Indian Antiquary Vol 53

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 335

APBI, 1984)
NOTES ON PIRACY IN EASTERN WATERS
75
been sent as ambassadors from Manila (Crawfurd, II, 527). The treacherous behaviour of the natives of the Archipelago was in part the cause of the severe treatment which they received from the Dutch, e.g., in 1658 a whole Dutch crew was treacherously surprised and murdered by the inhabitants of Palembang on the coast of Sumatra (Schouten, I, 24).
French 801. In 1655 a French pirate ship was forced into Aden by bad weather and lack of provisions. The crew were imprisoned and then sent inland and forced to submit to circumcision. Soon after they managed to escape to Mocha, where they said that they had had a consort, an English built ship of 26 guns, of which they had lost sight in a storm. Possibly these two ships were part of the squadron of six ships sent out by the Duc de Meilleraye about this time to take recruits to Madagascar and to cruise in the Red Sea (Foster, English Factories, 1655-60, p. 59; Dehérain, pp. 22, 96).
302. According to Nicolao Manucci (II, 45), a Farangi pirate having taken a Moor Vessel from the Maldives with a load of cowries (for which of course the pirates had no use), was persuaded by the merchants to accept of a ransom which they were to receive at Mocha, but when the pirate and her prize arrived there, the merchants found two royal ships (on which were many fakirs, lords and ladies of Hindustan) in the harbour. Obtaining their assistance and that of some other vessels, to the number of ten or twelve, they sallied out to take the pirate ship. The latter however completely defeated them, took one ship which they plundered and burned, and then chased the royal ships and took one of them off Diu, plundering its cargo and dishonouring the unfortunate women on board. Aurangzeb, enraged at this affront, would not accept any excuses on the part of his officers, until he had received ocular demonstration of the power of European ships of war. This was furnished by an Italian, Ortenojo Bronzoni, who built a small ship, provided it with guns and manned it with European artillerymen (probably runaway sailors) who were in Aurangzeb's service. The ship was launched on a large tank and its working (including the firing of its guns) demon. strated. Aurangzeb was convinced and gave up the idea of building a fleet with which to suppress the European pirates. It is not certain who the Farangi pirate was, whose exploits gave rise to the above story, but the Dag Register of Batavia for 1663 (pp. 306, 316) says that the Dowager Queen of Bijapur went to Mocha on pilgrimage in 1661, and that on her return her ship was plundered by a sea-rover, commanded by one Herbert Hugo, who held a commission from Havre de Grace. The Queen herself was robbed of a diamond worth 25,000 Great Bijapur pagodas. From his name, Hugo may have been English or Dutch, but his commissien was French. Of course all three nations repudiated responsibility.
308. As regards Manucci's account of Aurangzeb's determination to leave the mastery of the sea to Europeans, when the Caliph Omar (634-43) was asked by Moawiyah to send forces to Egypt by sea, he replied, "The Syrian sea, they tell me, is larger and broader than the dry land and is instant with the Lord, night and day, seeking to swallow it up. How should I trust my people on its accursed bosom?" (Muir, Caliphate, p. 212). Again, when in April 1463, the whole Ottoman fleet of 100 ships was unable to prevent five Austrian and Genoese warships from entering the harbour of Constantinople, which Sultan Muhammad was besieging," from that time and after the disaster of the High-Admiral of the Ottoman fleet [who was bastinadoed for his want of success] was born that opinion, which was ever after held by the Turks, that God had given them the Empire of the Land but had left that of the Sea to the Infidels" (Ducas, Bk. XXXVIII, p. 152; Von Hammer-Purgstall, 1, 233). As regards the Hindus also, we are told that the mysterious counsellor of Shivaji Always advised him against enterprises by sea.