

  Ultimately, Angrian piracy came to an end with the capture of the two main Angrian forts. First was the taking of Severndroog by Commodore James in 1755. Then James, Rear Admiral Watson, and Robert Clive, captured the fort of Gheria in 1756. British success in India had persuaded the majority of the Maratha forces to combine with the British in their assaults, thus depriving Tolaji, the current Angrian chief and an illegitimate son of Kanhoji Angrey, of much needed land support. In 1755, Commodore James in command of a small fleet of the Bombay Marine, plus a Maratha fleet, chased the Angrian fleet back into the protection of the Severndroog fort, known as the golden fort, with walls fifty feet high. James realised that a land based siege would take too long, and also realised that only very close bombardment from his flag ship, the forty gun Protector, would have an impact. So, after taking soundings, James sailed the Protector in close, in four fathoms of water, with the support of two smaller ships. On the second day of the cannonade, James organised the operation so that the Protector fired only two or three upper deck guns in continuous rotation at the main Severndroog fort, in order to keep the fort’s return fire suppressed, assisted by the men in the tops with musket fire. Meanwhile, the Protector’s other side fired broadsides at two lesser forts across from the main fort. At midday, a magazine exploded in Severndroog fort, the defenders tried to leave by small boats, and soon resistance ended both at the main fort, and at the lesser forts. On his death, and in recognition of his success, James’s widow erected a tower at Shooters Hill on Woolwich Common in England, known as Severndroog Tower, or perhaps more accurately as ‘Lady James’s Folly’.20