SKULL AND CROSS-BONES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21414, 11 February 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

SKULL AND CROSS-BONES

HISTORY OF PIRACY

ROMANCE AND ADVENTURE BANDITS OF THE SEAS REMARKABLE CHARACTERS •The Jolly Roger is no longer seen CMon the* world V waterways, and,' if all <me learned in boyhood be true, romance iVUic loser by its disappearance. "But boyhood is. apt to give a somewhat false idea of piracy. Many think of it chicflj a:; the isolated adventure of picturesque gentlemen of fortune." The principal lesson learned from Mr. Philip. Gosse's entertaining volume. '.The History of Piracy ' 1 :—if one did- not realise it already —is that until comparatively recent times piracy has been a form of warfare, highly organised and on the grand scale. The v] iter of an appreciation of Mr.. Gosse's published in the Illustrated London Nows, says:— , Piracy is certainly one of the most ancient of occupations. From the earliest times of which we have any record, the *' basin .of civilisation " swarmed with corsairs; Every schoolboy knows that at one period the commerce of Rome was bo seriously - threatened by_ pirates that Pompey the Great had to save the country from what had become a national crisis. • Mr. Gosse, although he devotes an interesting appendix to piracy in ancient times, takes up the main . story at a much later date, when the B;irbary, corsairs w-ere the scourge of the Mediterranean. 1 The Infamous Barbarossas It. .is' difficult .for us nowadays, when we travel: everywhere upon the, high seap in perfect safety, except from the elements, to realise what dangers threatened the'seafarer of the Middle Ages In almost of the .world. The BarHoruk and. Khaii-ed-din/'diSteid,' all Europe and wll'hlltjjti'd innumerable . attacks. They routed and. humiliated the Spanish navies, especially at Lepanto in 1538, harried the K nigh is of St. John, and by their-cap-ture ot Cyprus in 1570 so startled the western world that at last they brought down vengeance on their own heads and succumbed before the campaigns of Don John of Austria. ' All this, of course, was much more than piracy as Long John Silver and Blind Pew understood it; it was war — holy, and, by a lucky coincidence, profitably—upon the in£del^ i who > -'when c&pture^r- skugldered, or enslaved in v the prophet. The Christian returned the courtesy, and many a/ piratical act was defended on the ground which was put forward as late as the' end of the seventeenth century, " that it 'was no sin for Christians to rob heathens.". *' V Business of Piracy" Mediterranean piracy abated little with' the fall of the Barbarossas. " The business 'of piracy grew so vast in the Eeventeeneth century that it is scarcely any longer possible to pick out isolated pictureggue "figures. The principal highways. i)f tfae oceans were as dangerous . . .. as the - remoter roads of Calabria and Albania, b'efore the Great War. Commerce wag crippled, famine in cities was not families were torn apart and either permanently separated or impoverished by ransoms exacted to prenerve tHe abducted member or members from the horrors of slavery." Algeria continued to be the great stronghold, and the Barbary corsairs established one of the' most successful " racket's " in *' history.- - I '' • •' •" Ggir-'aiiy man- believe," ftrote" the American Consul-in Tunis in" 1798, "that this elqvaied brute (thd Dey of Algiers) has seven kings of Europe, two republics and a continent tributary to him, when . his whole naval force is not equal to two linie of battleships? Yet the very next year the tribute amounted to £0 ; 0Q0 dollars, 28 guns, 10,000 cannon balls, besides quantities of powder, cordage and jewels." This state of things came to an end only a hundred years ago, when the French captured Algiers and . releasee!'' all Europe from ransom. — - , in Eastern Soas In eastern' seas, similar organisations were numerous and formidable*' "The whole of tlie- Malabar Coast, between Bombay and Cochin, was preyed upon by the hordes of the Mahratta' family of Anoxia, until Clivo destroyed the fortress of Cheriah. No- less aggressive were the fleets of the Joasmees on the " Pirate Cpast " of Arabia; they took almost un- "■ checked toll of shipping in the Persian Gulf until a British naval expedition, . long overdue, chastised them in 1819. ~ r '. In the Malay Archipelago, fleets of Malays and Dyaks committed the most extensive depredations until tint ener--1" getic ruler, Rajah Brooke ol' IV.vawak, . suppressed them by well-planned attacks and by uncompromising methods. In the China, Seas piracy . has always been a thriving industry, and in soma parts continues to be ro: This is, indeed, the only region /in which the corsair still plies his trade with any success. » As for our own nation, it is little wonder that from our tenderest years we love a pirate and cherish a secret ambition to become one, for—as Mr. Gosse . does jriot hesitate to say—" the English race grew in time to be the first corsair nation of the earth." In the sixteenth century, Richard Ilakluyt, who spoke with authority on the subject, declared , that " "wo and the French are most in- . fitmoijs for our outrageous, common and " daily piracies." Knighthood for Pirate It may. be said thai every consider- >- oble port in the South of England was "' a nest of pirates; at the head of the industry / stood the Cinque Ports, and Devon / and Cornwall bred freebooters ■and /" freetraders " in legions. The ■ squires, and whole families of gentry, such as the notorious Killigrews of Corn- j v,all, /stood behind the gentlemen of fortunn and shared their proceeds. The groat cost (if defence against pirates seriously crippled sea-borne commerce with the" Continent: "there be." as Shyloek observed, land-rats and water-rats—-pirates, 1 mean." Whatever the law might •••.attempt, public opinion was with the ad- • venturers of the sea; and in the Elizabethan o;>e they attained the position—/..perilous though it -was—of national idols, "he Spaniards might proclaim K1 world," but Elizabeth's answer was to •--Tiujght the " enemy of mankind " on • the of the Golden Hind. When, after the audacious destruction of Panama,. Henry Morgan, the most cele"z brated of the Poll Royal buccaneers, " ,ah who greatly harried the .' 1 , was sent to England to stand - for piracy, he was not only v' t' l3 j" r y but knighted by ■ es IS atu ' sent back to wnaiea not, as a pr j soner( |j Ut aS homily Governor of the island. Never »' iv or since has piracy been quite ■k.

such a gentlemanly and honourable ;:;:s i'ession, though it Ims soldom been actually ungcntlemanly or dishonourable. It is disappointing, therefore, to find that not all pirates have been gentlemen, nor yet very impressive blackguards. There are disillusionments in Mr. Gosse's volume for devotees of the picaresque, Captain Kidd appears to liave been a very dujl sort of cut-throat, little worthy of his fame; and it is appalling to learn that he was addicted to drinking, not rum, but bomboo, which is nothing more than lime-squash. \ The " Grand Pirate " Captain John Avery, who wits supposed to have amassed fabulous wealth and to have become a sort of Oriental potentate, died in hiding at Bideford, Devonshire, " not being worth as much as would buy him a coffin." Crime, we all know, does not pay, but if piracy is not to pay, what is to become of all the hidden treasures, of pieces-of-eight and pistoles and moido'rs ? After this, it is refreshing to find that at least Blackboard lived up to his reputation. Only two fragments of his journal survive, but, as Mr. Gosse remarks, " they have ft distinct smack of Robert Louis Stevenson about them. " 1718. Rum all out. Our Company somewhat f:ober —A damn'd Confusion amongst us; Rogues a plotting great Talk of Separation —so I looked sharp for a Prize. (Later) Took one with a great deal of Liquor on Board, so kept the Company hot; damned hoL then all things went well again." There is no confirmation ot the s'atcment made by Stevenson, through the Chevalier de Burke, that Blackboard, alius Teach, chewed pieces of glass in order to add to the ferocity of his appearance. There' were, assuredly, strange characters among the pirates. Captain Bartholomew Roberts not only exemplified the regrettable tendency to teetotalism which we havo observed in Kidd, but strongly disapproved of gambling and was u strict Sabbatarian. He was also

of scrupulous morals, of faultless attire, and of the most correct manners. Nevertheless, he managed to take 400 ships, " a record, so far as is known, held by no other pirate." Captain Misson was no mere searobber, but a political theorist, who sailed under a white ensign with the motto "For God and Liberty"; he founded two socialist republics, the second, in Madagascar, being the promised land of Libertatia, where " they might have some place to call their own; and a receptacle, when age and wounds bad rendered them incapable of hardship, where they might enjoy the fruits of their labour, and go to their graves in peace." Perhaps the most remarkable careor among the many which Mr. Gosse vividly sketches is that of Thomas Horton, a tailor's apprentice, born in 1759. He began by forgery, became a Swedish mercenary, murdered his captain, and married the widow, who, when she proved to be a shrew, was sent the same way as her late husband. Condemned to death for this crime, Horton escaped from gaol, fled to the Crimea and joined a band of Tartar brigands. He then con-

verted himself into an Arab and migrated to the Persian Gulf. Ho murdered the Governor of Basra, and sought shelter from the Sheikh of Kishmah, whose pirate admiral he became. Ilort.on's influence and ambition grew so rapidly that ho soon slew his protector, married the widow (more suo), and had himself proclaimed Sheik. A villain, under whom an oppressed people must have groaned and trembled ? On the contrary, he showed himself an excellent ruler! For 20 years he reigned, " respected and beloved by his subjects for his justice and mercy." There is, as they say in the north, "nowt so queer as folk!" It. is another blow to masculine supremacy to learn that women have from time to time been fierce and successful pirates. The most spirited of them, Mrs. Cliing, established a long reign of terror in the China Seas. The age of piracy proper ended about the middle of the nineteenth century, and the few stragglers after that time were poor, shabby exponents of their craft. In the legitimate cultivation of our criminal instincts wo must nowadays accept the gangster as a poor substitute for the pirate. Sic transit gloria mundi!