Indian Antiquary Vol 49

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 11

JANUARY, 1920]
EPISODES OF PIRACY IN THE EASTERN SEAS
every prisoner five pounds and besides a gratuity from the Gentlemen Employers. Wee read the King's Proclamations about Every &c. and the Right Honble. Company's.84
About 9 o'clock the 10th July wee perceived the rogue made from us, soe wee gave the Almighty our most condigne thanks for his mercy that delivered us not to the worst of our enimies, for truly he [the pirate] was very strong, having at least an hundred Europeans on board, 34 gunns mounted, besides 10 pattererers 85 and 2 small mortars in the head; his lower tier, some of them, as wee judged, sixteen and eighteen pounders. Wee lay as near our course as could, and next day saw land on our starboard side which was the Maine [Land]. Kept on our way.
The 12th July dyed the Boatswaine's boy, George Mopp, in the morning. Friday the 16th do. in the evening dyed the Gunner's boy Thomas Matthews. Sunday the 18th at anchor two leagues from the Pillo Sumbelong [Pulo Sembilan] Islands dyed the Barber Andrew Miller. Do. the 31st dyed the Cheife Mate Mr. John Smith. The other two are yet in a very deplorable condition and wee are ashore here to refresh them. . . . The Chinese further report....the Mocco was at the Maldives and creaned [careened]; there they gave an end to the life of their commanding rogue Stout, who they murthered for attempting to run away."
Atcheen, the 28th August 1697.
7
SOLOMON LLOYD.
WM. REYNOLDS.
[ India Office Records, O. C. 6430. ]
XVI.
CAPTAIN KIDD'S FIGHT WITH TWO PORTUGUESE SHIPS: PORTUGUESE REPULSED BY ARABS, 1697.
When the English Government decided to assist the East India Company in the suppression of piracy, it had no ships-of-war to spare and was glad to accept the offer of Lord Bellamont, Governor of New York, to send out one equipped by a kind of private company. As most of the pirates to be dealt with were equipped from New England, it was supposed that Lord Bellamont would be able to find a captain who would have means of obtaining much useful information to assist him in his task, and so, if not to set a thief to catch thieves, at any rate to send a man well informed as to the ways of the thieves. The fact that such a man might turn thief himself was either ignored or. supposed to be discounted by giving him forty shares in the undertaking.
Lord Bellamont chose Captain William Kidd, a man who, as far as is known, had a previous good reputation. He received two commissions from the Crown, one dated 11th December 1695 as a privateer against the French, the other dated 26th January 1695-6 enabling him to take pirates wherever he found them. He left England early in 1696 and, after strengthening his crew in New England, sailed for the Cape. What his original
83 Dated 17th July 1696.
8 Dated 22nd July 1696. [N.B.-The King's Proclamation offered £500, and the Company's Rs. 4,000, to whoever should seize Every. Home Misc., vol. 36, pp. 191, 193.]
85 Pattararo, pedrero, a small gun.-ED.