________________
124
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[NOVEMBER, 1926
464. On the 8th December 1698 a Royal Proclamation was issued, granting a pardon for piracies committed east of the Cape of Good Hope, provided the pirates surrendered to Commodore Warren, or any of the three Commissioners associated with him, before June 1699. Every and Kidd were excepted.
465. Father Bernard Rhodes tells us that he was made prisoner when the Dutch took Pondicherry in 1693, and having been carried to Amsterdam, was there exchanged. Later on he volunteered for the China Mission and sailed in the St. Jean, which was taken by pirates at Johanna in 1698. He was soon picked up by an English ship and arrived in Fokien in 1699 (Letters Edifiantes et Curieuses, XVIII, 342)
Malabarese and Sanganians.
466. During 1698 Malabar and Sanganian pirates were at work between Daman and Surat River (Surat to Bombay, 11th October 1698, Home Misc., XXXVI, 434.)
467. In the same year Captain William Lavender of the Thomas (Surat to Mocha) was taken by Sanganian pirates who " burnt the ship and all the crew because he would not yield. They are very cruel to those they can master if they make resistance, but to those that yield without fighting they are pretty civil" (Hamilton, I. 134).
468. It was during 1698 that Kanhoji Angria obtained the chief command of the Maratha fleet. It had depôts at Severndrug and Gheria, but its chief station was a Kolaba, twenty miles south of Bombay. As a rule he did not attack English ships until, in 1717, he took the Success. Nominally he was the subject of the Peshwa (Grant Duff, I. 354, 388, 458).
469. Hamilton mentions (I. 116. 118) that on his way from Malabar to Larribunder in Sind, in 1699, he beat off an attack by Sanganian pirates.
Arabians.
470. On the 12th January 1697-8 the Surat Council wrote home that the Muscatees still detained as prisoners some of the crew of the London (Owner, Mr. Affleck of Madras. See para. 423 above), which they had taken in reprisal for the seizure of one of their ships off Rajapore by a pirate in 1696 (See para. 436 above), and that when the Charles demanded restitution, the Imam replied, "You have sent me a letter about my people's taking one of your ships. It is true. I did it for one that the English had taken from me before, so now we are even and have ship for ship, for this I will not deliver. If you have a mind to be friends, I am willing. If not, I will fight with you and take all your ships that I can." The Imam however only boasted in this manner after he had ascertained that the Charles would not use force. Soon after. having taken a ship belonging to the Dutch Broker at Gombroon, he tamely restored her when two Dutch ships came to demand her. He was not however frightened of the Portuguese and in 1698 the Muscatees took Mombassa from them (Hamilton, I. 11; Imams of Oman, Hak. Soc. 92, p. 349).
N.B.-Mr. W. C. Palgrave (Journey, p. 275) says that the red pennon of Oman (i.e., Muscat) was derived from the flag of Yemen.
471. In May 1698 two Portuguese frigates, off Rasal-Had, with great difficulty, beat off eight Arab dhows commanded by the Wali of Muttrah (Miles 221).
-
472. Father Pierre Martin, being ordered from Persia to India, was, with Father Beauvollier, taken on the voyage to Surat by Arabs, who vainly tried by torture to persuade them to become Muhammadans, but at last, finding that they could read Turkish and Persian, came to the conclusion that they could not be 'Franquis' [farangis, foreigners ? Portuguese] but must have come from Constantinople and so set them free. (Lettres Edifiantes, 30th January 1699).
