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APRIZ, 1928)
NOTES UN PIRACY IN EASTERN WATERS
Malabarese and Arabians. 850. It has been mentioned that Sivaji manned his fleet with Muhammadans as well as Hindus. In February or March 1682-3 two Arab ships and four grabs in the employ of Sambhaji, the Maratha, unsuccessfully attacked the Company's ship President (Captain Jonathan Hide) off the mouth of the Sangameswar River in the Ratnagiri District (Orme, Hist. Frag., p. 120; Bomb. Gaz., I, i. 77).
English. 851. On the 9th August 1683 Admiralty Jurisdiction for the trial of pirates was granted to the East India Company (Bruce, II. 496-7). Apparently up to this time all Europeans accused of piracy in Eastern waters and arrested in India had to be sent to Europe for trial, a dilatory, expensive and unsatisfaotory process, which, if it had been continued, would have rendered it impossible to deal with these gentry when their numbers became formidable, as they did within the next few years.
852. In 1684 the Bristol Interloper (John Hand, Commander), visited the Maldive Islands, and having been refused permission by the king to trade in cowries, fired upon the town. As the Bristol returned with a full cargo, it is evident that either the king reconsidered his deci. sion or that the Bristol got a cargo for nothing (Ind. Off. O.C. 5232, 28th October 1684). In January 1685 the Bristol left Surat, Sir John Child hoping (Letter to Madras, 6th Feb. 1684-5) that it would be the last time she would trouble them. On her way home she put in at Johanna, one of the Comoro Islands, off the north-west coast of Madagascar and there met with Captain John Tyrrel of H.M.S. Phoenix, who had been sent out with a Commission to take Interlopers (Ind. Off. O.C., 5387). In May, Captain lyrrel, having taken the Bristol and put a prize crew on board, set sail in her company for Bombay, but the Bristol sank on the voyage, her crew being saved by the Phoenix. On his arrival, Tyrrel handed over the crew of the Bristol to the Bombay Council, who, according to Hamilton (I. 192) treated them as pirates. If the account given of John Hand in Ind. Off. 0. C. 5035 is true, his behaviour had certainly been that of a pirate. At Sumatra he fired upon a Dutch vessel and he was killed whilst landing to plunder and burn a native town (Hunter, II. 295). According to the Log of the Massingberd (Joseph Haddock Comniander), under date 11th February 1684, Hand accidentally shot himself in the leg and died of the wound. Captain Haddock does not say how the accident happened.
853. In 1681 one John Coates, Master and part Owner of the Redclyffe of Bristol (apparently some kind of Permission Ship) went to India, and arrived at Masulipatam in 1684. After some little time he appears to have engaged in the service of the King of Siam, who was on bad terms with the King of Golconda. In reprisal for injuries alleged to have been suf. fered by Siam, he seized and plundered the ship Kedderee belonging to a Brahman subject of Golconda, and the ship New Jerusalem belonging to an Armenian merchant John de Marcora. The latter ship he sent under Alexander Leslie on a cruise in the Bay of Bengal, where, under Siamese colours, she seized the Quedabux in sight of Point Negrais. These actions caused the native Government to close all trade with, and supply of provisions to, the English at Mada pollam, and it was only with some difficulty that matters were accommodated (Protest dated Madapollam, 5th December 1685, Letters to Fort St. George, Coates, pp. 25-31). Coates was killed soon after, whilst assisting the King of Siam to quella Macassar insurrection. (Pitt to Madras, Achin, 29th Sept. 1686-7).
Sanganlans. 854. In 1683 Mr. John Pettit, a member of the Bombay Council, having quarrelled with Sir John Child, the Governor, went trading in his own ship the George to the Persian Gulf. On the 28th October the George was attacked by Sanganian pirates and, after repulsing their
