THE TRUE SEEKER
Jr. Member
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Thread Owner
The following is a list of treasures plundered by the pirates of Madagascar. This is not an exhaustive list of all information. Please let me know if there are any missing pieces of information or mistakes.
Thomas Tew
5. October 19, 1693. Arrived the ship Amity, Captain Thomas Tew Commander,[8] Burden 70 Tons, 8 Guns, 60 men, haveing taken a Ship in the Red Seas that did belong to the Moors, as the men did report, they took as much money in her as made the whole share run 1200 l. a man. they Careened at St. Maries and had some cattel from me, but for their victualing and Sea Store they bought from the Negros. I sold Captain Tew and his Company some of the goods brought in the Charles from New York. the Sloop belonged most of her to Bermudas. Captain Tew set saile from St. Maries December the 23d 1693, bound for America.
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/24882/pg24882-images.html)
Henry Every
Steering for Surat we caught up one of the ships which we took after she had fired three shots. She had £50,000 or £60,000 on board in silver and gold. We shortly afterwards spied another ship, mounting forty guns and carrying (as was said) 800 men. She stood a fight of three hours and yielded. We took from her in money and plate enough gold and silver to make up each man’s share to £1,000, 180 men sharing in all, the Captain having a double share, and the master a share and a half. The Portsmouth had no share, not having taken part in the fight. The Pearl had a share but this was taken from them again, for when the Charles men changed with them silver for gold it was found that the Pearl’s men had clipped the gold; so they gave them only 2,000 pieces-of-eight to buy provisions.
(https://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/colonial/america-west-indies/vol15/pp248-267)
Robert Culliford and Dirk Chivers
On September 23, 1698, a Turkish-owned 600-ton Hajji ship known as Great Mahomet (in Turkish Yüce Muhammetc) was homeward bound to Surat, India, from the port of Jeddah on the coast of Arabia. It was attacked north of Mumbai by two European pirate vessels under the command of Robert Culliford of the forty-gun Mocha Frigate and Richard “Dirk” Chiv-ers of the twenty-gun Soldado. The sea battle that followed was unusually violent. At least twenty pirates were killed, while over three hundred of the passengers and crew of the pilgrim ship died, according to Ibrahim Khan, one of the owners of the vessel who was then aboard. Another owner, Hus-sein Hamedan, declared that the pirates had tortured Indian merchants to reveal the hiding places of their treasure. As was often the case for important Hajji ships returning to India from pilgrimage to Mecca, Great Mahomet was immensely rich. In addition to the £130,000 (equivalent today to $65 million) in gold, Great Mahomet was also carrying personal possessions, devotional objects, religious souvenirs, and other baggage of approximately six hundred Hajj pilgrims from a wide range of social strata.
By the time the pirates had captured the Indian ship, Soldado had be-come completely unseaworthy, so the two ships took their prize to the coast, released the Indian captives, and proceeded to share their ill-gotten booty. According to some testimony each man of the 250 men of two crews received a share worth £700 to £800 (about £375,000 today), in gold, jew-els, and other valuables.
(Pieces of Eight More Archaeology of Piracy p.63)
On the 15th June 1698, Culliford sailed from St. Mary’s for the west coast of India. Off the Highlands of St. John’s, he fell in with Chivers and Powell, in the Soldado and the Pelican , respectively, with whom he now cruised in company. About the middle of September they came up with a Surat vessel from Jeddah called the Great Mahomet […] According to the statement of Ibrahim Khan, owner of the vessel, who was aboard, the action was very hardly fought on both sides. He gives the numbers of the pirates killed at 20 and many more wounded, whilst over 300 of the passengers and crew of the Great Mahomet were either killed, or cast overboard by the pirates after the action. He further says,
“These dreadful villains tortured the Nakhoda, together with the merchants, and all whom they suspected of having hidden money or jewels, most cruelly. Not content with this even, when they had extracted a confession by such vile means they shot the poor wretches and threw them overboard, living or dead. They then put about 150 of the passengers into boats, without oars, sails or even water, and cast them off, keeping about sixty women aboard. Fortunately the wind and tide favoured those sent adrift and they reached the shore in safety. The poor women who were kept on the ship were most barbarously treated by the Pirates in their usual manner. Some stabbed themselves to death and others threw themselves into the sea rather than endure the outrages — they were subjected to.”
A letter from Fort St. George of the 3rd January 1699 gives the value of the cargo and the specie aboard at 25 lakhs of rupees which, in view of the statement made by Theophilus Turner, an informer at the trial of Culliford, and the others, that they shared out £800 a man would be about correct. Though in company the Pelican took no part in the fight, and hence, received no share of the plunder, the rule being that only actual combatants should share. […] In March, they took a Moors ship, after which they made for St. Mary’s where the vessels were disposed of in the manner related in our account of Captain Dirk Chivers.
Here the crews broke up after sharing out, some settling down on the Island or returning to their permanent homes either there or on the mainland, whilst others settled down to await the first opportunity of a passage to America or England. […] Amongst those who did so was Culliford and about 14 others of the Company of the Mocha, all of whom left St.Mary’s in the Vine, a small ship acting as a tender to the squadron under command of a brother of the Commodore, which was ordered home.
(https://archive.org/details/PiratesOfTheEasternSeasCharlesGrey/page/n171/mode/2up)
John Halsey
He therefore allowed the Mary and Unity to escape and went after her. Punt prepared to fight, but as Halsey came up he hoisted the bloody flag as a signal of ‘No Quarter, which so frightened the passengers that they forced Punt to surrender without fighting. From the Eagle Halsey took £10,000 and from the Essex £40,000 (between 30 and 40 chests of silver). He then took some of the officers and Sir John Bennett on board the Charles, and having dis-abled the Essex, made for Calicut (R. Adams to Surat. Tellicherry 17th September 1707. Surat Records, vol. 101). Captain Cornwall arrived in Madras 7th September 1707. The Europeans of that town had lost 200,000 pagodas by this mishap, for the treasure on the Mary had been sent on board the Essex for security (T. Pitt to J. Dolben, Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 22850, ff. 49–50).
(https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.78738/page/n279/mode/2up)
Edward Congdon
While the quarrel was in progress, a native ship from Surat, bound for Jeddah, was captured off Bassein by a European pirate ship. This was probably England’s ship, Victory, of which we shall hear more directly. The ship and cargo, valued at twelve lakhs, were carried off, and the passengers and crew put ashore at Malabar Hill.
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11399/pg11399-images.html)
5 This probably refers to the capture of a Surat vessel, bound for Jedda, on 18 August 1720 ; but that incident took place near Bombay, and the passengers were put ashore at Malabar Hill. The vessel and cargo were valued at twelve lakhs of rupees. See Bombay Abstracts , vol. i, p. 373.
(https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.44332/page/45/mode/2up)
In August 1720 near Mumbai, Condent struck it rich, capturing a 500-ton Hajji ship belonging to the son-in-law of Abdul Ghafur of Surat, home-ward-bound from Jeddah. One of the richest vessels ever taken by pirates, it was worth “12 lakhs of rupees” (ca. £123,000) according to East India Company reports. Other sources put the value of the gold, drugs, spices, and silk at £150,000. There were also diamonds, rubies, and emeralds re-ported aboard, and its owners demanded restitution from the East India Company in the amount of twenty lakhs of rupees (ca. £205,000) (India Of-fice Records [IOR]:218–19, 239–41; Rogozinski 2000:208).
(Pieces of Eight More Archaeology of Piracy p.60)
Shortly after these dealings, Congdon took a rich prize off the back of Bombay, near Surat, having recently come from Jeddah, that netted nearly £900 per man (137 crew average) — worth “12 lakhs of rupees” or £123,000.23 John Biddulph told the pirate put the crew ashore at the affluent district of “Malabar Hill” essentially gave them a ride home. Richard Moor called it “Riches enough (by pirating) to maintain them handsomely as long as they lived,” and Congdon decided to break up and stop pirating.24
(Baylus C Brooks, Sailing East: West-Indian Pirates in Madagascar, p.202)
Edward England and Jasper Seagar
Tho’ Capt. Mackray’s Ship had 75,000 l.6 in ready Cash on board of the Company’s Treasure, besides great Quantities of Bale Goods, with European Liquors of great Value, &c.
6 The Cassandra’s invoice, which presumably included the treasure, amounted only to £40,472.
(https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.44332/page/45/mode/2up)
Jasper Seagar, Richard Taylor, Olivier Levasseur
Ships under ye Comand of the sd Taylor and Seater proceeded to Don Maskareene and arrived there on Easter Sunday 1720 [1721] and there took a Vessel called the Guelderland which had been a Dutch Man of War) with a Portuguese Vice Roy on board of her and another Vessel called the Greyhound which was an Ostender and plundered them and the Guelderland was reputed to be very rich in Diamonds Rubys and other stones
(E. T. Fox, Pirates in Their Own Words, p.210)
from thence to the Red Sea where if they met with no Success they would go to their Old Friends at Cochin and Sell the Dyamonds they had taken in the Portugeez Ship which were reported to be of a very great Value & the said Vice Roy assured this Deponent some time after that they were so this Deponent further saith that the said Two Pyrate Ships did Sail away the following night with their Two prizes and the best of the men then aboard.
(Baylus C Brooks, Sailing East: West-Indian Pirates in Madagascar, p.379)
The amount shared out at St. Mary’s came to over £4,000 a man, which, with the exception of the cruise of Hugo, makes this about the most profitable cruise on record. But Hugo’s cruise differed in that it was a privateering enterprise conducted under the auspices of a government which naturally took the lion’s share. The Cassandra yielded them £41,000. The Dutch and Moorish ship afforded £130,000 of which £120,000 was in plunder and £10,000 the value of the vessels which were sold at Calicut, and from the Portuguese vessel the total was estimated at £875,000 in cash, jewels and plunder. The grand total was therefore about £1,046,000, which was divided amongst 240 men, that being the estimated number of the survivors of the 300 said by Lazenby to be on the two ships.
(https://archive.org/details/PiratesOfTheEasternSeasCharlesGrey/page/n355/mode/2up)
Thomas Tew
5. October 19, 1693. Arrived the ship Amity, Captain Thomas Tew Commander,[8] Burden 70 Tons, 8 Guns, 60 men, haveing taken a Ship in the Red Seas that did belong to the Moors, as the men did report, they took as much money in her as made the whole share run 1200 l. a man. they Careened at St. Maries and had some cattel from me, but for their victualing and Sea Store they bought from the Negros. I sold Captain Tew and his Company some of the goods brought in the Charles from New York. the Sloop belonged most of her to Bermudas. Captain Tew set saile from St. Maries December the 23d 1693, bound for America.
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/24882/pg24882-images.html)
Henry Every
Steering for Surat we caught up one of the ships which we took after she had fired three shots. She had £50,000 or £60,000 on board in silver and gold. We shortly afterwards spied another ship, mounting forty guns and carrying (as was said) 800 men. She stood a fight of three hours and yielded. We took from her in money and plate enough gold and silver to make up each man’s share to £1,000, 180 men sharing in all, the Captain having a double share, and the master a share and a half. The Portsmouth had no share, not having taken part in the fight. The Pearl had a share but this was taken from them again, for when the Charles men changed with them silver for gold it was found that the Pearl’s men had clipped the gold; so they gave them only 2,000 pieces-of-eight to buy provisions.
(https://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/colonial/america-west-indies/vol15/pp248-267)
Robert Culliford and Dirk Chivers
On September 23, 1698, a Turkish-owned 600-ton Hajji ship known as Great Mahomet (in Turkish Yüce Muhammetc) was homeward bound to Surat, India, from the port of Jeddah on the coast of Arabia. It was attacked north of Mumbai by two European pirate vessels under the command of Robert Culliford of the forty-gun Mocha Frigate and Richard “Dirk” Chiv-ers of the twenty-gun Soldado. The sea battle that followed was unusually violent. At least twenty pirates were killed, while over three hundred of the passengers and crew of the pilgrim ship died, according to Ibrahim Khan, one of the owners of the vessel who was then aboard. Another owner, Hus-sein Hamedan, declared that the pirates had tortured Indian merchants to reveal the hiding places of their treasure. As was often the case for important Hajji ships returning to India from pilgrimage to Mecca, Great Mahomet was immensely rich. In addition to the £130,000 (equivalent today to $65 million) in gold, Great Mahomet was also carrying personal possessions, devotional objects, religious souvenirs, and other baggage of approximately six hundred Hajj pilgrims from a wide range of social strata.
By the time the pirates had captured the Indian ship, Soldado had be-come completely unseaworthy, so the two ships took their prize to the coast, released the Indian captives, and proceeded to share their ill-gotten booty. According to some testimony each man of the 250 men of two crews received a share worth £700 to £800 (about £375,000 today), in gold, jew-els, and other valuables.
(Pieces of Eight More Archaeology of Piracy p.63)
On the 15th June 1698, Culliford sailed from St. Mary’s for the west coast of India. Off the Highlands of St. John’s, he fell in with Chivers and Powell, in the Soldado and the Pelican , respectively, with whom he now cruised in company. About the middle of September they came up with a Surat vessel from Jeddah called the Great Mahomet […] According to the statement of Ibrahim Khan, owner of the vessel, who was aboard, the action was very hardly fought on both sides. He gives the numbers of the pirates killed at 20 and many more wounded, whilst over 300 of the passengers and crew of the Great Mahomet were either killed, or cast overboard by the pirates after the action. He further says,
“These dreadful villains tortured the Nakhoda, together with the merchants, and all whom they suspected of having hidden money or jewels, most cruelly. Not content with this even, when they had extracted a confession by such vile means they shot the poor wretches and threw them overboard, living or dead. They then put about 150 of the passengers into boats, without oars, sails or even water, and cast them off, keeping about sixty women aboard. Fortunately the wind and tide favoured those sent adrift and they reached the shore in safety. The poor women who were kept on the ship were most barbarously treated by the Pirates in their usual manner. Some stabbed themselves to death and others threw themselves into the sea rather than endure the outrages — they were subjected to.”
A letter from Fort St. George of the 3rd January 1699 gives the value of the cargo and the specie aboard at 25 lakhs of rupees which, in view of the statement made by Theophilus Turner, an informer at the trial of Culliford, and the others, that they shared out £800 a man would be about correct. Though in company the Pelican took no part in the fight, and hence, received no share of the plunder, the rule being that only actual combatants should share. […] In March, they took a Moors ship, after which they made for St. Mary’s where the vessels were disposed of in the manner related in our account of Captain Dirk Chivers.
Here the crews broke up after sharing out, some settling down on the Island or returning to their permanent homes either there or on the mainland, whilst others settled down to await the first opportunity of a passage to America or England. […] Amongst those who did so was Culliford and about 14 others of the Company of the Mocha, all of whom left St.Mary’s in the Vine, a small ship acting as a tender to the squadron under command of a brother of the Commodore, which was ordered home.
(https://archive.org/details/PiratesOfTheEasternSeasCharlesGrey/page/n171/mode/2up)
John Halsey
He therefore allowed the Mary and Unity to escape and went after her. Punt prepared to fight, but as Halsey came up he hoisted the bloody flag as a signal of ‘No Quarter, which so frightened the passengers that they forced Punt to surrender without fighting. From the Eagle Halsey took £10,000 and from the Essex £40,000 (between 30 and 40 chests of silver). He then took some of the officers and Sir John Bennett on board the Charles, and having dis-abled the Essex, made for Calicut (R. Adams to Surat. Tellicherry 17th September 1707. Surat Records, vol. 101). Captain Cornwall arrived in Madras 7th September 1707. The Europeans of that town had lost 200,000 pagodas by this mishap, for the treasure on the Mary had been sent on board the Essex for security (T. Pitt to J. Dolben, Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 22850, ff. 49–50).
(https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.78738/page/n279/mode/2up)
Edward Congdon
While the quarrel was in progress, a native ship from Surat, bound for Jeddah, was captured off Bassein by a European pirate ship. This was probably England’s ship, Victory, of which we shall hear more directly. The ship and cargo, valued at twelve lakhs, were carried off, and the passengers and crew put ashore at Malabar Hill.
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11399/pg11399-images.html)
5 This probably refers to the capture of a Surat vessel, bound for Jedda, on 18 August 1720 ; but that incident took place near Bombay, and the passengers were put ashore at Malabar Hill. The vessel and cargo were valued at twelve lakhs of rupees. See Bombay Abstracts , vol. i, p. 373.
(https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.44332/page/45/mode/2up)
In August 1720 near Mumbai, Condent struck it rich, capturing a 500-ton Hajji ship belonging to the son-in-law of Abdul Ghafur of Surat, home-ward-bound from Jeddah. One of the richest vessels ever taken by pirates, it was worth “12 lakhs of rupees” (ca. £123,000) according to East India Company reports. Other sources put the value of the gold, drugs, spices, and silk at £150,000. There were also diamonds, rubies, and emeralds re-ported aboard, and its owners demanded restitution from the East India Company in the amount of twenty lakhs of rupees (ca. £205,000) (India Of-fice Records [IOR]:218–19, 239–41; Rogozinski 2000:208).
(Pieces of Eight More Archaeology of Piracy p.60)
Shortly after these dealings, Congdon took a rich prize off the back of Bombay, near Surat, having recently come from Jeddah, that netted nearly £900 per man (137 crew average) — worth “12 lakhs of rupees” or £123,000.23 John Biddulph told the pirate put the crew ashore at the affluent district of “Malabar Hill” essentially gave them a ride home. Richard Moor called it “Riches enough (by pirating) to maintain them handsomely as long as they lived,” and Congdon decided to break up and stop pirating.24
(Baylus C Brooks, Sailing East: West-Indian Pirates in Madagascar, p.202)
Edward England and Jasper Seagar
Tho’ Capt. Mackray’s Ship had 75,000 l.6 in ready Cash on board of the Company’s Treasure, besides great Quantities of Bale Goods, with European Liquors of great Value, &c.
6 The Cassandra’s invoice, which presumably included the treasure, amounted only to £40,472.
(https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.44332/page/45/mode/2up)
Jasper Seagar, Richard Taylor, Olivier Levasseur
Ships under ye Comand of the sd Taylor and Seater proceeded to Don Maskareene and arrived there on Easter Sunday 1720 [1721] and there took a Vessel called the Guelderland which had been a Dutch Man of War) with a Portuguese Vice Roy on board of her and another Vessel called the Greyhound which was an Ostender and plundered them and the Guelderland was reputed to be very rich in Diamonds Rubys and other stones
(E. T. Fox, Pirates in Their Own Words, p.210)
from thence to the Red Sea where if they met with no Success they would go to their Old Friends at Cochin and Sell the Dyamonds they had taken in the Portugeez Ship which were reported to be of a very great Value & the said Vice Roy assured this Deponent some time after that they were so this Deponent further saith that the said Two Pyrate Ships did Sail away the following night with their Two prizes and the best of the men then aboard.
(Baylus C Brooks, Sailing East: West-Indian Pirates in Madagascar, p.379)
The amount shared out at St. Mary’s came to over £4,000 a man, which, with the exception of the cruise of Hugo, makes this about the most profitable cruise on record. But Hugo’s cruise differed in that it was a privateering enterprise conducted under the auspices of a government which naturally took the lion’s share. The Cassandra yielded them £41,000. The Dutch and Moorish ship afforded £130,000 of which £120,000 was in plunder and £10,000 the value of the vessels which were sold at Calicut, and from the Portuguese vessel the total was estimated at £875,000 in cash, jewels and plunder. The grand total was therefore about £1,046,000, which was divided amongst 240 men, that being the estimated number of the survivors of the 300 said by Lazenby to be on the two ships.
(https://archive.org/details/PiratesOfTheEasternSeasCharlesGrey/page/n355/mode/2up)
