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SEPTEMBER, 1926]
437. In August 1694 a man named Steele, mate of the William and Mary, with a Dutchman named Keyser, mate of the Ruby, then at anchor in Bombay Roads, had seduced six or eight Europeans in the Company's employ and carried off the ship's boat with cutlasses and firearms, with intent to seize the first vessel they might come across and then, under a pretended commission, to attack the Mughal's ships from Mocha. Bad weather however made them run their boat ashore in Surat River, where Steele took service with the Portuguese. At last, being slighted by them and driven to great necessity, he surrendered to the English President at Surat in October 1696. On the 30th November orders were issued for him to be kept in irons until he could be sent home on the Benjamin as a prisoner.
438. On the 23rd December 1696 three pirates appeared in Calicut Roads under English colours, which they subsequently changed to Danish. They captured some ships which were at anchor, and sent ashore to say that they would burn them unless a ransom of £10,000 was forthcoming. Some of the messengers informed the Chief and Council of the English Factory "that they acknowledged no countrymen, they had sold their country and were sure to be hanged if taken. They would take no Quarter, but do all the Mischief they could." The ransom being delayed, they hoisted the bloody flag and fired the captured ships (Advices from Bombay, 15th January 1696-7, Col. Off. Records, 323, 2). This is the first authentic instance that I have come across of the use of the bloody flag by professional pirates in Eastern waters. Whilst at Calicut, these pirates were very communicative. They said they had left Mocha on the 24th August and that it was they who had taken the Arab ship at Chutterpore (see para. 436 above). They told Captain Mason (who had been sent on board by the Factors to negotiate) that his ship the Unity, which Gilliam had taken from him [this must have been some years earlier, before Gilliam's capture by the natives] had been taken by that pirate to New York and presented to the Governor, who had sold her for £1,000 and that the purchaser had, a little later, been offered £2,000 by some of the crew who wished to make another voyage. As each man had received £700, they could well afford the price (Letter from Bombay, 15th January 1696-7, Home Misc. XXXVI, p. 312. See para. 395 above). These three pirates were Chivers, Hore and the commander of the Pelican (either Captain Robert Colley or Captain Powell (See Ind. Off., O. C. 6579, 6807). The Pelican was a New England ship, commissioned against the Spanish, which had turned pirate. She began her career in the East by treacherously seizing and putting to ransom the King of Johanna (Johnson II, 381). From the ships which they had burned the pirates had taken a quantity of opium and other goods, which Chivers coolly informed Commodore Brabourne he was selling at Callipatam, a few miles to the south of Calicut (Calicut to Bombay, 6th February 1696-7). It is said that their hurried retirement from Calicut was due to the arrival of ten Malabar pirate vessels, which the native Governor had summoned and which recovered two ships from them (Cal. 8. P., Col. 26th Nov. 1697).
NOTES ON PIRACY IN EASTERN WATERS
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489. The natives at Calicut were so incensed at these proceedings that if the Factory had not been protected by some soldiers and other friends of the English, the latter would have been murdered. The ships that had been destroyed belonged to native merchants and these asserted that if they had paid a ransom, it would have been handed over by the pirates to the Factory. To so ridiculous an accusation no answer was possible. The English were in despair and could only protest their innocence. On the 19th January 1696-7 the Madras Council wrote home:-"The mischief falls heavier on the English than any other nation, because the pirate ships pass under the name and colours of the English and 'tis known there are many English among them." On the same day Captain George Phinney of the Sceptre noted in his log:-"We hear that there is an English pirate of ten guns of off Cape Cameroone [? Comorin]. The Dutch have several men-of-war upon the coast of Malabar and off the Gulf of Persia. We hear that our merchants have been in trouble about the pirates taking the Moors
