The Mysterious Fate of Henry Avery

[Selwyn]

Henry Avery, one of history’s most infamous pirates, vanished from the record after his legendary 1695 raid on the Ganj-i-Sawai, a Mughal treasure ship rumoured to have yielded an unimaginable fortune. Despite being one of the most wanted men of his time, Avery’s fate remains shrouded in mystery—no confirmed death, no recovered treasure, and no crew member who revealed his secret.

So, what really happened to Avery and his treasure?

My Take: The Woman Who Buried Avery—and the Gold

The popular stories of Avery either portray him as disappearing into obscurity or meeting a grim end. But what if the truth is far more cunning?

I propose that Avery, after his bold raids, found refuge on one of the Indian Ocean’s pirate havens—likely Madagascar or nearby islands such as the Comoros or Seychelles. Here, he may have reconnected with—or been seduced by—a powerful and enigmatic woman: possibly a pirate herself or a local noblewoman, skilled in the arts of survival and subterfuge.

This woman, perhaps an old flame or a shrewd ally, would have known about Avery’s treasure and, leveraging charm and guile, gained his trust. Then, in a sudden and decisive act—whether by poison or dagger—she ended Avery’s reign, buried him discreetly, and claimed his treasure as her own.

Why This Theory Fits the Puzzle:

• No confirmed death or grave of Avery exists, unlike many of his contemporaries.
• The Indian Ocean islands at the time were rife with pirate enclaves where women often held power behind the scenes.
• Oral traditions speak of a mysterious, wealthy “pirate queen” or foreign woman living in splendour yet shrouded in secrecy.
• Avery’s treasure never surfaced, and no crew member ever revealed its location, possibly out of fear or loyalty to this woman.

The Wider Mystery

Could this woman have returned to England disguised as a saintly widow, quietly spending pirate gold? Or perhaps she sailed farther afield, to Australia or other distant colonies, weaving Avery’s treasure into new legends?

The truth remains buried—possibly beneath island sands, in secret caves, or within the lost stories of a powerful woman who became more than just a pirate’s consort.

What Next?

For treasure hunters and history buffs alike, this theory opens fresh paths: to explore colonial records for women of mysterious wealth, investigate oral histories in Madagascar and the Indian Ocean, and dig into local legends that hint at forgotten treasure guardians.

Henry Avery’s story may not have ended with a noose or in a shipwreck—it may have ended in the shadow of a queen, whose gold still whispers on the wind.

 

[Red-Coat]

The Kresen Kernow museum in Redruth, Cornwall in England holds an intriguing document which suggests that Avery (Henry Every) the pirate buried his treasure (at least temporarily) near the Lizard after his daring 1695 raid on ships in the Arabian sea. The Lizard is a peninsula that represents the southernmost point of the British mainland.

‘Kresen Kernow’ is Cornish for ‘Cornwall Centre’ and the museum is the county’s archive centre. It’s not known who wrote the document, or how authentic it might be, but it came from the archives of the Hawkins family which had a history of maritime involvement, including naval service and privateering. The document has a watermark in the paper that dates it to 1818, but it appears to have been transcribed from an earlier unknown document. It’s written partly in French, but says:

“Avery the Pirate - On his return from India either landed or was shipwrecked near the Lizard where he buried three chests or boxes full of treasure in the sands of the seashore. About three miles to the east of the Lizard under three grey stones or rocks in a cove to the South West 'the three stones are covered with grass'. It is near where the corner of the high promontory juts out into the sea. He said, the spring tides now come over the place.
1 chest Haslarwood [?] 2 feet long and 1 ft wide. In it was precious stones and bracelets, large rubies, sapphires, emeralds, topazes and diamonds
2nd chest almost the same size and make as the first. 120 ingots of gold, 40 thick flat pieces of gold as large as a round tobacco box, with various characters on some of them, 25 bars of gold, some of which were 4 or 5 inches long
3rd chest has 3000 pieces of 8 besides Bullion not weighed but crammed in with pieces of brocades.”

[Photograph: Kresen Kernow]


Also, a while ago, a previously unpublished letter turned up in the Scottish Records Office where it had lain unnoticed for years as a result of being misfiled. It’s dated 10th December 1700 (4 years after Avery’s disappearance), written partly in a code that hasn’t been deciphered, and headed “Letter from Avery the Pirate” with a request for a reply to be addressed to “posthouse” in Falmouth, Cornwall. The letter also mentions treasure Avery kept, with implications that some of it may still be hidden (or at least was, at the time).

[Photograph: Scottish Records Office]

Shipwreck explorers Dr Sean Kingsley and Rex Cowan claim it to be evidence that Avery had entered the service of the king (William III) as a spy after exchanging part of his loot for a royal pardon. The letter was found by chance by Cowan’s late wife, Zélide, when the pair were tracking down sunken Dutch East India Company traders.

Kingsley and Cowan hold that the letter links Avery to one of the first great spy rings, believed to have included Daniel Defoe (the ‘Robinson Crusoe’ author), and Thomas Tenison (the archbishop of Canterbury) at a time when they were collectively assisting in protecting Protestant England from the threat of “popery”, a Catholic invasion from France, and the seizure of the English throne. The letter’s intended recipient was Reverend James Richardson in Orange Street, London which was the address of the capital’s first public lending library, set up by Tenison, with Richardson as librarian. The address is sufficiently obscure that Kingsley and Cowan take this as a strong indication of authenticity. There also exists a contemporary account of one of the king’s aides seeing Tenison illegally opening letters from Catholics that had been intercepted from the post office, describing him as a master forger – “so dangerous an art that, unless his Majesty commands him, I perceive he is desirous it should be discovered to nobody”.

Parts of the letter are in code. For example, one passage reads: “I am not the least concerned for Tank 29 f B26 being out of the T9211597.” Kingsley and Cowan say that, at that time, Defoe was in Cornwall, posing as a shipwreck treasure diver named Claude Guilot, had worked in intelligence for William III in 1692, and invented a numeric code for sending letters.

The claims are explored in detail in Kingsley and Cowan’s book ‘The Pirate King: The Strange Adventures of Henry Avery and the Birth of the Golden Age of Piracy.’

 

[Selwyn]

Wow—thank you, Red-Coat, for sharing that treasure trove of information! The Kresen Kernow document and the misfiled letter from the Scottish Records Office are absolutely fascinating, especially with their ties to Cornwall, coded messages, and the possibility of Avery’s involvement in early intelligence work. A pirate turned spy, rubbing shoulders with Tenison and Defoe? That alone could launch a dozen books or films!

What intrigues me is how well this ties into the idea that Avery was far more cunning—and protected—than often assumed. Whether escaping to Madagascar, or returning under royal pardon as part of a shadowy spy ring, he clearly vanished on his own terms.

The detail about the three chests under grassy stones near the Lizard makes the romantic in me imagine a double-bluff: perhaps he buried decoys there, while the real hoard followed him or someone he trusted. Which brings me back to my theory—the mysterious woman. Could she have been part of this covert network? A courier? A co-conspirator? Or even someone who intercepted Avery on his way home?

The secrecy, the coded letters, and the total silence from his crew all reinforce one thing: this was no ordinary pirate tale. Whether his final partner was a noblewoman, a spy mistress, or something else entirely, it seems Henry Avery didn’t just vanish—he orchestrated his own legend.

Now I’m off to re-read The Pirate King—and perhaps study 17th-century Cornish tides!