HENRY EVERY
King Of Pirates
Overview
Henry Every, (sometimes spelled Avery) born c1653-1659 in Devon was an English pirate who operated in the Atlantic and Indian oceans in the mid 1690s.
He was the most notorious pirate of his time earning him the reputation of ‘King of Pirates’, and the first international man hunt was launched after he carried out what was then the most profitable pirate raid in history.
Henry Every depicted on shore with the Fancy engaging another vessel.
Every’s flag as described in “A Copy of Verses” a ballad allegedly wrote by Henry Every himself.
In 1695 his ship, joining with other infamous pirate crews, attacked the Grand Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai, which was making a pilgrimage to Mecca; Every and the other pirates seized loot worth around £600,000 (over £52 million today) and escaped to New Providence, a known pirate safe haven.
While some of his crew were arrested and charged with the crime, Every’s fate is unclear. He vanished without a trace and many uncorroborated stories have been told of what happened to him. It has been suggested that he escaped and retired with his booty.
Henry Every, also known as Henry Avery (20 August 1659 – after 1696), sometimes erroneously given as Jack Avery or John Avery,[a] was an English pirate who operated in the Atlantic and Indian oceans in the mid-1690s. He probably used several aliases throughout his career, including Benjamin Bridgeman, and was known as Long Ben to his crewmen and associates.[b]
Dubbed “The Arch Pirate” and “The King of Pirates” by contemporaries, Every was infamous for being one of few major pirate captains to escape with his loot without being arrested or killed in battle, and for being the perpetrator of what has been called the most profitable act of piracy in history.[1] Although Every’s career as a pirate lasted only two years, his exploits captured the public’s imagination, inspired others to take up piracy, and spawned works of literature.
Every began his pirate career while he was first mate aboard the warship Charles II. As the ship lay anchored in the northern Spanish harbour of Corunna, the crew grew discontented as Spain failed to deliver a letter of marque and Charles II‘s owners failed to pay their wages, and they mutinied. Charles II was renamed the Fancy and Every elected as the new captain.
Every’s most famous raid, on the 7th September 1695, was on a 25-ship convoy of Grand Mughal vessels making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, including the treasure-laden Ghanjah dhow Ganj-i-sawai and its escort, Fateh Muhammed. Joining forces with several pirate vessels, Every found himself in command of a small pirate squadron, and they were able to capture up to £600,000 in precious metals and jewels,[1] equivalent to around £91.9 million in 2021[2]. This caused considerable damage to England’s fragile relations with the Mughals, and a combined bounty of £1,000—an immense sum at the time—was offered by the Privy Council and the East India Company for his capture, leading to the first worldwide manhunt in recorded history.[3][c]
Although a number of his crew were subsequently arrested, Every himself eluded capture, vanishing from all records in 1696; his whereabouts and activities after this period are unknown. Unconfirmed accounts state he may have changed his name and retired, quietly living out the rest of his life in either Britain or on an unidentified tropical island, while alternative accounts consider Every may have squandered his riches.[4] He is considered to have died sometime between 1699 and 1714; his treasure has never been recovered.
Sourced from: Wikipedia
REFERENCES:
- Burgess 2009a, p. 138
- ^ UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). “The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)”. MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Burgess 2009a, p. 144
- Woodard 2007
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The Legend
It is most likely that Henry Every was born 20th August 1659 in the village of Newton Ferrers as part of the Every family of Devon. This seems to be supported by witness testimonies from members of Every’s crew. One of which was William Phillips who stated that in 1696 Every was “aged about 40 years old” and that his mother lived “near Plymouth”.
It is believed that Every then became a sailor with the Royal Navy at a young age. Van Broech claims that while serving for the Royal Navy he served aboard the English fleet attacking Algiers in 1671. After this he went on to the Caribbean sea before captaining in the Bay of Cempeche onboard a log wood freighter.
Henry Every woodcut from Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates (London: Midwinter, 1725)
Battle of Beachy Head (1690) by Theodore Gudin.
By his thirties he was married to Dorothy Arther who served as a Periwig seller in Ratcliffe Highway, London. A family man, Every worked hard aboard the HMS Rupert during the Nine Year War but sent most of his earnings home to his family. He later joined the HMS Albemarle as Master’s Mate before the Battle of Beachy Head against the French in 1690. This battle was a disaster for the English and a short time after in the same year, Every was discharged from the Royal Navy.
After his discharge from the Royal Navy in 1690 not much is known about Every until 1693. The first mention of since 1690 is in the journal of a Royal African Company agent named Thomas Phillips of the ship Hannibal. Phillips was on a mission on the Guinea Coast when he claimed “I have no where upon the coast met negroes so shy as here, which makes me fancy they have had tricks play’d them by such blades as Long Ben, alias Avery, who have seiz’d them and carry them away.” It’s possible to conclude from Phillip’s writings that he may have come across Avery on a number of occasions and may have known him on a more personal level.
In this same year Every had joined the Spanish Expedition consisting of four warships: Seventh Son, Dove, James, and Charles II. The Spanish Expedition’s intentions were to travel to the Spanish West Indies to trade goods, supply the Spanish with arms, and recover treasure from wrecked galleons while plundering the areas French possessions.
It’s unclear why but the ships took five months to arrive in Corunna from the River Thames, a journey that should have only taken two weeks. Malnourished and with provisions running low they lacked the official paperwork to go ashore at Corunna they were in a serious situation. For several more months they waited patiently for their monies and the paperwork which was constantly denied along with any support from their financiers. Tensions growing the crew began to buckle to the plans to mutiny to which Every was a prime catalyst for. William Phillips, a mariner on Dove claimed that Every went “up & down from ship to ship & persuaded the men to come on board him, & he would carry them where they should get money enough.”
Royal African Company logo.
BACKGROUND
Modern scholarship suggests Henry Every was born on 20 August 1659 in the village of Newton Ferrers, about 9.7 kilometres (6 mi) southeast of Plymouth, Devon, England.[1][2] Parish records suggest that he was the son of John Every and his wife, Anne (maiden name unknown); the Every family of Devon was quite established at the time, and it is likely he was a kinsman of the Every family of Wycroft Castle.[3] According to the deposition of William Phillips, a member of Every’s crew who gave a “voluntary confession” after his capture, in August 1696 Every was “aged about 40 years,” his mother lived “near Plymouth,” and his wife was a periwig seller who lived “in Ratcliffe Highway.”[4] Every was married and records suggest that he wed one Dorothy Arther at St James Duke’s Place in London on 11 September 1690,[5] though there is no evidence that he had any children.
The earliest biographical account of the man, The Life and Adventures of Capt. John Avery (London: J. Baker, 1709), states that he was born in 1653 in Cattedown, Plymouth. Although this location and date are now known to be incorrect, they have been frequently cited in earlier literature. (Another suggested year for Every’s birth is 1665,[6] though this too is in error.) The memoir’s Dutch author, who wrote his account a little over a decade after the pirate had vanished, uses the name Adrian van Broeck, but this is probably a pseudonym. The account tells of Van Broeck’s short captivity by Every’s crew aboard Fancy, and claims that Every’s father was a trading captain who had served in the Royal Navy under Admiral Robert Blake. Several later accounts of Every’s life, most prominently Daniel Defoe’s The King of Pirates (1720), have made reference to the earlier work, but it is of questionable veracity and has been described by the Dictionary of National Biography as “fiction, with scarcely a substratum of fact.”[7]
Although a theory existed that Every’s birth name was actually Benjamin Bridgeman (especially in light of his nickname “Long Ben”), and that “Henry Every” was in fact an alias,[8] modern scholarship has debunked it.[9] It is accepted by historians that “Henry Every” was the pirate’s real name, given that he used this name when he entered the Royal Navy. As this was prior to the onset of his piratical career, he would have had no need for an alias; he used the name “Bridgeman” only after committing piracy. Every may have been a cousin of the well-known Every baronets, though this has not been proven conclusively.[16]
ROYAL NAVY SERVICE
Every was probably a sailor from youth, serving on various Royal Navy ships. Popular accounts state that Every served aboard the English fleet bombarding Algiers in 1671, buccaneered in the Caribbean Sea, and even captained a logwood freighter in the Bay of Campeche, although these stories come from Van Broeck’s fictional memoir.[10] The substantiated record picks up in March 1689, shortly after the breakout of the Nine Years’ War.
England and its allies—the Grand Alliance—Bavaria, the Dutch Republic, the Palatinate, Saxony, and Spain—were waging war against Louis XIV of France in an attempt to stop his expansions, and it was against this background that Every, now in his early thirties, was working as a midshipman aboard the sixty-four gun battleship HMS Rupert, then under the command of Sir Francis Wheeler.[11] Every’s naval records suggest he was something of a family man, who spent “little of his wages on extras such as tobacco and regularly consigned his pay to his family.”[12]
In mid-1689, HMS Rupert helped capture a large enemy French convoy off Brest, France. This victory gave Every an opportunity to better his fortunes and by the end of July he was promoted to Master’s mate, although he was probably the most junior of HMS Rupert‘s three Master’s mates.[13] In late June 1690, he was invited to join Captain Wheeler on a new ship, the ninety-gun HMS Albemarle. He likely participated in the Battle of Beachy Head against the French two weeks later, an engagement which ended disastrously for the English.[12][14] On 29 August of that year, Every was discharged from the Royal Navy.[15][16]
AVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE
After discharge from the Royal Navy, Avery entered the Atlantic slave trade. Between 1660 and 1698, the Royal African Company (RAC) maintained a monopoly over all English slave trade, making it illegal to sell slaves without a license. To ensure compliance, the navy protected the company’s interests along the West African coast. Although illegal, unlicensed slaving could be a highly lucrative enterprise, as Avery was certainly aware; the prospect of profits ensured that violations of the company’s monopoly by “interlopers” (unlicensed slavers) remained a fairly common crime.
In 1693, Avery is identified in a journal prepared by an agent of the RAC, Captain Thomas Phillips of Hannibal, then on a slaving mission on the Guinea coast, who writes: “I have no where upon the coast met the negroes so shy as here, which makes me fancy they have had tricks play’d them by such blades as Long Ben, alias Avery, who have seiz’d them and carry’d them away.”[17][18] (Avery was known to lure potential slave traders onto his ship by flying friendly English colours, then seize the slave traders themselves and chain them in his ship’s hold alongside their former captives.)[19] Captain Phillips, who according to his own writings had come across Avery on more than one occasion—and may have even known him personally[8]—also alluded to Avery as slave trading under a commission from Issac Richier, the unpopular Bermudian governor who was later removed from his post for his carousing behavior. However, Avery’s slave trading employment is relatively undocumented.[20]
Sourced from: Wikipedia
REFERENCES:
- Baer 2005, p. 91
- ^ Marley 2010, p. 589
- ^ Jump up to:a b Rogoziński 2000
- ^ The National Archives SP 63/358 fols. 127–32
- ^ Fox 2008, p. 29
- ^ Gosse 1924, p. 23
- Laughton 1908, p. 747
- Grey 1933, p. 167
- ^ Baer 1994, p. 3
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Baer 1994, p. 4
- ^ Fox 2008, p. 22
- ^ Marley 2010, p. 590
- ^ Fox 2008, pp. 19–29
- ^ Marley 2010, pp. 589–590
- ^ Botting 1978, p. 80
- ^ Phillips 1744, pp. 197
- Woodard 2007, p. 19
- Burgess 2009a, p. 132
On the night of 7th May, 1694 Every and approximately 25 others charged Charles II while O’Byrne; the Admiral of the fleet was ashore. With the Captain of Charles II asleep and the crew caught by surprise it was with no conflict that Every took the ship before vanishing into the night.
Once they were at a safe distance from the Spanish night watch non-conspirators were given a chance to leave. Every offered up the position of the ships Commander to Captain Gibson “If you have a mind to make one of us, we will receive you, and if you turn sober and attend to business, perhaps in time I may make you up of my Lieutenants. If not, here’s a boat, and you shall be set on shore.” Gibson declined the offer and was sent ashore with the others who didn’t want to join Every’s cause.
Every’s flag as depicted in Captain Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates.
Every receiving the three chests of Treasure on board of his ship as depicted in The Pirates Own Book by Charles Ellms
After the mutiny Every was unanimously elected Captain and after likely inspiring his crew with stories of Thomas Tew’s success in the Red Sea a year earlier they agreed to set sail for the Indian Ocean as pirates, renaming Charles II the Fancy.
Along their journey to the Indian Ocean Every and his crew made several stops. First at Maio robbing three ships (and recruiting nine men), then to Guinea where they robbed the local chieftain and his peoples wealth, then at Bioko to resupply. Then they captured two Danish ships near the island of Principe taking prize of their ivory and gold. They rounded the Cape of Good Hope and stopped in the pirate safe haven of St. Augustine’s Bay to resupply again before heading to Johanna from where they rested. While here they captured a passing French pirate ship, looting the vessel and recruited more crew.
MUTINY AND ASCENSION TO CAPTAINCY
On Monday, 7 May 1694, O’Byrne was scheduled to sleep ashore, which gave the men the opportunity they were looking for.[1] At approximately 9:00 p.m., Every and about twenty-five other men rushed aboard Charles II and surprised the crew on board. Captain Gibson was bedridden at the time, so the mutiny ended bloodlessly.[2][e] One account states that the extra men from James pulled up in a longboat beside the ship and gave the password, saying, “Is the drunken boatswain on board?” before joining in the mutiny. Captain Humphreys of James is also said to have called out to Every that the men were deserting, to which Every calmly replied that he knew perfectly well.[3] James then fired on Charles II, alerting the Spanish Night Watch, and Every was forced to make a run to the open sea, quickly vanishing into the night.
After sailing far enough for safety, Every gave the non-conspirators a chance to go ashore, even deferentially offering to let Gibson command the ship if he would join their cause. According to Charles Ellms, Every’s words to Gibson were, “if you have a mind to make one of us, we will receive you; and if you turn sober, and attend to business, perhaps in time I may make you up of my lieutenants; if not, here’s a boat, and you shall be set on shore.”[4] The captain declined and was set ashore with several other sailors.[2] The only man who was prevented from voluntarily leaving was the ship’s surgeon, whose services were deemed too important to forgo. All of the men left on board Charles II unanimously elected Every captain of the ship.[5] Some reports say that Every was much ruder in his dealings with Gibson, but agree that he at least offered him the position of second mate.[6] In either case, Every exhibited an amount of gentility and generosity in his operation of the mutiny that indicates his motives were not mere adventure.
Every was easily able to convince the men to sail to the Indian Ocean as pirates, since their original mission had greatly resembled piracy and Every was renowned for his powers of persuasion. He may have mentioned Thomas Tew‘s success capturing an enormous prize in the Red Sea only a year earlier. The crew quickly settled the subject of payment by deciding that each member would get one share of the treasure, and the captain would get two. Every then renamed Charles II the Fancy—a name which reflected both the crew’s renewed hope in their journey and the quality of the ship—and set a course for the Cape of Good Hope.[7]
AT PIRATE ROUND
At Maio, the easternmost of the Cape Verde‘s Sotavento islands, Every committed his first piracy, robbing three English merchantmen from Barbados of provisions and supplies.[8] Nine of the men from these ships were quickly persuaded to join Every’s crew,[5] who now numbered about ninety-four men.[9] Every then sailed to the Guinea coast, where he tricked a local chieftain into boarding Fancy under the false pretense of trade, and forcibly took his and his men’s wealth, leaving them slaves.[10] Continuing to hug the African coastline, Every then stopped at Bioko in the Bight of Benin, where Fancy was careened and razeed.[9] Cutting away some of the superstructure to improve the ship’s speed made Fancy one of the fastest vessels then sailing in the Atlantic Ocean. In October 1694, Fancy captured two Danish privateers near the island of Príncipe, stripping the ships of ivory and gold and welcoming approximately seventeen defecting Danes aboard.[11]
In early 1695, Fancy finally rounded the Cape of Good Hope, stopping in Madagascar where the crew restocked supplies, likely in the area of St. Augustine’s Bay.[f] The ship next stopped at the island of Johanna in the Comoros Islands. Here Every’s crew rested and took on provisions, later capturing a passing French pirate ship, looting the vessel and recruiting some forty of the crew to join their own company. Every’s total strength was now about 150 men.[12]
At Johanna, Every wrote a letter addressed to the English ship commanders in the Indian Ocean, falsely stating that he had not attacked any English ships. His letter describes a signal English skippers could use to identify themselves so he could avoid them, and warns them that he might not be able to restrain his crew from plundering their ships if they failed to use the signal. It is unclear whether this document was true, but it may have been a ploy by Every to avoid the attention of the East India Company (EIC), whose large and powerful ships were the only threat Fancy faced in the Indian Ocean.[13] Either way, the letter was unsuccessful in preventing the English from pursuing him.
Sourced From: Wikipedia
REFERENCES
- Fox 2008, pp. 45–50
- Baer 1994, p. 14
- Burgess 2009, p. 131
- Ellms 1837, p.26
- ^ Jump up to:a b Rogoziński 2000, p. 83
- ^ Burgess 2009a, p. 131
- ^ Baer 1994, p. 15
- ^ Burgess 2009a, p. 133
- ^ Jump up to:a b Baer 2005, p. 96
- ^ Emlyn 1730, p. 10
- ^ Baer 2005, p. 97
- ^ Jump up to:a b Fox 2008, pp. 58–60
- Baer 2005, p. 98
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The Treasure
In August 1695, Every of the Fancy was elected Admiral of a pirate flotilla consisting of the infamous Thomas Tew Captain of the Amity, Joseph Faro Captain of the Portsmouth Adventure, Richard Want Captain of the Dolphin, William Mayes Captain of the Pearl, and Thomas Wake Captain of the Susanna a plan was set in motion which would in turn cause havoc on England’s relations with India.
The pirate fleet occupying the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb waiting patiently for their target, a convoy of 25 Grand Mughal ships. Their main target being the Ganj-i-Sawai meaning “Exceeding Treasure”.
Thomas Tew depicted in Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates: Fiction, Fact & Fancy Concerning the Buccaneers & Marooners of the Spanish Main, New York, United States, and London, United Kingdom, 1921.
Engraving of Every engaging the Great Mogul’s Ship depicted in The Pirates Own Book, by Charles Ellms, 1837.
The Ganj-i-Sawai also commonly known as the Gunsway had managed to slip past the pirate flotilla in the night but the pirates didn’t take long to set chase to the Indian convoy. Dolphin proved too slow for the chase so the crew joined the Fancy and Dolphin was burned. Susanna and Amity too fell behind but the later was never to rejoin the flotilla.
The Portsmouth Adventure, Fancy, and Pearl caught up with the Fatah Muhammed of the Grand Mughal’s fleet. The pirates quickly sacked the ship taking haul of between £50,000 to £60,000 worth of treasure. They didn’t waste any time, quickly setting chase for their greatest prize, the Gunsway. Catching up only a few days later when they exchanged fire which left the Ganj-i-Sawai immobilized and severely vulnerable after a shot took out their mainmast.
The pirates boarded the ship in a fury and after a violent hand to hand battle lasting several hours the ship and what remained of the crew was theirs to do with as they saw fit. I’ll spare you the grim details but know that what was done to the crew and passangers of this ship were unthinkable.
Along with the ship was it’s sensational and unfathomable amount of treasures estimated to have been worth between £200,000 and £600,000 making it the richest ship to ever have been taken by pirates.
Depiction of Captain Every’s encounter with the Emeror’s granddaughter on the Ganj-i-Sawai from The Works of Daniel Defoe by John Ward Dunsmore (1856 – 1945).
In 1695, Every set sail for the volcanic island of Perim to wait for an Indian fleet that would be passing soon.[g] The fleet was easily the richest prize in Asia—perhaps in the entire world—and any pirates who managed to capture it would have been the perpetrators of the world’s most profitable pirate raid.[1] In August 1695, Fancy reached the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, where Every joined forces with five other pirate captains: Tew on the sloop-of-war Amity, with a crew of about sixty men; Joseph Faro on Portsmouth Adventure, with sixty men; Richard Want on Dolphin, also with sixty men; William Mayes on Pearl, with thirty or forty men; and Thomas Wake on Susanna, with seventy men.[2] All of these captains were carrying privateering commissions that implicated almost the entire Eastern Seaboard of North America. Every was elected admiral of the new six-ship pirate flotilla despite the fact that Tew had arguably more experience, and now found himself in command of over 440 men while they lay in wait for the Indian fleet.[2] A convoy of twenty-five Grand Mughal ships, including the enormous 1,600-ton Ganj-i-sawai with eighty cannons, and its escort, the 600-ton Fateh Muhammed, were spotted passing the straits en route to Surat. Although the convoy had managed to elude the pirate fleet during the night, the pirates gave chase.
Dolphin proved to be far too slow, lagging behind the rest of the pirate ships, so it was burned and the crew joined Every aboard Fancy. Amity and Susanna also proved to be poor ships: Amity fell behind and never again rejoined the pirate flotilla (Tew having been killed in a battle with a Mughal ship), while the straggling Susanna eventually rejoined the group. The pirates caught up with Fateh Muhammed four or five days later.[3] Perhaps intimidated by Fancy‘s forty-six guns or weakened by an earlier battle with Tew, Fateh Muhammed‘s crew put up little resistance; Every’s pirates then sacked the ship, which had belonged to one Abdul Ghaffar, reportedly Surat’s wealthiest merchant.[h][4] While Fateh Muhammed‘s treasure of some £50,000 to £60,000 was enough to buy Fancy fifty times over,[5] once the treasure was shared out among the pirate fleet, Every’s crew received only small shares.[6]
Every now sailed in pursuit of the second Mughal ship, Ganj-i-Sawai[7] (meaning “Exceeding Treasure,” and often Anglicized as Gunsway),[8] overtaking it a few days after the attack on Fateh Muhammed.[5][9] With Amity and Dolphin left behind, only Fancy, Pearl, and Portsmouth Adventure were present for the actual battle.[10]
Ganj-i-sawai, captained by one Muhammad Ibrahim, was a fearsome opponent, mounting eighty guns and a musket-armed guard of four hundred, as well as six hundred other passengers. But the opening volley evened the odds, as Every’s lucky broadside shot his enemy’s mainmast by the board.[11] With Ganj-i-sawai unable to escape, Fancy drew alongside. For a moment, a volley of Indian musket fire prevented the pirates from clambering aboard, but one of Ganj-i-sawai‘s powerful cannons exploded, instantly killing many and demoralizing the Indian crew, who ran below deck or fought to put out the spreading fires.[12] Every’s men took advantage of the confusion, quickly scaling Ganj-i-sawai‘s steep sides. The crew of Pearl, initially fearful of attacking Ganj-i-sawai, now took heart and joined Every’s crew on Indian ship’s deck. A ferocious hand-to-hand battle then ensued, lasting two to three hours.[13]
Muhammad Hashim Khafi Khan, a contemporary Indian historian who was in Surat at the time, wrote that, as Every’s men boarded the ship, Ganj-i-sawai‘s captain ran below decks where he armed the slave girls and sent them up to fight the pirates.[14][15] Khafi Khan’s account of the battle, appearing in his multivolume work The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians, places blame squarely on Captain Ibrahim for the failure, writing: “The Christians are not bold in the use of the sword, and there were so many weapons on board the royal vessel that if the captain had made any resistance, they must have been defeated.”[14] In any case, after several hours of stubborn but leaderless resistance, the ship surrendered. In his defense, Captain Ibrahim would later report that “many of the enemy were sent to hell.”[16] Indeed, Every’s outnumbered crew may have suffered anywhere from several to over a hundred casualties, although these figures are uncertain.[17][16]
According to Khafi Khan, the victorious pirates subjected their captives to an orgy of horror that lasted several days, raping and killing their terrified prisoners deck by deck. The pirates reportedly utilized torture to extract information from their prisoners, who had hidden the treasure in the ship’s holds. Some of the Muslim women apparently committed suicide to avoid violation, while those women who did not kill themselves or die from the pirates’ brutality were taken aboard Fancy.[18]
Although stories of brutality by the pirates have been dismissed by sympathizers as sensationalism, they are corroborated by the depositions Every’s men provided following their capture. John Sparkes testified in his “Last Dying Words and Confession” that the “inhuman treatment and merciless tortures inflicted on the poor Indians and their women still affected his soul,” and that, while apparently unremorseful for his acts of piracy, which were of “lesser concern,” he was nevertheless repentant for the “horrid barbarities he had committed, though only on the bodies of the heathen.”[19] Philip Middleton testified that several of the Indian men were murdered, while they also “put several to the torture” and Every’s men “lay with the women aboard, and there were several that, from their jewels and habits, seemed to be of better quality than the rest.”[19] Furthermore, on 12 October 1695, Sir John Gayer, then-governor of Bombay and president of the EIC, sent a letter to the Lords of Trade, writing:
It is certain the Pyrates, which these People affirm were all English, did do very barbarously by the People of the Ganj-i-sawai and Abdul Gofor’s Ship, to make them confess where their Money was, and there happened to be a great Umbraws Wife (as Wee hear) related to the King, returning from her Pilgrimage to Mecha, in her old age. She they abused very much, and forced severall other Women, which Caused one person of Quality, his Wife and Nurse, to kill themselves to prevent the Husbands seing them (and their being) ravished.[20]
Later accounts would tell of how Every himself had found “something more pleasing than jewels” aboard, usually reported to be Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb‘s daughter or granddaughter. (According to contemporary EIC sources, Ganj-i-sawai was carrying a “relative” of the Emperor, though there is no evidence to suggest that it was his daughter and her retinue.[21]) However, this is at odds with the deposition of Philip Middleton, who testified that “all of the Charles‘s men, except Every, boarded [Fateh Muhammed and Ganj-i-sawai] by Turns.”[16] At any rate, the survivors were left aboard their emptied ships, which the pirates set free to continue on their voyage back to India. The loot from Ganj-i-sawai, the greatest ship in the Muslim fleet, totaled somewhere between £200,000 and £600,000, including 500,000 gold and silver pieces. All told, it may have been the richest ship ever taken by pirates.
Sourced from: Wikipedia
REFERENCES
- Rogoziński 2000, p. 84
- ^ Jump up to:a b Baer 2005, p. 99
- ^ Jump up to:a b Fox 2008, pp. 73–79
- ^ Rogoziński 2000, p. 248
- ^ Woodard 2007, p. 21
- ^ Burgess 2009a, p. 136
- Ganj-i-sawai
- ^ Travers 2007, p. 41
- ^ Woodard 2007, p. 20
- ^ Jump up to:a b Rogoziński 2000, p. 85
- ^ Burgess 2009a, pp. 136–137
- ^ Jump up to:a b Baer 2005, p. 101
- ^ Earle 2006, p. 117
- ^ Jump up to:a b Elliot 1877, p. 350
- ^ Rogoziński 2000, p. 86
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Baer 2005, p. 102
- ^ Fox 2008, pp. 60, 79
- ^ Elliot 1877, pp. 350–351
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Grey 1933, p. 151
- ^ Jameson 1923, doc. No. 60
- ^ Fox 2008, pp. 80–81
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The Vanishing Act
Following the massive success of the Gunsway Heist the treasures were divided up among the crews and their Captains proceeded by a celebration at the Pirate safe haven of Bourbon island. While they now each had “gold enough to dazzle the eyes” Every and his crew had now become marked men. Their exploits had parliament declare them ‘Hostis humani generis’ meaning “Enemies of the human race”. The bounty on Every’s head would make for the first worldwide man hunt.
A large number of the crew decided to take their chances and remain on the island while the rest are said to have left with Every to Nassau in the Caribbean, stopping along the way at Ascension Island to stock up on provisions for the long journey ahead. It’s here where a few more of the crew decided to remain instead of going ahead to Nassau.
Portrait of Aurangzeb – The Grand Moghul.
Proclamation for apprehending Henry Every, alias Bridgeman, and sundry other pirates from 1696.
Having reached St Thomas the pirates entered the city of Nassau where they made contact with the island’s Governor, Sir Nicholas Trott to whom they declared their position as pirates and their misdeeds against the East India Company. They requested shore time in exchange for a heft sum of £860. At this point they identified their Captain as a Henry Bridgeman. Who was offering Trott their ship as a gift once the crew were unload their cargo.
Trott accepted this offer knowing that Nassau faced an impending threat from French forces to the South East and the presence of the pirate ships in the bay would likely prevent a French attack. This agreement allowed Every and his crew to come and go from the island as they pleased.
Word finally reached Nassau of the Fancy and the events that had transpired in the Indian Ocean as well as the true identity of the Fancy’s Captain, Henry Every. When Trott was questioned he denied ever knowing the true history of these pirates. Trott stripped the fancy of anything valuable and had it driven against the rocks likely to dispose of the evidence that he had been conspiring with the pirates or had knowledge of their presence in Nassau.
When a proclamation for the apprehension of Henry Every and his crew reached Nassau, Trott tipped Every off to this fact and warned him of what his actions would be in response. Trott issued a warrant for Every’s arrest and alerted the authorities of his whereabouts in order to save face and avoid suspicions that he ever colluded with the pirates. It was at this point that Every and 113 crew members vanished in the night.
Engraving by Aikmann depicts Avery selling his jewels from Howard Pyle’s “Buccaneers and Marooners of the Spanish Main – Second Paper” 1887.
Title page of ‘The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and Sparkes’ 1696.
While only 24 of the 113 person crew were ever captured and with 5 executed it is a complete mystery as to what happened to the other 89 members of the crew, Every, or the massive amounts of treasure they were hauling with them. They all appear to have disappeared without a trace. Or, did they?
With Every’s acts in the Indian Ocean and the havoc it caused to the British and Indian relations at the time he had become well known which combined with his vanishing act it was no surprise that over the years numerous stories began to circulate with varying degrees of credibility turning Every into something of a legend. The stories would range from Every dying in poverty in Devon, England to setting up a pirate utopia where he was king.
VANISHING ACT
When the proclamation for the apprehension of Every and his crew reached Trott, he was forced to either put a warrant out for Every’s arrest or, failing to do so, effectively disclose his association with the pirate. Preferring the former choice for the sake of his reputation, he alerted the authorities as to the pirates’ whereabouts, but was able to tip off Every and his crew before the authorities arrived. Every’s 113-person crew then fashioned their hasty escape, vanishing from the island with only twenty-four men ever captured, five of whom were executed. Every himself was never seen again.[1] His last words to his men were a litany of conflicting stories of where he planned to go, likely intended to throw pursuers off his trail.
It has been suggested that because Every was unable to buy a pardon from Trott or from the governor of Jamaica, his crew split up, some remaining in the West Indies, the majority heading to North America, and the rest, including Every himself, returning to England. Of these, some sailed aboard the sloop Isaac, while Every and about twenty other men sailed in the sloop Sea Flower (captained by Faro) to Ireland towards the end of June 1696. They aroused suspicions while unloading their treasure, and two of the men were subsequently caught. Every, however, was able to escape once again.[2]
FATE
British author and pirate biographer Charles Johnson suggested that, after attempting to sell his diamonds, Every died in poverty in Devon after being cheated out of his wealth by Bristol merchants. It is, however, unclear how Johnson could have discovered this. If Every was known to be living in poverty, it is most likely that he would have been apprehended and the large bounty on his head collected.[3] So ascribing this fate to Every may have been a type of moral propagandizing on Johnson’s part. Others have suggested that after Every changed his name, he settled in Devon and lived out the rest of his life peacefully, dying on 10 June 1714;[4] however, the source for this information is The History and Lives of All the Most Notorious Pirates and their Crews (London: Edw. Midwinter, 1732), considered an unreliable (and slightly expanded) reprint of Johnson’s General History. In October 1781 John Knill, the Collector of Customs at St Ives, Cornwall, held a meeting with a descendant of Every who stated that his ″father had told him that Captain Every, after wandering about in great poverty and distress, had died in Barnstaple, and was buried as a pauper …″[5]
As the manhunt for Every continued in the decade following his disappearance, sightings were frequently reported, but none proved reliable. After the publication of a fictional memoir in 1709, which claimed Every was a king ruling a pirate utopia in Madagascar, popular accounts increasingly took on a more legendary, romantic flavor (see In contemporary literature). Although such stories were widely believed to be true by the public, they had no basis in reality. No reliable information about Every’s whereabouts or activities emerged after June 1696.
Sourced from: Wikipedia
REFERENCES
- Burgess 2009a, p. 144
- Rogoziński 2000, p. 90
- Earle 2006, p. 159
- ^ Dow & Edmonds 1996, p. 348
- ^ “Notice of John Knill, of Gray’s Inn: 1733–1811. (Continued from our last)”. The Cornishman (15). 24 October 1878. p. 6.
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Conclusion
The map below visually demonstrates the expanse and furosity of Every’s short two year career from the point of the Spanish Expedition leaving the Thames in London, England to his vanishing act in Nassau.
Map Key:
*Click on a Treasure for more information.
This intriguing document suggests Avery (or Henry Every) the pirate buried his treasure near the Lizard after his daring 1695 raid on ships in the Arabian sea.
With so many stories of what happened to Every after he vanished from Nassau and with Every having told his crew conflicting stories of where he would go and what he would do after the heist, the question of what happened to Every and his loot is a very complicated one which requires extensive and in-depth research.
In 2020 I stumbled across a letter in the Cornish Archives in England which referred to Henry Avery and gave directions to finding his hidden treasure as follows:
Avery The Pirate
On his return from India either landed or was shipwrecked near the Lizard where he buried three chests or boxes full of treasure in the sands of the sea shore.
“Environ trois milles a l’est du Lig. Pres trois pierres grises ou rochers dans une cove au Sud’Oest des trois pierres.”
[Translation from French to English: “About three miles east of Liz near three gray stones or rocks in a cove, South West of the three stones.”]
Mr K says: “Ces trois pierres sont couvertes with grass. (now nearly overgrown with furse & grass)
[Translation from French to English: “These three stones are covered in grass.”]
It is near where the earner of a high promontory juts out into the sea.
He said the spring tides now come over the place.
Chest haslar wood 2 feet long & 1 f wide in it were precious stones & bracelets, large rubies, sapphires, emeralds, topazes + diamonds.
Chest almost the same size & make as the first 120 ingots of gold, 40 thick flat pieces of gold as large as a round tobacco box with various characters on some of them, 25 bars of gold, some of which were 4 or 5 inches long.
Chest has 3,000 pieces of 8 besides Bullion not weighed but crammed in with pieces of brocades.
Overwhelmed with excitement I began to investigate the letter further and test the validity of the letter.
Over a year of research and planning later, Areas Grey put together an international team of treasure hunters and archeologists to investigate this possible lead which may solve this enduring mystery.
On this scouting expedition Areas Grey joined forces with:
Rob Jenner of the CodeBar Live Podcast
Lisa Finch of Enigma Treasure Hunts
Rob & Toni Frey of Rob Frey Explorer
& Pirate Treasure Hunter – Tyrone Leech
The team worked relentlessly investigating and fact checking every bit of information we had uncovered and in late 2022 we were convinced we were onto something big, we were even joined by Discovery Channel’s Expedition Unknown and its host Josh Gates. You can find Expedition Unknown’s coverage of our expedition on the Discovery Channel on June 14th 2023 – 9:00pm (EST).
Time to dive in, @JoshuaGates! 🤿🏴☠️
Search for the greatest score in pirate history on an all-new episode of #ExpeditionUnknown — tonight at 9p ET on @Discovery. pic.twitter.com/gSO1FZ1C2I
— Discovery (@Discovery) June 14, 2023
Trailer for Discovery Channel’s Expedition Unknown starring Josh Gates airing June 14th 2023 at 9:00pm (EST) don’t miss it!.
Some of the shots taken during our expedition in Cornwall, October 2022 in search of Henry Every’s long lost treasure and the legend of the mysterious letter.
After a solid week of endless scouting and investigating the southern Cornish coastline we walked away knowing that this was just the beginning and that we were not done here yet.
The mystery of Henry Every and his missing treasure endures but we are one step closer to finding the truth. After careful review of the information we gathered on the last expedition along with the research we have conducted we believe we have identified the exact location where Henry Every would have hidden his treasure in regards to the information provided in the letter. As such, we are now gearing up for a second expedition out to the site to locate and retrieve this long lost pirate loot. This second expedition will conclusively tell us if the treasure tale is real or that of fantasy. If the treasure is found it is believed to be worth over one hundred million!
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Written By
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ADAM L C
Director of Areas Grey
Adam is an avid treasure hunter, seeker of adventure and the creator of Areas Grey. After travelling for almost half his life and cataloguing over 100 treasure legends along the way. He decided this was simply far too much treasure for one person to chase! As a result he created Areas Grey so he could share his stories, connect with other treasure hunters and put a little more adventure in the lives of the treasure hunting community.
Adam is a Private Investigator and former Wilderness Guide with a passion for history and archaeology. With the skills, knowledge and gear, Adam is always eager to go on the next fortune seeking adventure and connect with fellow treasure hunters along the way.
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