Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period: Illustrative Documents
History
Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period: Illustrative Documents
Pirates; Privateering; United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 -- Sources
All which Captain How will attest, if living.
[Footnote 5: Cape Comorin, the southern point of Hindustan.]
[Footnote 6: _I.e._, Madras.]
And that about the 18th or 19th day of the said month of November met
with a Moors Ship of about 200 Tuns,[7] coming from Suratt, bound to
the Coast of Mallabar, loaded with two horses, Sugar and Cotton, to
trade there, having about 40 Moors on board, with a Dutch Pylot,
Boatswain and Gunner, which said Ship the Narrator hailed, and
commanded on board, and with him came 8 or 9 Moors and the said three
Dutchmen, who declared it was a Moors Ship, and demanding their Pass
from Suratt, which they shewed, and the same was a French Pass, which
he believes was shewed by a Mistake, for the Pylot swore Sacrament[8]
she was a Prize, and staid on board the Gally and would not return
again on board the Moors Ship, but went in the Gally to the Port of
St. Maries.
[Footnote 7: The _Rouparelle_; her French pass (from the director of
Surat for the French East India Company) showing a Mohammedan captain,
Dutch pilot, and Dutch boatswain, is in _Commons Journal_, XIII. 21.
It was one of the two passes whose absence at Kidd's trial was fatal
to his case.]
[Footnote 8: "The Dutch-man seeing that, swore his countries oath,
'sacremente'." Bradford, _History of Plymouth Plantation_ (ed. 1908),
p. 35.]
And that about the First Day of February following, upon the same
Coast, under French Colours with a Designe to decoy, met with a
Bengall Merchantman belonging to Surrat of the burthen of 4 or 500
Tuns, 10 guns, and he commanded the Master on board, and a Frenchman,
Inhabitant of Suratt and belonging to the French Factory there, and
Gunner of said Ship, came on board as Master, and when he came on
board the Narrator caused the English Colours to be hoisted, and the
said Master was surprized and said, You are all English; and asking,
Which was the Captain, whom when he saw, said, Here is a good Prize,
and delivered him the French Pass.[9] And that with the said two
Prizes sailed for the Port of St. Maries, in Madagascar; and sailing
thither the said Gally was so leaky that they feared she would have
sunk every hour, and it required eight men, every two Glasses[10] to
keep her free, and was forced to woold[11] her round with Cables to
keep her together, and with much ado carried her into the said Port of
St. Maries, where they arrived about the First Day of April 1698, and
about the 6th day of May the lesser Prize was haled into the Careening
Island or Key, the other not being arrived, and ransacked and sunk by
the mutinous men, who threatened the Narrator and the men that would
not join with them, to burn and sink the other, that they might not go
home and tell the news.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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