But there came a time when this terror to the merchant ships of all nations had reached the limit. In the year 1422 the Hanseatic League sent a fleet under Simon of Utrecht to fall upon the pirates, and having come out from Hamburg, Simon found the enemy one evening lying off Heligoland. So near did the Hamburg fleet get to them that one daring fisherman was able to pour molten lead on the rudders of certain of the pirate ships, and this loosened the rudders and rendered the ships uncontrollable. On the following day the battle began, and went on for three days and nights, but in the end Stertebeker was beaten. He and seventy of his comrades were captured and carried in triumph to Hamburg, where they were all condemned to death and executed, to the great relief of the mercantile mariners. The rest of the pirates had fled, or been killed or thrown into the sea, and in the captured ships were found much linen and wax and cloth, which had been ill gotten from unfortunate craft. But when the Hamburgers rummaged the ships all the valuable metals they could find were a few goblets: until a carpenter broke the mainmast, which was then found to be hollow, and full of molten gold. However, this conveniently indemnified the merchants, and a golden crown was made and placed on the spire of St. Nicholas church, Hamburg. Stertebeker’s friend and accomplice, Michelson, was still at large, but Simon went after him, got him, and eighty pirates lost their heads. CHAPTER V THE GROWTH OF THE MERCANTILE MARINE Chaucer, who flourished in the fourteenth century, has left us a description of a merchant “shipman” of his time. He refers to him as being a West-countryman living, “for aught I woot,” at Dartmouth, who wore a gown of coarse cloth extending to the knee, and had a dagger hanging on a lanyard. The hot summer had tanned his face brown, and Chaucer describes him as a good fellow, who had drawn many a draught of wine while the “chapman” (or merchant) was asleep. No man had such skill in reckoning his tides, streams, dangers; and in his knowledge of harbours, the state of the moon and pilotage, there was no such man between Hull and Carthage. “Hardy he was, and wys to undertake: With many a tempest hadde his berd been shake. He knew wel alle the havenes, as they were, From Gootlond to the cape of Finistere, And every cryke in Britayne and in Spayne: His barge y-cleped was the Maudelayne.”