Henry Every: Pirate and Nemesis of the Mughal Empire

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Henry Every

  The late 17th century was the Golden Age    of Piracy, and it was a global             

  phenomenon that essentially linked the          Indian Ocean to the Atlantic World.              Historians have now started exploring the    interconnections and linkages between          Piracy in different parts of the world.            Piracy as a state policy was instituted by      the English Crown during the reign of the    Tudor Monarch, Elizabeth I who                    encouraged Sir Francis Drake and John        Hawkins to prey upon Spanish ships sailing from South America to Spain. The South Atlantic became the theatre of English piracy sometimes called delicately as privateering, an arrangement in which the Crown protects the privateer in return for a share in the plunder and of course, deniability. Unfortunately, Sir Walter Raleigh another favorite of Elizabeth did not realize that the Stuarts were anxious to preserve their friendship with Spain and was executed at the insistence of the Spanish Ambassador.

The pirates of the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean operated on what can best be described as contested spaces, the Caribbean and the Islands of the Indian Ocean, particularly, Madagascar. Here pirates found both facilities to have their ships repaired and recruit for future ventures. The Governors were notoriously corrupt and provided facilities for pirating expeditions. From the Caribbean the New England states of the US were within reach and pirate circuits soon spread to North America as well. It is against this historical background that we can situate the most infamous pirate of his age, Henry Every sometimes called Benjamin Bridgeman. Along with Captain William Kyd who was tried and executed at Tyburn, Henry Every too was the subject of a whole series of ballads and chapbooks, the product of the nascent print culture. Daniel Defoe also wrote a biography which was a huge success, King of the Pyrates. Though Henry Every operated in the Indian Ocean, unfortunately his name is largely forgotten in History.

On September 8th, 1695 the largest ship in the Mughal fleet, Ganj-i-Sawai was attacked and captured by the English pirate, Henry Every. Born in Devon in 1653 or so, Henry Every joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman and in 1694 mutinied and took control over the ship Charles II which he renamed Fancy. He sailed to Madagascar where two more pirate sloops joined in. Every avoided English and Dutch shipping and turned his attention to Mughals who plied their vessels from Surat to Mocha and thence to Mecca. The ease with which the Mughal ship was captured along with its accompanying flotilla of 3 or 5 smaller ships shows that the Mughals were a land based power who did not comprehend the importance of naval power. They seemed to have had no concept of lordship over the oceans. 

The Mughal Historian Kafi Khan in his record has referred to the incident and states that the Mughal King Aurangzeb was beside himself with rage when he heard that his granddaughter and members of the harem were captured and possibly abused: "After having remained engaged for a week in searching for plunder, stripping the men of their clothes, and dishonouring old and young women, they left the ship and their passengers to their fate". Kafi Khan goes on to say that the King ordered the Superintendent of the Port of Surat, Itimad Khan to punish the factors of the English East India Company. However for reasons that are still obscure, Imitad Khan did not enforce the royal order in its severity. He kept the English in confinement and soon released them. Even this was too much for the English who soon took revenge by seizing Mughal Officials and the Grand Mughal could do little over this challenge to Mughal authority and prestige. Like India's response to the 26/11 Attack, the Mughal response too was tepid and extremely tame. Finally trade concessions were extended even to Bengal after the East India Company gave vague assurances of bringing Henry Every to "justice". Except the Proclamation declaring Henry Every a fugitive there is no evidence that the East India Company or the English pursued him eagerly.

Where does the saga of Henry Every end. He seems to have lived out the rest of his life peacefully. The Mughal princess disappears from History though there are unsubstantiated rumours that she married one of her captors, an early instance of the Stockholm Syndrome. As for the treasure, a few coins discovered in Rhode Island in 2014 suggests that at least a part of the loot was hidden in New England making the Atlantic-Indian Ocean circuit complete.