XXXIXA. D. 1750THE PIRATES
Thereare very few pirates left. The Riff Moors of Gibraltar Straits will grab a wind-bound ship when they get the chance; the Arabs of the Red Sea take stranded steamers; Chinese practitioners shipped as passengers on a liner, will rise in the night, cut throats, and steal the vessel; moreover some little retail business is done by the Malays round Singapore, but trade as a whole is slack, and sea thieves are apt to get themselves disliked by the British gunboats.
This is a respectable world, my masters, but it is getting dull.
It was very different in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the Sallee rovers, the Algerian corsairs, buccaneers of the West Indies, the Malays and the Chinese put pirate fleets to sea to prey on great commerce, when Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, Bartholomew, Roberts, Lafitte, Avery and a hundred other corsairs under the Jolly Roger could seize tall ships and make their unwilling seamen walk the plank. They and their merry men went mostly to the gallows, richly deserved the same, and yet—well, nobody need complain that times were dull.
There were so many pirates one hardly knows whichto deal with, but Avery was such a mean rogue, and there is such a nice confused story—well, here goes! He was mate of the shipDuke, forty-four guns, a merchant cruiser chartered from Bristol for the Spanish service. His skipper was mightily addicted to punch, and too drunk to object when Avery, conspiring with the men, made bold to seize the ship. Then he went down-stairs to wake the captain, who, in a sudden fright, asked, “What’s the matter?” “Oh, nothing,” said Avery. The skipper gobbled at him, “But something’s the matter,” he cried. “Does she drive? What weather is it?” “No, no,” answered Avery, “we’re at sea.” “At sea! How can that be?”
“Come,” says Avery, “don’t be in a fright, but put on your clothes, and I’ll let you into the secret—and if you’ll turn sober and mind your business perhaps, in time, I may make you one of my lieutenants, if not, here’s a boat alongside, and you shall be set ashore.” The skipper, still in a fright, was set ashore, together with such of the men as were honest. Then Avery sailed away to seek his fortune.
On the coast of Madagascar, lying in a bay, two sloops were found, whose seamen supposed theDuketo be a ship of war and being rogues, having stolen these vessels to go pirating, they fled with rueful faces into the woods. Of course they were frightfully pleased when they found out that they were not going to be hanged just yet, and delighted when Captain Avery asked them to sail in his company. They could fly at big game now, with this big ship for a consort.
Now, as it happened, the Great Mogul, emperor of Hindustan, was sending his daughter with a splendidretinue to make pilgrimage to Mecca and worship at the holy places of Mahomet. The lady sailed in a ship with chests of gold to pay the expenses of the journey, golden vessels for the table, gifts for the shrines, an escort of princes covered with jewels, troops, servants, slaves and a band to play tunes with no music, after the eastern manner. And it was their serious misfortune to meet with Captain Avery outside the mouth of the Indus. Avery’s sloops, being very swift, got the prize, and stripped her of everything worth taking, before they let her go.
It shocked Avery to think of all that treasure in the sloops where it might get lost; so presently, as they sailed in consort, he invited the captains of the sloops to use the big ship as their strong room. They put their treasure on board theDuke, and watched close, for fear of accidents. Then came a dark night when Captain Avery mislaid both sloops, and bolted with all the plunder, leaving two crews of simple mariners to wonder where he had gone.
Avery made off to the New England colonies, where he made a division of the plunder, handing the gold to the men, but privily keeping all the diamonds for himself. The sailors scattered out through the American settlements and the British Isles, modestly changing their names. Mr. Avery went home to Bristol, where he found some honest merchants to sell his diamonds, and lend him a small sum on account. When, however, he called on them for the rest of the money, he met with a most shocking repulse, because the merchants had never heard, they said, of him or his diamonds, but would give him to the justices as a pirate unless he shut his mouth. He went away and diedof grief at Bideford in Devon, leaving no money even to pay for his coffin.
Meanwhile the Great Mogul at Delhi was making such dismal lamentations about the robbery of his daughter’s diamonds that the news of Avery’s riches spread to England. Rumor made him husband to the princess, a reigning sovereign, with a pirate fleet of his own—at the very time he was dying of want at Bideford.
We left two sloops full of pirates mourning over the total depravity of Captain Avery. Sorely repenting his sins, they resolved to amend their lives, and see what they could steal in Madagascar. Landing on that great island they dismantled their sloops, taking their plentiful supply of guns and powder ashore, where they camped, making their sails into tents. Here they met with another party of English pirates who were also penitent, having just plundered a large and richly-laden ship at the mouth of the Red Sea. Their dividend was three thousand pounds a man, and they were resolved to settle in Madagascar instead of going home to be hanged. The two parties, both in search of a peaceful and simple life, made friends with the various native princes, who were glad of white men to assist in the butchering of adjacent tribes. Two or three pirates at the head of an attacking force would put the boldest tribes to flight. Each pirate acquired his own harem of wives, his own horde of black slaves, his own plantations, fishery and hunting grounds, his kingdom wherein he reigned an absolute monarch. If a native said impudent words he was promptly shot, and any attack of the tribes on a white man was resented by the whole community of pirate kings. Once the negroesconspired for a general rising to wipe out their oppressors at one fell swoop, but the wife of a white man getting wind of the plot, ran twenty miles in three hours to alarm her lord. When the native forces arrived they were warmly received. After that each of their lordships built a fortress for his resting place with rampart and ditch set round with a labyrinth of thorny entanglements, so that the barefoot native coming as a stranger by night, trod on spikes, and sounded a loud alarm which roused the garrison.
Long years went by. Their majesties grew stout from high feeding and lack of exercise, hairy, dressed in skins of wild beasts, reigning each in his kingdom with a deal of dirty state and royalty.
So Captain Woods found them when he went in the shipDelicia, to buy slaves. At the sight of his forty-gun ship they hid themselves in the woods, very suspicious, but presently learned his business, and came out of the woods, offering to sell their loyal negro subjects by hundreds in exchange for tobacco and suits of sailor clothes, tools, powder, and ball. They had now been twenty-five years in Madagascar, and, what with wars, accidents, sickness, there remained eleven sailor kings, all heartily bored with their royalty. Despite the attachments of their harems, children and swarms of grandchildren and dependents, they were sick for blue water, hungry for a cruise. Captain Woods observed that they got very friendly with his seamen, and learned that they were plotting to seize the ship, hoist the black flag, and betake themselves once more to piracy on the high seas.
After that he kept their majesties at a distance, sending officers ashore to trade with them until he hadcompleted his cargo of slaves. So he sailed, leaving eleven disconsolate pirate kings in a mournful row on the tropic beach, and no more has ever transpired as to them or the fate of their kingdoms. Still, they had fared much better than Captain Avery with his treasure of royal diamonds.