Loading summary
Transcript117 lines
- [00:01]
Anita Arnand
If you want access to bonus episodes, reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat, community discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast ad, free listening, and a weekly newsletter, sign up to empire club@www.empirepoduk.com.
- [00:30]
William Durrimpel
Hello, and welcome to Empire with me.
- [00:32]
Anita Arnand
Anita Arnan, and me, William Durimpel.
- [00:35]
William Durrimpel
Now, recently, we've been discussing pirates, haven't we? Our.
- [00:38]
Anita Arnand
I've been having such fun with our.
- [00:39]
William Durrimpel
Pirates, great pirates, and, you know, we've taken you through the lives of Blackbeard and William Kidd, and today we're going to talk about another pirate whose end was very different from his pirate brethren and whose deeds leave little room for romanticizing. They're not even grey areas here like there have been with some of our others.
- [00:59]
Anita Arnand
No, this is the story of a very naughty pirate indeed, called Henry Avery, or at least that is one of his many names, because he had a whole variety of aliases. And what is fascinating is that his story has got everything about not only the story of piracy, but also kind of the story of organized crime. It's the story of a man who initially has a career, veers off the rails, goes over to the dark side, and pulls off the most extraordinary heist in piracy history. He gets a larger bag of goodies of swag than any other pirate in history, and he then kicks off the first global manhunt. The entire East India Company is mobilized to track him down, and they catch most of his gang, but they never catch him. But then there's a final fantastic twist at the end, which, of course, being a person that would never.
- [01:59]
William Durrimpel
Who you are, I'm jumping in right now. Before you give it away, I would.
- [02:03]
Anita Arnand
Never spoil a story.
- [02:04]
William Durrimpel
Did you see me leaping in? Saw you revving. And I thought I'd rear up in my seat, but you're absolutely right. I mean, sort of think Brinks, Matt robbery, the stealing of the Pink Panther. It was such a celebrated, huge deal. No one could understand how a man could get away with this.
- [02:21]
Anita Arnand
Also, it has in this story something that makes us look very, very closely at the whole business of piracy. Stories, movies, novels, and indeed, podcasts. Because at the heart of this, as well as the biggest bag of swag ever produced by pirates, a proper atrocity. And it makes you think again about the whole thing. I mean, we're all used to thinking of pirates really as the kind of Johnny Depp character at some level, you know, the naughty Rog who maybe, you know, has a cutlass and maybe might take a purse or two. But who's basically a sort of good guy.
- [03:01]
William Durrimpel
A lovable rogue.
- [03:02]
Anita Arnand
A lovable rogue. And the atrocity which we'll be talking about at the heart of this story today reveals actually, of course, as with all serious crime, that it's not actually that great in reality. In fact, this one is a disgusting and terrible act that takes place. So there's both elements. I mean, you know, you cannot help being drawn into this story, and it is so thrilled. And there's all the elements that you would want from a good crime caper, a diamond heist or any of that. And yet there's also a dark side that leaves me slightly uncomfortable when I tell the story.
- [03:36]
William Durrimpel
Yeah, no, well, I mean, it should. That means you're a normal, decent human being. But the other thing, you know, we sort of talked about it a little bit with William Kitt, is that you have sometimes children's literature to thank for the rewriting and the lovable rogue image. I mean, I don't know whether it makes it more palatable, but we talked about with William Kidd, you know, the children's illustrator gave us the Johnny Depp mode of his look and everything. And, you know, all of these sort of Dick Turpin tales as well, you know, where you have a highwayman who is genuinely good and trying to frustrate big government and, you know, terrible draconian rules and do a good thing.
- [04:08]
Anita Arnand
The one thing that actually, it made me think of when I was reading this, the nearest parallel in our own time, I think, is the Great Train Robbery. Because in that, too, you've got a story of sort of, you know, from one angle, lovable rogues pulling off an extraordinary heist. And on the other hand, you know, some bad stuff went up.
- [04:24]
William Durrimpel
For those who don't know what the Great Train Robbery was, this was from the 1960s. It was touted in many of the newspapers at the time as, you know, something of such an audacious bravery. But there was a man who was beaten, who died. And I actually, you know what, When I went to university, I went to King's, and we used to take a bus route which went near the Elephant Inn Castle, and there's a bridge there. And Buster, who was involved in that robbery, was a flower seller there. You know, he was a terribly affable man, and people used to come and want to have their photo taken with him and sort of be all, you know, sort of pally. But he wouldn't talk about the robbery because he had guilt, as opposed to Ronnie Biggs, who went off and Sunned himself and sort of flaunted it around.
- [05:08]
Anita Arnand
And then eventually came and did time.
- [05:10]
William Durrimpel
Anyway, look, let's talk about the pirates that we're talking about, because I want to sort of put them in a context, because we have talked about William Kidd, we've talked about Blackbeard. And our man today, Henry Avery, he starts his career as a PIR while Blackbeard was growing up near Bristol. So you can imagine that Blackbeard will have heard of this man Avery and his exploits, and he might have been something of an inspiration to him and other pirates because he was so successful.
- [05:38]
Anita Arnand
Well, I think there's no question that he was and that there was a whole world of sea shanties and ballads and things which got printed up and passed from hand to hand in London and in Plymouth and in all the ports. And what you see is this image that we have today of the pirates for the first time becoming this sort of jolly rogue, taking it out on the moors who were the object of many of his robberies. And you see the romanticization of pirates happening as he lives in his time, even before he dies. He's very much part of the main line of this story.
- [06:11]
William Durrimpel
Yeah, the golden age of pirates that we talked about.
- [06:13]
Anita Arnand
Is it a good word? The golden age of pirates? Can you have a golden age of crime and robbery and rape? Anyway, yeah, that's what it's called. But he's also somebody who, like, you know, all the kind of best criminals from the Pink Panther onwards, has a whole variety of aliases. Henry Avery seems to be the best scholarly shot at what his real name was. Scholars are by no means certain it was. There's also John Avery, Benjamin Bridgeman, Long Ben. Long Ben. Let's call him Long Ben.
- [06:40]
William Durrimpel
So Long Ben makes me laugh because Long Ben is one that has a lot of popularity, but I don't think he was very tall.
- [06:45]
Anita Arnand
He wasn't very tall. And some sort of descriptions of him talk about him being rather sort of fat and jolly, or rather sort of Father Christmassy figure, or even sort of Hugh Bonneville who played him once in Doctor who. Did you ever see that episode?
- [06:57]
William Durrimpel
No, I missed that issue. But round and avuncular kind of creature he was in real life.
- [07:02]
Anita Arnand
But there's also behind that sort of mixture of bonhomie, there's also real menace and violence. There's a contemporary description of him that calls him daring and good humored, but insolent, uneasy and unforgiving to the last degree, if at any time imposed upon.
- [07:20]
William Durrimpel
But where was he born? Give Us some nuts and bolts of this story.
- [07:23]
Anita Arnand
I think he was born on the south coast.
- [07:25]
William Durrimpel
I thought it was sort of Newton Ferrers, Plymouth kind of way. But we do know that he was married and we know the name of his wife, Dorothy Arthur. Another long suffering pirate wife. I don't know what her life was like. And that's where some of the scholarship that's produced this real name, Benjamin Bridgeman comes from. And Henry Avery was an alias that he took on sometime, maybe sort of escaping the law, who knows?
- [07:45]
Anita Arnand
But again, every new generation of historian that sort of researches this man comes up with a new real name for him. It's like sort of Russian dolls. You dispose of one alias and another one turns up, which is why he was so good at getting away from the law.
- [07:59]
William Durrimpel
One thing that we do know is he was known as the King of Pirates. People really thought he was terrible and terribly good at his job. So that was a moniker that he would have worn with pride.
- [08:07]
Anita Arnand
And as we'll see, it wasn't just that he was good at his job, he actually creates a sort of extraordinary pirate confederation in the Red Sea. And what he does is he makes a massive fleet of pirates, takes on the biggest prize of them all. But again, I won't spoil the story quite yet.
- [08:28]
William Durrimpel
No, you're trying to, you're edging towards it and I'm going to jump in again. So again, the stories of some of these pirates very, very similar. You know, as we discussed with William Kidd, you know, his father died when he was very young. His father was a mariner and Kidd didn't get on with his mum's new fella. Well, as with that, we've got Avery, who has lost his father at a young age. He's looked after by an uncle, but his uncle is an absolute brute and is not very kind to him and robs him of the estates that have been left to him and then apprentices him, which is basically sells him off to a sadistic shipmaster and just as kidding, experienced brutality on the open seas. That would have been his school, would have been, you know, the cudgel and the whip and the screams of senior sailors or privateers on a ship. That's where he grew up.
- [09:12]
Anita Arnand
It was a rough place to find yourself. We're talking the 1670s, the 1680s. And there are various early accounts of his life and they often contradict each other, but the stories sort of get solider and there are more accounts which echo each other. Around March 1689, soon after the breakout of the Nine Years War, let's say.
- [09:35]
William Durrimpel
What the Nine Years War is, because some people may have forgotten. I know we have banged on about it before, but the Nine Years War was this European conflict, you know, a huge conflagration of fighting between France and something known as the grand alliance, which was the Dutch Republic, England, Spain, Bavaria and Saxony. So, I mean, in those days, as close to a world war as you would have got.
- [09:55]
Anita Arnand
Exactly. And Avery at this point in his life is on the side of the law. He's part of the navy. He's in a sort of 64 gun ship of the line called HMS Rupert. You can't get sort of straighter than that.
- [10:08]
William Durrimpel
Who's going to be frightened of HMS Rupert? Sorry, You've got the Dreadnought, the Black Death Rupert. Nice but dim and ahoy on the horizon. It's Rupert. Oh, no, sorry, just an observation. On you go.
- [10:24]
Anita Arnand
No, I agree, I agree. So it's quite a sort of straightforward and straight ship and he is, at this point, the straightforward family man. One recent researcher has managed to get some of his sort of accounts from this period and our future pirate is spending most of his wages on his family. He's coming back home and he even participates in a battle against the French in June 1690, the Battle of Beachy Head.
- [10:48]
William Durrimpel
That one didn't go well for the English. No, disastrously. In fact.
- [10:51]
Anita Arnand
This is when he's discharged, isn't it?
- [10:53]
William Durrimpel
Yeah, he does his time, he goes through all of that, you know, sort of trial by fire, literally, and is discharged. And he is now a man in his 30s. So a man in his 30s, William, has to look to the future and has to look to his fortune. Without the navy to support his family, where does Avery look?
- [11:09]
Anita Arnand
Well, this is as we saw in our slavery series, this is when the slavery world is getting going and there are many merchants out of Bristol who are involved in the Atlantic slave trade and Avery edges towards that, transporting enslaved Africans from the west coast to the Americas. This is the very beginning of this story. This goes on for 150 years after this.
- [11:36]
William Durrimpel
There's an English historian called Douglas Botting who's looked into his links with the slave trade and he says, as a slaver, Avery seems to have been more devious than most other practitioners of that sordid craft. So what he did was to earn that accolade from Douglas Botting is he would lure slave traders onto his ship by flying friendly colors. We've seen that in other episodes before where pirates have a whole case full of different flags and different colors and different allegiances, and they put them up on their ships so they can get close enough. So he lures them onto his ship, he then seizes them, then takes the men and chains them in his own ship to hold alongside captives he's already got. So, you know, this is how he earns this devious moniker. He is not a nice man. He is not. This idea that pirates settle slaves free and enslaved people could have a career privateering alongside them. There was every bit as much sort of racism and cruelty and perhaps even more when it comes to Avery.
- [12:35]
Anita Arnand
And then, like some of our previous pirates, he becomes a privateer. He joins a ship called the Charles ii. And this is part of an expedition into the Caribbean. Privateers, you may remember, are these governments sponsored raiders who get a little charter from the government to go and raid the crown's enemies. And in this case they're very unsuccessful. They've got a slightly sort of sleepy head of a captain and they're not actually paid until they take a ship. And so the fact that they haven't taken a ship means that the crew don't get paid. And so after several months of this, there's more and more discontent on the Charles ii. And it is Avery who leads the mutiny. And I've got a rather lovely account of this.
- [13:22]
William Durrimpel
Oh, good. Okay. So, I mean, this all happens one night, just to paint the picture, one night when the sleepy headed captain, as William described him, is pissed out of his head, basically is drunk, and Avery's just not having it anymore. Take it away, William.
- [13:33]
Anita Arnand
They're in port and they're moored to the harbor in La Corunna. And the captain wakes up because he notices that the ship is beginning to move. This is a contemporary account. Half asleep and in a kind of fright, the captain asked, what is the matter? And Avery, who's in his bedroom, comes towards him and says, nothing at all. The captain replies, something must be the matter with the ship. Does she drive a storm? What weather is it? Because he thinks they're moving because there's a storm or the ship has been driven from her anchors? No, no, said Avery. We are at sea with a fair wind and good weather. At sea, said the captain. How can that be? Come, come, said Avery, don't be in a fright, but put your clothes on and I will let you into a secret. Then he said, you must know I am now the captain of this ship and this is my cabin. It's a great story, isn't it?
- [14:27]
William Durrimpel
Now, I don't know whether your account says what happens to sleepy headed captain? But I don't think it's anything good.
- [14:32]
Anita Arnand
No, you're quite right.
- [14:33]
William Durrimpel
I don't think they sort of let him sleep in another cabin, do they?
- [14:36]
Anita Arnand
No, no. He is put out on a boat and cut adrift. Poor captain. He's given the option of joining the crew, but he doesn't, which is a.
- [14:42]
William Durrimpel
Death sentence normally with people who are loyal to you. So the new captain doesn't have to put up with any of their shenanigans. But he also announces at this point, when he sort of cast adrift the old captain, I am bound to Madagascar with the design of making my own fortune. And that all of the brave fellows joined with me. So, you know, he's again saying, this dude earned you nothing. Stick with me. We are going to take so many ships, you're going to be rolling in it.
- [15:09]
Anita Arnand
And he wasn't wrong. He didn't break that promise. So the first thing he does is he renames the ship from the kind of very royal Charles ii. He turns it just to the Fancy, which I think is a lovely name for a ship.
- [15:21]
William Durrimpel
Again, not very terrifying. Oh, no. We're being boarded. Who by? Fancy. Fancy.
- [15:27]
Anita Arnand
I like Fancy.
- [15:28]
William Durrimpel
Okay. All right. Okay. So they're headed for Madagascar, the new fancy in the Indian oceans.
- [15:33]
Anita Arnand
And what's fascinating is that from this point already there comes to be a ballad about Avery. He's only kicked off and done a mutiny and setting off, and already there is verses. But what's interesting is that the verses are written by him. He sort of composes. He composes his own ballad about his mutiny and sends it back to England. It's a bizarre story.
- [15:56]
William Durrimpel
Yeah. What does he say about himself? Do we know? I am the captain of the Fancy.
- [16:00]
Anita Arnand
I am captain of the Fancy.
- [16:01]
William Durrimpel
My crew is getting antsy. But also, you know, his fame is growing. Apart from his self styled advertising and ballads, the two other pirates decide they want part of this. They believe in Avery. They want to be part of this. So he finds a little pirate fleet growing almost immediately.
- [16:17]
Anita Arnand
And this is what distinguishes him because he does indeed build a pirate fleet. He's not just one ship or two ships. He becomes the biggest pirate confederation in history. And they take on the biggest prize in history too. It's such an extraordinary story, but among his crew, and this is a very nice little detail that I've got, and it's not at all certain, and some scholars say it's rubbish. So pitch assault. But nonetheless, according to one scholar who's written about this among his crew is none other than Alexander Selkirk, who will become the true basis for the story of Robinson Crusoe, which is a very.
- [16:53]
William Durrimpel
Nice little detail that is very nice.
- [16:55]
Anita Arnand
I mean, in this early 1930s book that I've got in front of me at the moment, certainly at that point, they seem to believe that it's true. And he is part of the crew right up to the big heist. He's another Scot. He's from Largo in Fife.
- [17:09]
William Durrimpel
Surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise.
- [17:12]
Anita Arnand
And he is one of the others who gets away with it. So we've got Robinson Crusoe on board.
- [17:18]
William Durrimpel
You know, as if you need more. You know, it's a drama. You have a man who actually is the linchpin of hundreds of dramas and adaptations of that book. But he starts to be very successful with this sort of growing band of pirates. First he ran Sags 3 English merchant ships in the Cape Verde Islands, and they plunder their way along the African coastline for several months. And they are so unstoppable. They capture French ships, Danish ships. They pick up new recruits everywhere they go. And as time goes on, fancy, which I say is very badly named, becomes a really terrifying, mighty pirate vessel. And with 150 men, they have a formidable force on board, and they start adding bits to the ship, making it better, don't they? They keep doing improvements to the ship.
- [18:02]
Anita Arnand
Exactly. And then there's one of the nicest twists in the story. Avery, as we should call him, although it may well not be his real name, hears from gossip in the Comoro Islands that he's been described as someone who has attacked the English. And many historians think that he is responsible for some of the English ships which have been attacked at this point. But he will have none of this. And he turns out to be one of those sort of incredibly patriotic criminals. He's the kind of no coward character with a picture of the queen in his set in the movie.
- [18:35]
William Durrimpel
Yeah. I would never do that. I would slit anyone's throat, but not an Englishman.
- [18:39]
Anita Arnand
Exactly. Isn't it great? And he puts out this letter. I read the whole thing. I have never as yet wronged any English or Dutch or I ever intend while I am commander. Wherefore make your ancient flag up into a ball or bundle and hoist him to the mizzen peak and the mizzen being furled. I shall answer with the same and never molest you if you are English. For I should warn you that my men are hungry, stout and resolute, and if they should exceed my Desire, I cannot help myself. As yet, I am an Englishman's friend, Henry Avery.
- [19:11]
William Durrimpel
It's a good point to take a break, but can I just point you in the direction of as yet, I am an Englishman's friend? If there's an ominous way to sign a letter, that's it. As yet, we are in part one. Join us again in part two of the Henry Avery story. Welcome back. So we left you with Henry Avery, assuring England. Look, for now, I'm your very best friend. And if you don't want me and my men, my 150 men on my very ferocious fancy to come aboard and cause chaos, all you need to do is unfurl English colors and we will leave you alone for now. And I wonder, how much did England believe him? Henry Avery, Was he a man of his word?
- [19:56]
Anita Arnand
Did they think England didn't believe him? And nor do most modern historians who think that he'd definitely been plundering English ships before this. So it's complete nonsense, but it's a lovely touch, the fact that he sort of likes to think of himself as a patriot, and he's sending these stories about himself back to Plymouth to be published.
- [20:11]
William Durrimpel
I mean, to you, it sounds like he thinks of himself as a patriot. To me, this sounds like archetypal bad behavior of a naughty boy who goes, who, me, sir? No, sir, not me, sir. It just sounds like that.
- [20:23]
Anita Arnand
Anyway, he is about to aim his sights at the richest prize in the world. He's collecting his fleet now, and he is considering, where can I get the largest fortune? And he turns to the shipping of what is then not just the richest country in the world, but the ships of the richest man in the world. Who are they?
- [20:47]
William Durrimpel
Well, they are the Mughals, of course, aren't they? We talked about this before. The Mughals, who drip with jewels, diamonds, rubies, spinels, the like of which the world has never seen before. And England at this time is trying very hard to get in with the Mughals. You know, they are the power brokers, they are the financiers of anything that's worth doing. And so their ships are laden with goods and they do make a lot of voyages. Apart from anything else, they do the Hajj pilgrimage as well, which leaves them very vulnerable to piracy. We've talked about that before.
- [21:19]
Anita Arnand
And so what he does is he gets some intelligence from Surat. And we should talk a little about that, because Surat, what I suppose Bombay is today, it's the big port of the west coast of India, but it.
- [21:32]
William Durrimpel
Was also more Importantly, the diamond cutting center of the world. I mean, you know, to this day, I mean, you have people who cut diamonds in Surat, which is in Gujarat, who can trace their ancestry back hundreds and hundreds of years. And their forebears have all been diamond cutters as well.
- [21:46]
Anita Arnand
And Surat is the first place that an English expedition to the Mughals lands. Sometime just before this, about 30 years before this, the English have discovered Surat. They've discovered the importance of it. And initially they're not taken at all seriously. They're considered to be sort of vassals of the Portuguese. The Portuguese put it about that this is a thoroughly second rate power that no one takes seriously. And who are these English anyway? They're kind of from the furthest rim of Europe and there's been a considerable English effort over the last few years to get in with the Mughals. And just before this, Sir Thomas Rowe, there's a wonderful book by Nandini Das all about this. Sir Thomas Rowe is sent by James I and 6th, 6th of Scotland, 1st of England, to try and patch up a relationship with Jahangir. He goes all the way to Agra. We talked about this in our Noor Jahan episode a few months ago. And he's quite successful in patching up relations, but he doesn't get the vital firman, which is the kind of free trade privileges that he's after. So in other words, the English have got their foot in the door of the Mogul Empire. The Portuguese are in disgrace at this very moment because exactly what Avery is thinking, they have attacked Hajj traffic and they've discovered how lucrative it is. So these Europeans are aware that, you know, a great deal of jewels are crossing over from Gujarat to the Red Sea and that they've only got to attack these Mughal ships. And the Mughals are not a naval power.
- [23:18]
William Durrimpel
They pay other people to do it. They've got the money to pay others to do it and others are better at it. And just to give you an idea of sort of the busy thoroughfare of this sort of Hajj pilgrimage we're talking about, and this is a lot of people in the 17th century, around 15,000 pilgrims per year doing the Hajj pilgrimage. So what they will do is they will travel from India to the ports of Mokka. We've talked about Mokka before, a really very wealthy port city in Yemen, then to Jeddah and then on their way to Mecca. And so that is basically the robbery superhighway. Any pirate worth his salt just needs to hang around that Thoroughfare and then if they are lucky and these ships are not sufficiently guarded, they just seize them and they sees everything on them.
- [24:01]
Anita Arnand
And this is one of the few ways that if you are a Mughal princess and remember the Mughals were very keen on educating their imperial women folk. So you've got in the palace all these highly educated women, almost the only way that they can go off on their own and escape their men and escape their imprisonment is if they opt to go on hajj. And that's considered to be a very worthy thing to want to do. But it's also, I mean, if you're a woman and you're in a harem, it's the one where you can go off on a really great holiday.
- [24:30]
William Durrimpel
It's the only way to travel. Yeah, you're allowed out.
- [24:32]
Anita Arnand
And this has been the case for a while. And the Sir Thomas Rowe mission is on the back of the fact that in 1613, the Portuguese had seized the Queen Mother, Mariam Makani's flagship, which was called the Rahimi, and the entire Cargo with approximately 700 passengers, and taken it to Goa. And it was the disgrace of the Portuguese after that, and the punitive measures taken against Goa and the Portuguese which allowed the British to get their foot in the door, the Portuguese have blocked them. So in other words, it's the most sensitive thing for the East India Company. They've got to preserve their open relations with the Moguls. They cannot have rogue Englishmen in any way damaging this relationship. And against the background of that, Avery forms the most enormous pirate fleet to take the biggest prize of all.
- [25:26]
William Durrimpel
Yeah. So what we're talking about now, the year 1695, and Avery and his fleet of ship, ships, and some of them are sloops, so they're really quick vessels. They're all sorts of different vessels. You know, there's his fancy that carries an enormous number of men and then you've got these very quick sloops and.
- [25:40]
Anita Arnand
It'S been souped up. It's got sort of go fast stripes on. Now, the fancy.
- [25:43]
William Durrimpel
Exactly. That's exactly right. Turbocharged. And he set sail for the island of Perim, which is the southern entrance of the Red Sea. And he's waiting for this Indian fleet that he knows because, you know, it's not a secret. You have a big Indian fleet coming past. You will get to hear about it. They have to restock. They have to stop at different ports along the way. So he's waiting for them. The fancy reaches by August 1695, the Straits of Baal el Mandeb. And that's where other pirate captains who've also heard Avery's plan sail in to join him.
- [26:16]
Anita Arnand
Incidentally, it's exactly where the hooties are hanging out today. All those motorboats racing out and attacking oil tankers are waiting exactly where Avery waited. So there's a completely straight line from, from the pirates of this period to the pirates of today. But it's at this spot that Avery is joined by no less than five other of the leading pirate captains.
- [26:40]
William Durrimpel
Do a roll call because it's really interesting who they bring and who they are.
- [26:43]
Anita Arnand
So most famous of all is Tugh on his sloop the Amity, and he's got about 60 men. There's Joseph Farrow on the Portsmouth Adventure with 60 men. Richard Want on the Dolphin also with 60 men. William Mays on the Pearl, which is obviously the name taken by pirates of the Caribbean with 30 or 40 men. And Thomas Wake on the Susanna with 70 men. And they're all English. They're English pirates and they've gathered. It's like a sort of the Italian Job when all these different sort of hyper criminals are brought together to do the big heist.
- [27:16]
William Durrimpel
Hyper criminals who are skilled, you know, these are all men on board these ships to Pharaoh Want Maize Wake. They only recruit from the very best of these, you know, sort of the ruffian commodity people who've been at sea privateering for years and know exactly what they're about. And Avery is elected admiral of this six ship pirate flotilla.
- [27:37]
Anita Arnand
Avery's the Michael Caine character in the Italian Job. He is. He's literally that.
- [27:40]
William Durrimpel
Although I like Michael Caine. I mean, I don't like Avery. So, yes, he's king of the pirates, Long Ben. This is. Even though he has less experience than some of the other pirate captains, but even so this is a leader of men and they recognize it in him. So even though they know more than he does, Chu and the others, they say, no, you be the leader, we will follow you.
- [27:59]
Anita Arnand
Okay, so what's interesting is that all these pirates have got intelligences, which is the phrase that's being used even in the 17th century. And word comes to them that what they call Moors ships, which means the Mughal vessels have left Surat. And so these guys are waiting and there's this point where I think it's Yemen on one side and Somalia on the other, with the island of Socotra as the sort of halfway spot between them. And this is the narrows. And there's two points in world shipping where there's these narrows that allow pirates to wait or indeed governments to take tolls. One is the Malacca Straits, where Singapore is, and the other is the area where Aden is on the Red Sea, the straits between Aden, Yemen and Somalia.
- [28:49]
William Durrimpel
So, I mean, a good place to lurk and wait. They had a long way to head of them. And we know one thing from pirates is that they're not very patient people. So you've got to imagine Avery has to keep them all on side while they're bobbing up and down in the water and getting more and more restive. And mutinies happen all the time. And not only does he have to keep his own crew, you know, underlings still, you know, interested and waiting and lurking for this, this Muggle, if you like, caravan of the sea to come past, but he has to keep these other captains who know more than he does, who've sailed more than he does, who've elected him, but are probably just as treacherous as he will ever be. And it's quite hard. And one of his men recalls this. You know, after they had lain there for some time, they were apprehensive that the Moors ships would not come down from Mocha. So they, the pirates sent a pinnace thither which took two boats. They brought away two men which told them the ships must come down. So I mean, you know, basically they sent out a scout and said, look, don't worry, you are right. You know, Avery said this, and we've done our own recon on this. This is the only way they can come. We just have to hang tight. And so they don't mutiny, they don't turn against him. They just wait.
- [30:03]
Anita Arnand
And then something extraordinary happens. Remember, this is the age before radar. There's such a thing as dark knights. And they're waiting, and the Indian ships slip past them in the night.
- [30:16]
William Durrimpel
Can I just say, that's hilarious. It's like sort of a shadowy tiptoeing past them.
- [30:19]
Anita Arnand
Yeah. A whole year these guys been waiting.
- [30:22]
William Durrimpel
Bobbing up and down, trying not to slit each other's throats. They've got confirmation that they are in the right place, but they sneak past them on a dark night.
- [30:29]
Anita Arnand
Anyway, they give chase and this is the exciting moment. They know that the ships have passed. They realize this, and the Indian ships have got an almost insurmountable head start because I don't think they realize that they've missed their quarry for two or three days. I think what happens, they capture a much smaller vessel.
- [30:47]
William Durrimpel
That's exactly right.
- [30:48]
Anita Arnand
And that says, we've just Seen the Mughal flagship and the entire Hajj fleet, and they're five miles further on, you've missed them.
- [30:55]
William Durrimpel
And so can you just imagine what Avery does to the lookouts when he finds out that, you know, they're still waiting for something that went past? We don't have a record, but we do have records of what Avery and the like do to people they find treacherous. And, you know, we've talked about all these terrible punishments, like drubbing, beating somebody up with a sharp edge of a cutlass or keel, hauling, you know, dragging them under the ship or, you know, setting them adrift on a boat seems to be the kindest thing they do. And that's almost always a death sentence as well.
- [31:21]
Anita Arnand
Anyway, so Avery really shows his skill because he makes the decision, he's going to go for it. And he realizes that some of the other ships are simply not fast enough to catch up with the Mogul fleet. He, with his sort of turbocharged, souped up, fancy, and I think one other boat or two other boats, leave the rest of the fleet behind them. They said, come on yourself, but we're going ahead.
- [31:44]
William Durrimpel
They go as far as to sink some of them because if the pirates can't have them, then they don't want anyone else to have them. So this is kind of scorched earth policy. You know, you are too slow, we're going to sink you. But all your men come aboard the other ships that are fast enough and that's how they go in hot pursuit.
- [31:58]
Anita Arnand
And off they go. And for 10 days they see nothing. But on the 7th of September, at long last, their luck turns and they catch sight on the horizon of a handful of ships that had broken off the main convoy that were not fast enough to keep up with the main Mogul convoy. And the largest of them was a heavily armed merchant ship called the Fat Mohammadi, the Faith of Muhammad, owned by one of the wealthiest traders in India.
- [32:27]
William Durrimpel
Yeah, I mean, just to give you an idea of this ship, a contemporary of the trader said that the merchant who owns the Fath Mohammedi drove a trade equal to the English East India Company. For I have known him to fit out in a year above 20 sale of ships between 300 and 800 tons. So, you know, this one trader who owns this one ship that is struggling behind in this convoy is richer than the East India Company. So, I mean, you know, of course he's going to try and catch up.
- [32:56]
Anita Arnand
Exactly. It's an extraordinary moment in history. And again, there's a bit of background to all this. This comes at a time when just, I think five or six years before this, there has been an attempt to stand up to the Moguls. A guy called Joshua Child sends some ships to India and they try sort of outgunning the Moguls and of course, it's a catastrophe. Overnight, all the East India Company forts are overrun. The factors are put in chains and thrown into prison. And so this is not a period when the British think automatically that they are grander than the Moguls or richer than the Moguls, or have better ships and stronger cannon than the Moguls. They've just been defeated by the Moguls. So these guys have got some nerve to do this.
- [33:39]
William Durrimpel
Yeah. And they also must feel a little bit invincible because, you know, the little English, as we've said before, you know, Mughal paintings also reinforce this with teeny, tiny British monarchs in the corner and massive portraits of Mughal, you know, sort of splendor. Anyway, Avery says to his ship, right, we're going to get ahead of the convoy. That's what we're going to do. We're going to anchor overnight, we're going to wait for them, which is a pretty risky strategy considering. Mate, last time you did that, they sailed past you on a dark night and you didn't even notice the day. But they do it anyway. And at dawn they're waiting in position. They've managed because they're in this vaster sort of fleet.
- [34:12]
Anita Arnand
There's heavy mist hanging over the water.
- [34:14]
William Durrimpel
Thickly, quietly restricting visibility and sort of almost like magic. I mean, they could have gone past in this fog and never been seen again. But within minutes, the fath Mohammedi emerges from the fog, passing, as they said at the time, within about a pistol shot of the fancy. What does Avery do?
- [34:35]
Anita Arnand
Avery immediately seizes his moment and he lets loose a broadside that means every single cannon on the side facing the fat Muhammad goes off at once. And the fat Mohammedi responds with three rounds that do no damage at all to Ivry's ship. And then, amazingly for the pirates, the fat Mahamadi just surrenders. They strike their colors and the ship was theirs. The battle's over. One broadside was enough.
- [35:03]
William Durrimpel
I mean, that to me is quite bonkers. When you sort of find out what was on board the ship. It's not like they didn't have anything to lose, because when the pirates board the Fath Mohammed, what they find is silver and gold, which in those days was worth around 60,000 pounds, which in these days is worth around 5 million. So you know what, maybe they should have fought a little bit harder or what? They have so much money. It doesn't make that much difference, William. I mean, you know, their lives are more valuable.
- [35:31]
Anita Arnand
This is the point when the moguls are about 40% of the world's GDP in any given year. These are very, very rich men. The owner of this fleet, the Emperor Aurangzeb, is the richest man in the world. And Avery, of course, gets an additional share because he's the captain. And this is a, you know, in itself, a life altering catch. This is the biggest haul any pirate has ever got.
- [35:59]
William Durrimpel
It's a retirement plan. It's right there. You never have to work again.
- [36:03]
Anita Arnand
Exactly. But it's not enough.
- [36:06]
William Durrimpel
Because what wasn't the front of this convoy? They've caught up with a straggly end bit. But what is the bit that they really, really have fantasized, tossed and turned for those months they were at sea, bobbing up and down, waiting? What is the big fat chicken they've been dreaming of out there?
- [36:21]
Anita Arnand
Beyond them in the mist is Aurangzeb's flagship, the Ganji Sawai. But the Brits can't manage that, so they just called it the Gun Sway.
- [36:31]
William Durrimpel
The Gun sway, did that what they say? So the Ganjisawai, I mean, if this is what you get from the straggly end ship, imagine what is on Aurangzeb's flagship.
- [36:40]
Anita Arnand
And we should say this is no easy catch because the Ganji Sawai is not only the flagship, it is the most heavily armored Mughal ship of them all. It's the Bismarck, the Dreadnought. The kind of the ultimate ship of its day. And Avery decides to go for it.
- [36:58]
William Durrimpel
Join us next episode whenever you listen to your podcast, when you will hear what happens when he goes after the biggest prize in the fleet. If you can't wait, you don't have to. Just join our club. EmpirePoduk.com is where we are. EmpirePoduk.com and you know what? If you're a member of our club, if you're a member, member of our gang, all you need to do is sign up. You get our brilliant newsletter and you get early access to these multiple episodes that other people have to wait for. But whenever you listen to us, we can't wait till we meet again. It's goodbye from me, Anita Arnand, and.
- [37:30]
Anita Arnand
Goodbye from me, the very excited William Durride.