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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MAY, 1926
English Government to make voyages to the East Indies upon certain definite conditions. These ships seldom observed the conditions of their charters and, like the Interlopers and Privateers, were strongly suspected of piracy (Bruce, III, 126, 187).
894. In 1692 another of Abdu'l Ghafür's ships was taken by pirates in the Persian Gulf (Surat to Bombay, 4th April 1697), and on his complaint the English in Surat were again confined. But it should be remarked that the action of the Mughal Governor was due not so much to any belief in the charges brought against the Company as to a desire to protect its agents from the anger of the people, who were unable to understand how contrary it was to the interest of the English Company to favour piracy of any kind. At the same time it was probably an English pirate who made the capture just recorded, for Baldridge tells us that on the 14th October 1692 Captain Edward Coats of the Nassau (170 tons, 16 guns and 70 men) came into St. Mary's after & cruise in the Red Sea during which they had made £ 500 & man. According to the pirato Culliford (Deposition, 17th June 1702, H.C. A., 1, 16). Coats was again in the Red Sea in 1694 or 1695 with Samuel Burgess in the Jacob and took & rich ship from Mocha, the pirates sharing 2,800 pieces of eight each per man. Coats took his ship to New York and presented it to Governor Fletcher.
895. On the 18th August 1692 an English rover, James Gilliam (or Gillam or Guillem) wrote to the President at Surat to say that he and 19 of his comrades had been treacherously seized by the natives at Mangalore (? Mangrol in Kathiawar, Miles, p. 227) and carried to Junagarh, where the Governor refused to release them, asserting that they were Danes, and even imprisoning as a liar a "Moorman "who knew them and testified to the fact that they were English (Ind. Off. O. C., 5815). Captain George Phinney of the Sceptre in his Log (29th January 1696-7) says that Gilliam being on shore with some of his men at Anjengo was entertained in a friendly way by the natives. They persuaded him to give an exhibition of the skill of his men with the musket, firing at a mark, and when they were off their guard, with their weapons unloaded, seized them and made them prisoners. The President at Surat, only too pleased to have them mistaken for Danes, would not listen to the plea of their being his countrymen and left them in captivity. About 1696 Gilliam managed to escape with six. teen of his fellow prisoners to Bombay and was taken on board the Mocha frigate.76 When the orew of the latter mutinied in July of that year, it is said that it was Gilliam who murdered Captain Edgcombe (Home Misc., XXXVI, p. 275 ; Col. Off. Records, 5/1043, 2, x, see para. 434 below).
According to a letter from Lord Bellamont dated 29th Nov. 1699 (Cal. S. P. Col.), Gilliam turned renegade during his confinement and was circumcised. After his capture his ship returned to New England without him, and the crew shared £700 a man (Letter from Bombay, 18th December 1696). Subsequently Gilliam took passage with Kidd when the latter returned to New England and was sent to England with Kidd, Bradish and Weatherley for trial by Lord Bellamont in 1699 (Report on the MSS. of the Duke of Portland, VIII, 75; Dalton, The Real Captain Kidd, p. 280).
896. On the 7th August 1693 Captain John Churcher of the Charles from New York arrived at St. Mary's in Madagascar to trade with the pirates and to purchase Blaves. Besides other articles which he brought for sale he had "some books, catechisms, primers and hornbooks. two Bibles" (Baldridge's Deposition). The Charles was owned by Mr. Frederick Phillips of New York. Amongst other letters enclosed with Commodore Thomas Warren's letter of the 28th November 1697 (Col. Off. Records, 2, 233, No. 90) was a deposition of one Henry Watson who had recently been in Madagascar. Watson says that the piratee were supplied with all necessaries by Captains Adam Baldridge and Lawrence Johnstone [I find no
76 About 360 tas, carrying 8 Patersroos and 28 guns (Madr Counoil to the Netherlande Company at Malacca, 6th Aug 1606).
