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104
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[JULY, 1928
as well as some Englishmen who, because of crimes committed at home, dared not return even to the West Indies, and, with 87 slaves as well as the booty, sailed for Ascension. Thence proba bly he went to St. Thomas for we are told (Capt. Thomas Phillips in Astley's Voyages, II, 891) that he persuaded the Governor to come on board and would not release him until he had provided him with provisions, for which, according to pirate custom, he paid with Bills of Exchange upon John a Noakes or the Pump at Aldgate. At the end of April 1696 Every arrived at Providence in the Bahamas, where he was well received by Governor Nicholas Trot, to whom the pirates presented their ship together with very handsome presents, and were allowed to bring their booty ashore. Middleton says that Trot feasted them royally, but to maintain respect for himself, made one of the men, who had broken à drinking glass. pay him eight sequins as the price of it (a sequin was worth about 98.3d.. Trot afterwards protested that he had no certain evidence that Every was a pirate, that, if he had known, he had no means of taking or even resisting him, and that his arrival had been most timely as it saved the islands from an impending attack by the French -(Sloane MS., 2902, f. 269), and he salved his conscience for the presents he had accepted by also taking Every's guns, which he mounted for defence against that enemy. Trot's friendly dealing seemed to promise an easy issue from all difficulties if only other Governors were like him. On the 15th June 1696 Sir William Beeston wrote from Jamaica "The pirates that ron away with one of Don Arturo Oburn's [? Spanish for Houblon's) ships from Corunna [i.e., the Charles) have been in the Red Sea and gott great wealth, up to £ 300,000 it is reported. They are arrived at Providence and have sent privately to me to try if they could preveil with me to pardon them and let them come hither, and in order to it I was told it would be worth to me a great sum (£20,000), but that could not tempt me from my duty. (Cal. S. P. Col.). Sir William Markham, Governor of Pennsylvania, is said to have protected some of them at a price of £1,000 each (Cal. S. P. Col. 1697, No. 1331). The Fancy went ashore and was wrecked in Providence Harbour and the remainder of the crew, about 80 in number, dispersed. Those who did not wish to stay in America obtained shipping, and by different channels came to Ireland and thence to England. Some of them were taken, tried in October 1696, and executed, but Every himself, who had taken the name of Bridgman, was never arrested. At the same time ho could not make any use of his ill-gotten wealth, for the men to whom he wes forced to entrust it for disposal, robbed him without the slightest compunction, till, at last, after a miserable life of hiding and poverty, he died and was buried in Biddiford (Bideford) Church on the 10th June 1727 or 1728. N.B.-There is no entry of this burial in the Church Register.
417. Hamilton (I. 42), apparently referring to Every, says that the pirates first attempted to establish a base at Perim, but finding no water there, went to St. Mary's in Madagascar, and Downing (pp. 92, 105, 128) mentions a strong place in that island called Captain Every's Castle. It is curious that Baldridge mentions no visit from Every, and says that, unlike the loter pirates, Every limited himself to the island and interfered with the natives as little as possible. Johnson (I. 45) rightly ridicules the story of Van Broeck that Every reigned as a king amongst the natives, for the shortness of his career in the Indian Seas makes this quite impossible. The only officer of Every's whose name I have been able to trace was his first lieutenant Robert Clinton (Cal. State Papers, Col. 1698, 451, ii).
418. The immediete consequence of the trouble caused to trade by Every and his fellow pirates was that the servants of the English East India Company at Surat and Broach were imprisoned by the Mughal Governor as being responsible for their countrymen. The members of the Surat Council were not released until the 27th June 1696. In fact, the Governor treated them with such contempt thet the natives looked upon them as being " as despicable as the Portuguese in India and the Jews in Spain " (Bruce, III, 188, 307). On the other hand, the Muscat Arabs, in reprisel for the losses inflicted by the pirates, dete ined some of the English ships, e.g., the Caesar (Captain Wright) and attempted to detain others, e.g., the Nassau
