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102
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[JULY, 1926
England, (Cal. State Papers, Col., 24th August 1699). William May is probably the William Mason, who in 1693 received a commission against the French from Governor Jacob Lysener of New York. Culliford's Depos. H.C.A., 1. 16), (4) the Susanna of Boston and Rhode Island (Captain Thomas Week or Wake, who had received a pardon for piracy in the time of King James, Cal. S. P. Col., 18th December 1696. Apparently he missed his consorts for, as already stated in para. 408 above he returned empty handed to St. Mary's on the 7th December 1695), and finally (5) the Amity (Captain Thomas Tew, Col. Off. Records, 323-2, No. 25, iv). The fact that so many old pirates should submit to the leadership of a newcomer may have been due in part to the superior streng vh of his ship, but probably was due still more to Every's personality and possibly to earlier exploits as a buccaneer or even pirate of which no record exists.77 However, so powerful a fleet as was now collected naturally made many captures, though the Dolphin proved such a bad sailer that she had to be burnt and her erew distributed amongst the other ships. At last in September the pirates came in sight of two vessels belonging to the great Mocha fleet. The smaller of these, the Fateh Muhammad, was taken with little resistance, but as the Amity now lagged behind and dropped off after the engagement, it was probably on this occasion that the old pirate Tew was killed (Dann's Deposition). Every took out of her between 30 and 40 thousand pounds worth of gold and silver (State Trials. XIII, 483). The pirates now followed the larger ship, the Gunsway (i.e., Gang-i-sawai) and on the 28th September (State Trials, XIII, 482) took her off St. John's (Sanjan), 30 miles from Surat. The Gunsway belonged to the Mughal, was the largest ship sailing from Surat, and every year carried pilgrims to and from Mecca. John Dann says that she was mounted with 40 guns, carried some 800 men and fought for three hours (Middleton says two hours). The Indian Historian, Khafi Kahn (Muntakhabul Lubab, Elliott, VII, 350) says that she was strong and well manned and armed and had on board 52 lakhs of treasure with many passengers of high rank. Yet, says he, her commander, Ibrahim Khan, made no adequate defence and, after dressing up some Turki girls as men and exhorting them to fight, ran down and hid himself in the hold. Middleton, who was one of Every's crew, says that much treasure was taken, though nothing like all that the ship contained, for, though many of the Indiang were tortured, they either did not know or would not tell where it was concealed. There were among the prisoners a number of women, some of them ladies who, from their dress and jewels, appeared to be of high rank. Though Every is reported to have denied the fact, Middleton asserts, and it seems to be certain, that these women were very cruelly and shamefully treated. John Dann says that many of the ladies killed themselves to escape from dishonour. One of Every's crew, John Sparcks, when hanged at Execution Dock on the 25th November 1696 "expressed a due sense of his wicked life, in particular to the most horrid barbarities he had committed, which though upon the persons of heathens and infidels, guch as the forementioned poor Indians, so inhumanly rifled and treated so unmercifully; deolaring that his eyes were now open to his crimes, and that he justly suffered death for such inhumanity, much more than his injustice and robbery in running away with one of his Majesty's ships [? the Charles), which was of the two his lesser concern (Brit. Mus. 515. 1. 2. 193)." Khafi Khan (Elliott, VII, 353) says that a man who had been one of the prisoners taken by the pirates in the Gang-i-sawai told him that certain of the English pirates boasted to their cap. tives that they had now taken their revenge for the wounds which they had received when Sidi Yakub had attacked Bombay in 1689. Repeating this to the English Governor of Surat, the latter replied that they were, in all probability, men who had been taken prisoners by the Sidi, had been ill-treated by him and, having escaped, had run away and joined the pirates, in which case of course no blame for their actions could attach to the English Company.
11 Mr. Peter Henry Bruce in his Memoirs (pp. 389 et seq.) says that one Mr. Jones, the tyrannical Governor of the Bahamas from 1990 to 1694, was supported in his ovil actions by the pirate Every.
