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- [00:01]
A
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. this episode is brought to you by Amazon. The holidays are here and you know what that means. It's time to get your friends and family the gifts they deserve. Take the stress out of shopping with Amazon's great deals and low prices on a huge range of items from toys to tech and much more. Whoever you're gifting for, Amazon has great prices on everything you need this holiday season. Shop Black Friday week starting November 21st.
- [00:56]
B
Hello and welcome to Empire. Me, Anita Arnan and me, William Durimpel. Left them on a cliff edge, didn't we?
- [01:03]
A
We certainly did.
- [01:04]
B
We did.
- [01:05]
A
The pirates were closing in on the Gungi Sawai.
- [01:08]
B
The Ganji Sawai is in their sights. And it is because we're talking about Henry Avery the pirate who has managed to convince a flotilla of like minded folk on ships that you know what, we can get really, really rich if we just hang around these straits and wait for the Mogul parade to go past because they're laden with jewels on their way to Hajj. So let's just go and relieve them of some of it. And it doesn't go well at the beginning. If you heard the last episode. They're sort of waiting in the darkness and it's so dark the ships slip right past them and nobody notices. They sleep through it, but they are on fast enough ships and they chase them down and they take the last tail straggling ship, the fat Mohammadi, the Fateh Muhammadi and which itself is carrying what would be the equivalent of 5 million pound these days. But now their eyes are set on the prince of the shipping lane which is the Ganjisawai, which is the Mogul. It's treasury on water, isn't it really?
- [02:06]
A
It just means exceeding treasure. So I mean they're kind of advertising the fact that it's the kind of the richest, the biggest, the ultimate possible heist that you could possibly go for. And it's built by Mariam Umani, which is the real name of the woman popularly known in the Hindi movies.
- [02:28]
B
Oh, Jodhabai. Really?
- [02:29]
A
Jodhabai. The one played by Aishwarya Rai. Aishwarya Rai and opposite Hrithik Roshan.
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B
Very good.
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A
And Mari Musoumani started life as a princess of Jodhpur and I think there's some British source that originally called her Jodobai and it's not accurate. She's now. Historians now know her as Maryam Zumani, which was her mogul title, greater than Maryam. And Maryam, of course, is Mary Mother Mary, who appears more often in the Quran than she does in the Bible. One of the weird flukes of Islam and Christianity. You get more mentions of Mary in the Quran than you do in all the gospels put together. She's not actually the mother of Jahangir, I think, but she's one of the chief queens, if not the chief queen of Akbar. So that makes her, what, the great grandmother of Aurangzeb. So this ship is not a new ship. It's been knocking around for a couple of rains, but it is still the biggest ship in the entire Mughal navy. Ship large enough to carry a thousand, has 200 men. And can you remember how many guns it has, Anita?
- [03:36]
B
Well, it has 80 guns. 80 guns. So that's sort of cannon poking out of the side and 400 riflemen. So that is more firepower, William, than the entire pirate fleet combined. Of Avery more bang for your buck, literally, on this ship.
- [03:53]
A
So this is where it really does begin to look a bit like the Italian Job, because you've got basically kind of fleet of Brits in tiny ships like the Italian Job with all the Minis and they're now swarming around, they're.
- [04:05]
B
Trying to catch it up. First of all, remember, let's not forget, because two days head start, they've caught up with a straggler which is, you know, the Fatimah has taken them some time to. Well, not that much time, actually. They gave up really quickly. But it's got that ship. But we should say apart from the guns, do you know what's on the guns? Yasseraway. We're talking about gold, silver, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds. I mean, the name, as you say, the etymology of it is basically postcode of Wealth. Translated directly, it's not a very wise.
- [04:35]
A
Title in the golden age of piracy.
- [04:37]
B
All in all, it's not exactly stealth, is it? And as you said in the last episode, the British can't cope with the pronunciation of Gundya Sawai. If you do look it up, look up Gunsway, because that's what the pirates Anglicized it to and what it's become.
- [04:50]
A
And it becomes very famous in ballads in England as the gun sway.
- [04:53]
B
And it's a big tall ship. So it does have every advantage because if you have riflemen on your deck and you're looking down, it's Easier to fire down at the smaller ships and hit your mark than it is to fire and hit your mark.
- [05:06]
A
Now, what the pirates don't know as they close in on this enormous ship is what the most important of all the contents is, as far as the Emperor Aurangzeb is concerned. And the answer to that is. Anita.
- [05:22]
B
Princesses. It's the ladies. Yeah, it's the ladies, isn't it? It's got very important women on board who, you know, whose value is beyond compare. And so this is why it is entirely a catastrophe if anything happens to the Gangya Sawai, because it's not just the material goods that you're going to lose, but the people that you care about. Dozens of women on board, dozens of them, members of Aurangzeb's court.
- [05:49]
A
And just to give an impression of the sort of women who these were, we know about quite a lot of Aurangzeb's daughters because they are famous characters in history. There's one called Roshonara, who is this ally of Aurangzeb, who helps him get to the throne, is this very ruthless figure in some of the accounts that tell the story. And there's also Zebul Nisa, who's built one of my favorite mosques in Delhi, the Zinatul Masjid, the most beautiful of mosques, it's called, and it's on the banks of the Yamuna, and it has the most tall and elegant minarets. And these women are highly educated. They write books. Some previous Mughal princesses wrote a biography. Gulbadan wrote a biography of Humayun, and Zebul Nisa wrote a whole series of wonderful poems and books about the Mughal realm. Histories.
- [06:40]
B
It wasn't, though, only these enlightened women who were off the court, because there were also a number of captured women. The captain of the ship had bought Turkish concubines during his voyage and was importing them back to India. So, you know, this is sex trafficking as well. It's not just sort of ladies who eat Turkish Delight on cushions. There are kidnapped women on board this ship as well. So it's a real mix. Religious pilgrims, blue bloods and captive women, sex slaves.
- [07:07]
A
And this, of course, is incredibly unusual on the high seas, because in the maritime world of what we now 1695, we are in a world that is overwhelmingly masculine. It is, you know, the ultimate patriarchal world. All ships at the time, merchant ships, warships, privateers, would have been entirely devoid of women. And occasionally you might get a ship leaving a British harbor, like the Mayflower, going to America, which would carry migrants. But you'd have to, you know, in the whole maritime world in the 17th century, there would be very, very few ships that carried large numbers of women. But this actually, it turns out, is what the Ganges is full of. And you can see where this is going.
- [07:56]
B
Well, most importantly of all, apparently Aurangzeb's own granddaughter is aboard this ship.
- [08:01]
A
Some accounts say daughter, whatever.
- [08:03]
B
It is an important ship, important people in it. According to a pamphlet called the Life and Adventures of Captain John Avery, the cargo of this ship was so very rich that it even satiated the appetites of the most covetous of the mariners, for above the value of a million of money in silver and rich stuffs was found therein. And very agreeable lady, although I think it means ladies, into the bargain. Anyway, so look, the battle is on. Gangesaway, captained by Mohammed Ibrahim, is this big ship, high decks, lots of guns. But Avery has planned an attack. And actually, you know, he's a very good strategist because he manages to position his ships and cut across and sort of weave in and out the bullet fires that are coming from the Ganji Sawai. And one of the first cannon volleys cuts down the Gangeswai's mainmast, and that cripples the ship.
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A
Can you remember how they do that? They use these double, what's called chain shot. It's two balls with a chain.
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B
That's right. There's two cannonballs with a chain in it, and they sort of hurtle through the air and they chainsaw through at high velocity.
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A
It's like a moving chainsaw. And in the very first minutes of the attack on the Ganjitsuai, which is meant to be this impregnable Alcatraz of a ship, the masters down disabling it, which means it can't maneuver, which means it's all the more vulnerable.
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B
And it's collapsed onto the ship. So just imagine all the crew running all over the place because this huge tree has been felled over their heads.
- [09:33]
A
Then, to add to the confusion, one of the main cannons, the Moguls, particularly one of the things that Aurangzeb was famous for is he lighted big cannon. And I've seen in various forts around India massive cannon that are meant to be associated with Aurangzeb. There's one in Dalatabad. As you enter the fort of Dalatabad, there's this enormous mother of all cannons that apparently again exploded when it was set off. And this is what happens here. One of the huge Aurangzeb mega cannons that he loves to show off is fired at the pirates. And rather than exploding on the pirates as it was meant to, it malfunctions and it bursts all over the artillerymen. And this is the moment that Avery seizes his chance.
- [10:14]
B
Well, everybody takes Avery's lead, you know, they can hardly believe their eyes. This is, you know, their first salvo has been so successful. So William May's ship we told you about last time is the Pearl. Not the Black Pearl, but the Pearl. And initially William May's a bit skeptical that, you know, even these tiny little mosquitoes can attack such an enormous bear of a vessel. But when he sees that main mast go down, he orders his men, right, you know, grappling irons up, climb up the ropes and they're up. They're up like sort of insects crawling up the ganjisawai and onto the decks.
- [10:45]
A
And I think the Mughals just weren't expecting this because the Mughals are used to their sort of prestige as people that win all the battles they fight at this period in their history at.
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B
A distance without getting dirty as well.
- [10:57]
A
The mast is down, the artillery is exploded, and the pirates are aboard the Ganji Sawai with their grappling irons. And the first thing that happens according. So we have an account of this because one of the main historians of Aurangzeb Rein is this guy called Muhammad Hashim Kafi Khan. And he writes a brilliant account of this because it turns out, as fate would have it, one of the great historians of this period is based in Surat at this period. And so it's not quite a firsthand account, but it seems to be secondhand. He's taken this from the Surviv survivors and he says that when the cannon explode and the mast goes down, Muhammad Ibrahim, the captain, although he's got this enormous ship, although it's got double the number of guns, although he's got double the number of sailors, he goes and runs down the decks where according to Kafi Khan, he arms the slave girls and tries to send them up to fight the pirates. This may of course be entirely nonsense.
- [11:51]
B
Poor women are being trafficked already. And Simtar, I know what I'd do with it. I know I'd plan on who you turn it on. I'd stick the pointy end anyway. But what does happen is it's two or three hours, we're told, of hand to hand combat on the decks of this stricken behemoth of his ship.
- [12:10]
A
And Kafi Khan is disgusted by the behavior of the Mughal sailors, because, he writes, the Christians are not bold in the use of the sword and there are so many weapons on board the royal vessel that if the captain had made any resistance, they must defeat it. I've got the account of Kafi Khan. Do you want me to read more?
- [12:26]
B
Read more, Read more? Yes, please.
- [12:28]
A
Yeah.
- [12:28]
B
That's a very lovely old tome. What are you reading from?
- [12:31]
A
This is what I've been using for the last couple of episodes. This wonderful book, Pirates of the Eastern Seas by Charles Gray, who you and I used his accounts for our Koh I Noor because he was the master of the Lahore archives for a long time and he produced these books in the 1930s that are very, very dated, but they still contain these wonderful chunks of original sources. And let me read you from Kafi Khan's own account. Every year, one of the Emperor's ships was sent from Surat to Mecca. There was no greater ship in all the Mughal dominions than this, and it was called the Ganji Shawai. At this time, she was bringing from Mecca 52, lacking gold and silver, the produce of all the sails of Indian ships there and Jeddah. So what's interesting is it's on its way back. That's what I hadn't grasped. Ibrahim Khan was captain of the ship which carried 62 great guns and 400 musketeers, beside many other soldiers and all necessary implements of war. When the ship came within. GUNSHOT the royal vessel fired her great guns at it. But by ill luck, one of them burst and three or four men were killed by fragments of it. Seeing the confusion and that their own shops had broken the main mast. Or his version, it's the. It's the exploding cannon which breaks the main mast. Interesting. The British claim to have done it themselves in their accounts. Anyway, whichever it is, the main mast is down and he says the English are not bold in the use of the sword. And there were so many weapons aboard that if determined resistance had been made, it would have been easy to defeat them. But as soon as they came abroad, Ibrahim Khan ran down into the hold where there were some Turkish girls whom he was bringing from Makkah to be his concubines. He put turbans on their heads and incited them to fight. But these girls quickly fell into the hands of the Englishmen who had made themselves masters of the ship. When they had laden their ship with the spoils of the Ganjisiwai, they took her to one of their settlements where they busied themselves stripping the men and killing them. And Dishonouring the women, both young and old. They then left the ship to go free, but took with them most of the women. Several of the ladies threw themselves into the sea, and others killed themselves with the swords and daggers of the Englishman.
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B
Oh, God, that's awful. God, it's hard being a woman.
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A
And so this is where suddenly what has been a jolly pirate activity, that's.
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B
Not jolly at all. It's disgusting.
- [14:59]
A
It's turning now into a much darker story.
- [15:02]
B
Well, can I put some money against what this heist means? So, you know, this is, I suppose, five hours of fighting. All in all, they managed to take five years of wages for every single one of that pirate crew that's involved. So Avery, overnight becomes one of the richest pirates of all time. Definitely the most successful pirate of his age. But you know what? That will be the stuff of ballads, how he gets very, very rich. But can we just for a little while longer, talk about how brutal and awful he was? Because I did a spirited defense of William Kitt in the last episode. I have nothing to say about this man other than he was a mob. So, you know, you sort of read an extract of what happened to these poor women and the poor men who were involved. But let's talk about it a little bit more, because you've got more sources.
- [15:52]
A
So what's interesting is that I think even at the time, mass rape is not a fair for storytellers. And so what the British do is that when this story is told in the ballads and in the bars of Portsmouth and what have you, this whole story is glossed over, and in its place, you have a romantic legend which appears to be entirely fictional, because we've got Kafi Khan, who actually meets the survivors in Surat and has this firsthand. And it's very interesting what the English do in their version. So in their version, they allege that the princess, the Mughal princess, of course, falls in love and marries Avery, and that they set up court in their republican pirate empire in Madagascar. And they have a son who is called in the English sources, Mulatto Tom, who later succeeds to the kingdom. Now, we now know, of course, that this is bollocks from start to finish.
- [16:45]
B
Yeah, he was a rapist, and he presided over a troop of rapists who did something dreadful for a number of days.
- [16:52]
A
That is exactly the actual story. And so let's just go a bit further, though, on the way that the romanticized version. ROSE TINTS this.
- [17:02]
B
Oh, God, is this thanks to Daniel Defoe? Who is it who gives us this romanticized version.
- [17:07]
A
It's not Daniel Defoe. Daniel Defoe does write a version of Avery's life called the King of the Pirates, or Long Ben. And he, Daniel Defoe is responsible for the romanticization of this man. But in actual fact, the detail about the love story comes from a Dutch writer who uses a pseudonym, Adrian Van broeck. And in 1709, which is only a decade after this, he publishes this sort of rose tinted version. The princess and Avery live happily ever after. And this is what he writes as time obliterates the most deep impressions of sorrow. So the lady was not long before she forgot the pleasures of her grandfather's court in the joys of her own, and found herself happily brought to bed with a son, while the female part of her retinue were no less backward in presenting their husbands with the fruits of their conjugal endearments.
- [17:57]
B
I'm just going to. I've just thrown up in my mouth. Sorry. That's disgusting. They really enjoyed it. They loved it. They were set free by it.
- [18:04]
A
That's the English myth.
- [18:05]
B
And they lived happily, sexily ever after. Ugh.
- [18:09]
A
And but for the fact that we have Kafi Khan, who actually interviews the survivors, we wouldn't know better about this. So again, it gives the whole story of pirates because presumably this is not. I mean, you're never going to have another floating harem like this. But it's kind of been a unique story and it does bring home to us what actually we're talking about. When we're talking about piracy, we are talking about rape, loot and pillage.
- [18:31]
B
But also the impact of taking the Grand Mughal's granddaughter and raping her and dishonouring her in this way would have been the most seismic blow diplomatically between the two countries as well.
- [18:45]
A
And as I said, this is taking place in the aftermath of the British in Bombay trying to defeat Aurangzeb's armies and being swatted in a matter of hours, what's called the War of Joshua Child. And it's one of the great humiliations of the English in India. But this is a serious haul they've got from the Ganji sawai. Something between 200 and £600,000 at that time, 500,000 gold and silver pieces. But as you say, more important than this is the fact that they have dishonored the Emperor's women folk, which is a completely unforgivable crime in the eyes of the Moguls, quite understandably.
- [19:27]
B
Right. So, I mean, look, let's take a break at this point, but join us after the break where we tell you what Avery does with his pockets full of stolen jewels and his fingers dripping with blood and gore.
- [19:44]
A
Welcome back. So we ended the last half of this episode with the English pirate fleet having captured the Mogul flagship. They brutalize it for five days. They clean it of all the gold, silver plate and all the other goodies. They win. And then they go on what we can only call a rape spree when having captured this floating harem and all these slave girls, as well as the well born hajis from Aurangzeb's court, they seem to just spend five days in.
- [20:16]
B
An orgy of rape, rape, violence and murder. And then is it. The reason that, you know, we have people who tell the tale is because having had their five days of debauchery, they just kind of leave the Ganji Sawai. Just because it's dead in the water, they just leave it floating and they carry on and they make this dash to the Bahamas, which is where supposedly they're going to tell their torrid stories and count out money between themselves while they are there sailing for the Bahamas anyway. And this poor stricken vessel, some people are managing to get to safety, others not so lucky. Many of the women, as we heard before the break, you know, sort of killing themselves after their experience over the last five days. What is very, very important is you cannot do this to a Mogul emperor's family member and get away with it. He does not care at all that these are pirates in his head. These are the English. And just remember, this is the same time that, you know, the East India Company is trying to romance the Moguls, trying to get trading activities up and running with the Moguls. But for him, he looks at them and all he sees is the debasement of his family and his friends.
- [21:27]
A
And because the pirates have left survivors, which not all pirates do in all situations, they come back eventually. Those that do survive to Surat, where they tell Kafi Khan and the rest of the officials all the details of what's happened and crucially, the fact that Avery, of course, always likes to be the Englishman and he's flying the English flag. So the flag of St. George is attached to what the Mughals regard quite rightly as a kind of floating rape ship. And so he gets back to Surat and as soon as word begins to spread, the English realize that they are in for an absolute catastrophe. It's only 10 or 15 years since they last fell out with the Mughal. They were all clapped in irons then, many of them were killed. And they know exactly what's coming.
- [22:10]
B
There's a huge reward that's offered for the capture of Avery, and that from both sides, because it's in the, you know, East India Company's interest to have him clapped in irons and brought before the emperor. And the emperor wants nothing more than to have his head on a spike. But he is very. Remember, he's hiding around the Bahamas somewhere. So they've got sort of bounty hunters out there trying to look for him and find him, and they can't find him. And while this is going on, the rhetoric between the Mughals and the English and the East India Company is getting hotter and hotter. I mean, it's just. There's a lashing out that takes place, inevitably, is that they say, right, you know what? We're going to throw a cordon of troops around your East India Company factory, which is in Surat at the time. And that means, you know, if you do not produce this rapist and this murderer before us, you will die. And that's very much the implication. You surround a place with guns and you say, I don't care. I don't care who did it. We've got you right now. And so it's a really scary time for those people working for the East India Company.
- [23:15]
A
So the guy who has to deal with all this is the chief factor of Surat. That means basically, the East India Company's head of station at the port, and he's called Samuel Annesley. So the first thing he does is he offers double compensation for what was taken to anyone who can prove that the company's ships were not involved, that it was somebody operating under their own steam, so to speak. And while all this is happening, there's actually a mob heading for Surat Castle because the survivors say that the pirates were English, they flew the Cross of St. George, and among their number are some ex India Company sailors who speak openly about a avenging the previous time that Aurangzeb clapped all the company people in irons, which was the War of Joshua Child. So enough survivors come who are able to link not just by the colors that are flown, but by the actual conversation and the quotes from the pirates, that these guys are definitely English and connected to the company. So the company is in very serious trouble.
- [24:19]
B
So, I mean, what do they do to the Brits that they round up or surround?
- [24:23]
A
Yeah, 300 troops go into the factory. Well, we have Annesley's own account. He said it's needless to write of the indignities slavish usages and tyrannical insultings we hourly bear day and night. And to expatiate on so hateful a subject would no ways redress or alleviate our sufferings. So their fate now rests on Aurangzeb, the emperor, whose fury about hearing of the sacking and the rapes is a terrifying prospect. Piracy is bad enough, but the rape of the royal family is something. And so they're all, you know, expecting they're going to be killed in the most vile and terrible way, but they are out there instantly working on this. And they get the merchants in the town to offer heavy bribes to get them out. Various officials have their palms covered. Remember, by this stage, the English, already kind of important merchants in Surat, although they're fairly new rivals, they're well in there. So there's a whole chain of merchants who do well out of the English trade, who do not want to see the English thrown out.
- [25:30]
B
They don't want it to be blown up completely because they're making money from it. So, look, I think these days you call this diplomatic back channeling, but you've got sort of these wealthy merchants, Surat merchants, saying, look, honestly, are you sure you're angry at the right people? They say it's not them. And we have this evidence to produce to. You've got sort of British diplomacy going into overdrive, trying to convince Soaring, do not be angry with us. We're on your side. We want to get them as much as you do. And inexplicably, this reaches the angry Aurangzeb, who does seem to calm down a little bit. You know, he believes. If not the English, who. He probably hates them, but his own people coming and telling him, and they managed to convince him that, look, you know, what you need to do is just don't blow everything up, all right? You don't like the English anymore. Why don't we work with the Dutch and the French companies who will now escort our fleets? That's what we'll do. Because we've still got to do the same routes. We've still got to do business. There is a price of business and. All right, we get it. You don't like the English anymore. The East India Company's name is mud. Why don't we get the Dutch and the French to escort us and look after us, and they will be responsible for suppressing piracy. And it's on those terms that Aurangzeb kind of stops the nine months of bloodletting and the imprisonment of the Surat workers and releases them and then trade begins again. But for nine months, there's a convulsion of trade. Nothing happens. You know, nobody's going to take to the seas again.
- [26:55]
A
I think what happens is that Aurangzeb finally is convinced that, you know, this isn't the company, that this is a bunch of pirates, and that the company itself. I don't know whether they've captured letters or whatever it is. But finally, after nine months, the factors are released, and the manhunt for the most wanted man in the world begins.
- [27:14]
B
Yeah, where is he? Where is Avery, William? Where is he gone? Well, he's caused all of this utter commotion and disgraced the English flag that he said he was so proud of. Where's he gone?
- [27:24]
A
So every sailor, every ship in the world is looking for Avery now because there's an enormous price on his head. And if anyone could bring in one of his sailors, any of his ships, but above all, Avery himself, they are in to make their own fortune. So what we know, and historians have begun piecing it together, and we've got quite a lot of evidence what goes on. The first place that Avery goes is the French island of Bourbon, which is modern Reunion, not so far from Madagascar. Madagascar, of course, was always the great pirate center. And it's apparently in Reunion that the spoils are divided. And having divided it, the crews split up. Some go off in some directions, some go off to others. But the main body of Avery and most of his crew head northeast, first to New Providence in the Bahamas, which is also a pirate haven at this point. And it's played host to notorious figures such as Benjamin Hornigold, Blackbeard, our old friend Calico Jack, and Charles Vane. And at this point, the Bahamas are very sparsely populated, and it's quite a good place to hide out.
- [28:33]
B
Can I just say, I like the way he manages to get to New Providence, because, you know, New Providence still remember it has an English flag flying over it. So how does he manage to sort of get round this? He says sends a note to the governor of New Providence saying, you know what? We. We're not. We're not the fancy. We're not them. We're. We're a slave is ship, and we're trafficking enslaved Africans and elephant tusks. But we're kind of doing it behind the Royal African Company's back so that the Crown doesn't get the money. We're getting the money. There's a lot of the bending the rules that's going on at the moment, because, as you know, if you've listened to our slavery series. The Royal African Company has a monopoly on selling and purchasing and transporting enslaved people. But there are some entrepreneurs who manage to do it sort of on the never never and they spread the wealth. So that's how they managed to get to New Providence and end up birthing in New Providence where they can share out all the spoils because they say, look, we're doing this behind their back. We're not a pirate ship. Oh, no, no, no. We're just a slaver ship trying to make a little bit of extra dishonest money. And we'll give you some. So Avery sends a purse full of pieces of eight to, you know, the man who's in charge of New Providence and says, keep this for your troubles and we're just going to stay here for a little while. And that's, you know, forget about the telegraph and telephones. They don't exist. But he's a very, very good liar and people believe him. They follow him and they believe him.
- [29:51]
A
So he starts off in the Bahamas, but news begins to come about the scale of the bounty on his head and he has to escape from the Caribbean. And I think the man who he bribed with all those pieces of eight is the one who tips him off that an arrest warrant has just arrived for him and he's got to get out of town.
- [30:13]
B
Beautifully named Trot. Trot is his name. Sort of pig with his snout in a trough. You know, Avery thinks he's got him wound around his finger, but actually Trots. Trots also making moves.
- [30:23]
A
I love the way the story of this man Avery just sort of transmutes. It changes from. We had a bit of the Italian job at the beginning. It's now turning into Butch Cassidy. We've got Sir Robert Red territory. So there's a price on these guys heads. They've got their money, but they are on the run. And even at this period in the, in the 17th century, it is not easy to escape from the law. So anyway, they have to leave the Caribbean and they need to change their identities.
- [30:50]
B
Well, they need to hide the fancy. And Trot is the man who says, you know, for a price. You know those pieces of eight, I quite liked those. If you've got more of those, I can help you get out because I do know who you are and I do know what your ship is, but I'm willing to look the other way if you give me some more money. And then what we'll do is we'll strip down the fancy, we'll Sink it, because that's good for you, because they won't. They'll be looking for the fancy. It's also good for me because it's really not good for my career if they find out I've been doing deals with the most wanted pirate in the world. So together, we'll sink it. And then you get out of here before they arrive, because they are on their way. And it puts so much pressure on Avery to give in to whatever trot. I mean, I don't even know if he knows for sure, but it is a way of him getting everything that he wants and getting rid of the evidence.
- [31:35]
A
So this is the point where Avery and his crew go their separate ways. A lot of them go to the North American mainland and there's been a lot of work lately on the different fortunes, because lots of them arrive. These very rich characters arrive in the British colonies in North America, and people pretend not to know where the money's come from. They're all carefully given new identities and new lives. But Avery decides to double back, and he's not going to go to the Caribbean, he's not going to go to the exotic Madagascar or the Indian Ocean. He decides to head for the most unlikely place, which is the harbor of Dunfanagi, which is just northwest of Belfast. So he doubles back at this point, and while a lot of his crew are making for New England, Avery, with the new name of Benjamin Bridgeman and a new ship called the Seaflower, set sail for Northern Ireland.
- [32:32]
B
Can I just say, he does pick really effeminate names for his ships. It's from the Fancy to the Seaflower. What is he playing at? Anyway?
- [32:39]
A
So they land northwest of Belfast. Avery is now Benjamin Bridgeman and he wants to go home. He wants to get his winnings and go home. And he thinks that he's managed to disguise his passage. No one knows the name that he's taken, and he tells his crew that he wants to go to Essex, being a Plymouth man. So this, of course, is from one of the other crewmen, who are later caught and later tortured to reveal where Avery has gone. So Avery and those members of the crew of the Seaflower who've made it back to England disperse across the British Isles, taking their separate winnings. And back in London, at the East India Company headquarters, a special committee of pirate hunters is set up with a reward for Avery's capture. There must have been some rumour that he'd got back into England by now, and people are on the lookout in the ports.
- [33:35]
B
It's a Multi agency approach, we'd call it today. Anybody who's involved in law enforcement. So it's a police. That's tax inspectors, freelance bounty hunters. They're all teamed up now because it is Operation Avery. We've got to find this bastard and we've got to bring him in.
- [33:50]
A
And so about a month after he's left Ireland, the company realizes that he landed in Ireland and they start distributing flyers which they print and they ship off around the world, offering an additional 4,000 rupees for any Indian informants who could lead them to Avery. They put similar offers out in Scotland and in Ireland. And the first success they get is in Nassau, where some of the crew are picked up. And you get a few bits of intelligence coming from various members who are apprehended. But they have more success later in England. And over the course of the following summer, seven more men from Avery's crew are apprehended in Liverpool, Dublin, Newcastle and the west country, near Avery's birthplace. So they're closing in.
- [34:44]
B
Can I also say that a side effect of having all these flyers, you know, they are literally those, like Western posters of wanted dead or alive. This man is that if you proliferate them around the world, somehow word should reach Aurangzeb that, honestly, we told you he wasn't one of us. Look at what we're doing to try and track down this man. He is not us. So you're also doing sort of a little bit of propaganda work by, if you know, even if you know, he's nowhere near, you know, a certain country, but you send stuff out, you know it's going to get back to Aurangzeb somehow.
- [35:15]
A
But I'm quite impressed by the police work at this time. I mean, this is long before the age of the detective, where, as we know, actual detectives aren't invented until, I think, the Victorian period. All those Kate Summerscale books about all those murderers in Victorian England who then go on to inspire Dickens stories. We're 100 years before that and already the authorities, presumably the East India Company, is the force that's operating. These inquiries are picking up seven of Avery's crew in completely different parts. Liverpool is on the west coast. Dublin is in Ireland. Newcastle is on the east coast of England. And you've got other people turning up in the west country, but, you know.
- [35:53]
B
However good their police work is, there is one man and only one man that really matters at this point, and that is Avery. And where is Avery and why can't they find him? William, what's going wrong there.
- [36:03]
A
So Avery has actually gone to Devon and he has gone to ground very near where he's come. But he's changed his identity for some reason. People are not grassing on him. If he's seen any old friends, they're not offering information. And I've got a list here of all the places that people from his crew are picked up from. And it's a remarkable list. There's one character called Joseph Morris who's found in Providence. Another guy, William Mason's also picked up in New England. There's a guy called Hollingsworth who's chased into Dublin and eventually caught on the deck of a French privateer. It's a proper sort of global manhunt here. And one by one, all the accomplices in this attack on the gun, do you see why these rapists and these pirates are caught and sent back to London, but as you say, no sign of Avery. And one of the reasons that Avery, I think, has managed to elude capture is he's living very, very modestly. The other guys are throwing money around in pubs and revealing themselves by cashing in on their mogul silver plate and so on. And there are trails to cover. But Avery is living very, very modestly in a place called Bideford.
- [37:18]
B
There is one story about Avery that, you know, they don't capture and they don't clap him in irons, they don't execute him, but sort of karma gets him. And this is a story by the pirate biography Charles Johnson. And this, let me just put a big, huge caveat around that name, because Charles Johnson's not always the most reliable of historians. He's written the history and lives of all the most notorious pirates in 1732. And what he tells is this story that Avery, you know, his pockets heavy with stolen diamonds, does some deals with Bristol merchants who keep his secret, keep his identity, because he wants to convert the stones into cash, but they swindle him. Now you've got the actual excerpt there. Can you tell us more?
- [38:00]
A
So he sends a friend to Bristol to find a fence is, I suppose, the modern word we'd use, isn't it, who's going to take the diamonds and give him cash? And eventually the man is found. And here's what Johnson says. After many protestations of integrity on their part, Avery delivered all he had, being diamonds and vessels of gold. They gave him a little money for his present needs. And so they parted. Avery changed his name and lived on at Biddersford without making any figure and therefore little notice. Was taken of him, save by a few of his relations whom he let know where he was. And they came to see him. After some time, his money being spent and hearing nothing from the merchant, he wrote to them. And after much importunity they sent him a little supply, though scarce enough to pay his debts in fine. What they sent him from time to time was barely sufficient for him to get bread, nor could he attain even that without much trouble and importunity. Wherefore, being weary of this life, he eventually went himself to Bristol to speak to the merchants. But there, instead of money, he met with a shocking repulse. For when he desired them to come to an account, they threatened to discover him, so that the merchants were as good as pirates on land as their clients had been at sea.
- [39:25]
B
God, I hope that's true. I hope that's true because Johnson suggests that, you know, he dies in utter abject poverty, hardly able to buy bread. But again, he's such an unreliable witness. I don't know. I mean, I really hope it's true because he deserves it, completely deserves it.
- [39:41]
A
You're right. There are those who think that it's too neat, that in a sense it's the kind of moral ending to the story that a 17th, 18th century account would want.
- [39:51]
B
Yes. Therefore, children, don't be a pirate because, you know, it's never going to go well. But we don't know what happened to him, do we? I mean, we really don't know.
- [39:58]
A
We actually don't know. And we only have Johnson's word for this story about Biddeford and the diamonds. And the reality is he's not caught, he dies. We don't know where, under what name, we don't know. And the manhunt continues for long after the death of the bridgeman that Johnson thinks is Avery. And of course, this only encourages the legend. Fictional memoir is published in 1709 which claims that Avery was the king ruling from the pirate utopia in Madagascar. Remember, we've had that story with his son Mulatto Tom and his Mughal princess. That's actually a full length book published in 1709. And over the course of 18th and 19th century, Avery's story grows with the telling and we get a whole series of accounts. One by Daniel Defoe called the King of the Pirates, another called the Ballad of Long Ben. And this is, in a sense, this is the origin of the Johnny Depp of the Long John Silver. This is where it begins.
- [40:57]
B
Well, it's kind of the origin of every pirate story, isn't it? I mean, you know, we had William Kidd burying treasure, which helps that pirate mythology. And chucking in a dead body as well. But this, this really is, you know, riches beyond your wildest dreams and evading capture. Whatever happened to Captain Henry Avery? If you happen to know, and you got a box of letters up in your attic, we'd like to hear about it. That's pretty much all we have for you on this particular pirate. We hope you're enjoying the series because they are extraordinary, extraordinary tales. And it makes William so happy to talk about them. Until we meet again, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnand.
- [41:35]
A
And goodbye from me, William Tarun.