200. The East India Company’s Global Manhunt

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0:29Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnon. And me, William Durimple. Left them on a cliff edge, didn't we? We certainly did. We did. The pirates were closing in on the Gungi Sawai. The Gungi Sawai is in their sights. And it is because we're talking about Henry Avery, the pirate, who has managed to convince a flotilla of like-minded folk on ships that, you know what, we can get really, really rich if we just hang around these straits and wait for the Mughal parade to go past because they're laden with jewels on their way to Hajj. so let's just go and relieve them of some of it and it doesn't go well at the beginning if you heard the last episode they're sort of waiting in the darkness and it's so dark the ships slip right past them and nobody notices they sleep through it but they are on fast enough ships and they chase them down and they take the last tail straggling ship the fat muhammadi the fat muhammadi and which itself is carrying what would be the equivalent of five million pounds these days.

1:30But now their eyes are set on the prince of the shipping lane, which is the Ganji Sawai, which is the Mughal. It's treasury on water, isn't it, really? It just means exceeding treasure. So, I mean, they're kind of advertising the fact that it's the kind of the richest, the biggest, the ultimate possible heist that you could possibly go for. And it's built by Mariam Uzumani, which is the real name of the woman popularly known in the Hindi movies as Jodhapai. Oh, Jodhapai, really? Jodhapai, the one played by… Aishwarya Rai. Aishwarya Rai, opposite Ritik Roshan. Very good. And Mariam Uzumani started life as a princess of Jodhpur.

2:15And I think there's some British source that originally called her Jodhapai, and it's not accurate. Historians now know her as Mariam of Zimani, which was her Mughal title, greater than Mariam. And Mariam, of course, is Mary, Mother Mary, who appears more often in the Quran than she does in the Bible, one of the weird flukes of Islam and Christianity. You get more mentions of Mary in the Quran than you do in all the Gospels put together. She's not actually the mother of Jahangir, I think, but she's one of the chief queens, if not the chief queen of Akbar. So that makes it what? The great grandmother of Aurangzeb.

2:52So this ship is not a new ship. It's been knocking around for a couple of rains, but it is still the biggest ship in the entire Mughal Navy. Ship large enough to carry a thousand, has 200 men. Can you remember how many guns it has, Anita? Well, it has 80 guns, 80 guns, so that's sort of cannon poking out of the sides, and 400 riflemen. So that is more firepower, William, than the entire pirate fleet combined of Avery. More bang for your buck, literally, on this ship. So this is where it really does begin to look a bit like the Italian job, because you've got basically kind of fleet of Brits in tiny ships like the Italian job with all the minis.

3:36And they're now swarming around. They're trying to catch it up, first of all. Remember, let's not forget, because two days head start, they've caught up with a straggler, which is, you know, the fact that Mohammed has taken them some time to, well, not that much time, actually. They gave up really quickly. But it's got that shit. But we should say, apart from the guns, do you know what's on the guns? We're talking about gold, silver, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds. I mean, the name, as you say, the etymology of it is basically postcode of wealth. You want to translate it directly. It's not a very wise title in the golden age of piracy, all in all.

4:11It's not exactly stealth, is it? And as you said in the last episode, the British can't cope with the pronunciation of Gungisawai. If you do look it up, look up Gunsway because that's what the pirates anglicised it to and what it's become. And it becomes very famous in ballads in England as the Gunsway. And it's a big, tall ship, so it does have every advantage. Because if you have riflemen on your deck and you're looking down, it's easier to fire down at the smaller ships and hit your mark. than it is to fire up and hit your mark. Now, what the pirates don't know as they close in on this enormous ship is what the most important of all the contents is as far as the Emperor Aurangzeb is concerned.

4:54And the answer to that is, Anita? Princesses. It's the ladies. It's the ladies, isn't it? It's got very important women on board whose value is beyond compare. And so this is why it is entirely a catastrophe if anything happens to the Gandhis Hawaii, because it's not just the material goods that you're going to lose, but the people that you care about. Dozens of women on board, dozens of them, members of Aurangzeb's court. And just to give an impression of the sort of women who these were, we know about quite a lot of Aurangzeb's daughters because they are famous characters in history. There's one called Roshanara, who is this ally of Aurangzeb, who helps him get to the throne.

5:38He's this very ruthless figure in some of the accounts that tell the story. And there's also Zebunisa, who's built one of my favorite mosques in Delhi, the Zinatul Masjid, the most beautiful of mosques it's called. And it's on the banks of the Yamuna, and it has the most tall and elegant minarets. And these women are highly educated. They write books. Some previous Mughal princesses wrote a biography. Gulbadan wrote a biography of Humayun. And Zebu Nisa wrote a whole series of wonderful poems and books about the Mughal realm and histories. It wasn't, though, only these enlightened women who were of the court, because there were also a number of captured women.

6:20The captain of the ship had bought Turkish concubines during his voyage and was importing them back to India. So, you know, this is sex trafficking as well. It's not just sort of ladies who eat Turkish delight on cushions. There are kidnapped women on board this ship as well. So it's a real mix, religious pilgrims, blue bloods and captive women, sex slaves. And this, of course, is incredibly unusual on the high seas, because in the maritime world of what we now is 1695, we are in a world that is overwhelmingly masculine. It is the ultimate patriarchal world. All ships at the time, merchant ships, warships, privateers, would have been entirely devoid of women.

7:04and occasionally you might get a ship leaving a British harbour like the Mayflower going to America, which would carry migrants. But you'd have to, you know, in the whole maritime world in the 17th century, there would be very, very few ships that carried large numbers of women. But this actually, it turns out, is what the Gangesuai is full of. And you can see where this is going. Well, most importantly of all, apparently Aurangzeb's own granddaughter is aboard this ship. Some accounts say daughter. Whatever it is, an important ship, important people in it. According to a pamphlet called The Life and Adventures of Captain John Avery, the cargo of this ship was so very rich that it even satiated the appetites of the most covetous of the mariners for above the value of a million of money in silver and rich stuffs was found therein.

7:55and very agreeable lady, although I think it means ladies, into the bargain. Anyway, so look, the battle is on. Gangesawai, captained by Mohammed Ibrahim, is this big ship, high decks, lots of guns. But Avery has planned an attack and actually is a very good strategist because he manages to position his ships and cut across and sort of weave in and out the bullet fires that are coming from the Gungi Sawai. And one of the first cannon volleys cuts down the Gungi Sawai's main mast and that cripples the ship. Can you remember how they do that? They use these double, what's called chain shot. It's two balls with a chain.

8:37That's right. There's two cannonballs with a chain in it and they sort of hurtle through the air and they chainsaw through at high velocity. It's like a moving chainsaw. And in the very first minutes of the attack on the Gungi Sawai, which is meant to be this impregnable Alcatraz of a ship. The master's down disabling it, which means it can't manoeuvre, which means it's all the more vulnerable. And it's collapsed onto the ship. So just imagine all the crew running all over the place because this huge tree has been felled over their heads. Then to add to the confusion, one of the main cannons, the Mughals, particularly one of the things that Aurangzeb was famous for, is he liked big cannon.

9:15And I've seen in various forts around India, massive cannon that are meant to be associated with Aurangzeb. There's one in Dilutabad. As you enter the fort of Dilutabad, there's this enormous mother of all cannons that apparently, again, exploded when it was set off. And this is what happens here. One of the huge Aurangzeb mega cannons that he loves to show off is fired at the pirates. And rather than exploding on the pirates, as it was meant to, it malfunctions and it bursts all over the artillerymen. And this is the moment that Avery seizes his chance? Well, everybody takes Avery's lead. They can hardly believe their eyes.

9:51Their first salvo has been so successful. So, William May's ship we told you about last time is the Pearl. Not the Black Pearl, but the Pearl. And initially, William May is a bit sceptical that even these tiny little mosquitoes can attack such an enormous bear of a vessel. But when he sees that main mast go down, he orders his men, right, grappling irons up, climb up the ropes, and they're up, they're up like sort of insects crawling up the Gungi Sawai and onto the decks. And I think the moguls just weren't expecting this because the moguls are used to their sort of prestige as people that win all the battles they fight at this period in their history.

10:28At a distance without getting dirty as well. The mast is down, the artillery has exploded, and the pirates are aboard the Gungi Sawai with their grappling irons. And the first thing that happens, so we have an account of this because one of the main historians of Arang Zebrain is this guy called Muhammad Hashan Kafikan. And he writes a brilliant account of this because it turns out, as fate would have it, one of the great historians of this period is based in Sirat at this period. And so it's not quite a first-hand account, but it seems to be second-hand. He's taken this from the survivors. And he says that when the cannon explode and the The mast goes down.

11:07Mohammed Ibrahim, the captain, although he's got this enormous ship, although it's got double the number of guns, although he's got double the number of sailors, he goes and runs down the decks where, according to Kaffee Khan, he arms the slave girls and tries to send them up to fight the pirates. This may, of course, be entirely nonsense. Poor women are being trafficked already. I know what I'd do with it. I know I'd stick it. I know I'd stick the pointy end. Anyway, but what does happen is it's two or three hours, we're told, of hand-to-hand combat on the decks of this stricken behemoth of a ship.

11:43And Khafi Khan is disgusted by the behaviour of the Mughal sailors because he writes, the Christians are not bold in the use of the sword and there are so many weapons on board the royal vessel that if the captain had made any resistance, they must defeat it. I've got the account of Khafi Khan. Do you want me to read a bit of it? Of course, read more, read more. Yes, please. That's a very lovely old tome. What are you reading from? This is what I've been using for the last couple of episodes. What's it called again? It's this wonderful book, Pirates of the Eastern Seas, by Charles Gray, who you and I used his accounts for our Koh-i-Noor because he was the master of the Lahore archives for a long time.

12:21And he produced these books in the 1930s that are very, very dated, but they still contain these wonderful chunks of original sources. And let me read you from Kaffee Khan's own account. every year one of the emperor's ships was sent from surat to mecca there was no greater ship in all the mogul dominions than this and it was called the ganji shawai at this time she was bringing from mecca 52 lacking gold and silver the produce of all the sails of indian ships there and jeddah so what's interesting is it's on its way back that's what i hadn't hadn't grasped ibrahim khan was captain of the ship which carried 62 great guns and 400 musketeers beside many other soldiers and all necessary implements of war when the ship came within gunshot the royal vessel fired her great guns at it but by ill luck one of them burst and three or four men were killed by fragments of it seeing the confusion and that their own shops had broken the main mast over his version it's the it's the exploding cannon which breaks the main mast interesting the british claim to have done it themselves in their accounts anyway whichever it is the main master's down and he says the english are not bold in the use of the sword and there were so many weapons aboard that if determined resistance had been made it would have been easy to defeat them but as soon as they came aboard ibrahim khan ran down into the hold where there were some turkish girls whom he was bringing from mucca to be his concubines he put turbans on their heads and incited them to fight.

13:53But these girls quickly fell into the hands of the Englishmen, who had made themselves masters of the ship. When they had laden their ship with the spoils of the Ganji Siwai, they took her to one of their settlements, where they busied themselves, stripping the men and killing them and dishonouring the women, both young and old. They then left the ship to go free, but took with them most of the women. Several of the ladies threw themselves into the sea and others killed themselves with the swords and daggers of the Englishman. Oh God, that's awful. God, it's hard being a woman. And so this is where suddenly what has been a jolly pirate activity.

14:31That's not jolly at all. It's disgusting. It's turning now into a much darker story. Well, can I put some money against what this heist means? So, you know, this is, I suppose five hours of fighting all in all, they managed to take five years of wages for every single one of that pirate crew that's involved. So Avery, overnight, becomes one of the richest pirates of all time. Definitely the most successful pirate of his age. But you know what? That will be the stuff of ballads, how he gets very, very rich. But can we just for a little while longer talk about how brutal and awful he was. Because I did a spirited defence of William Kidd in the last episode.

15:14I have nothing to say about this man other than he was a monster. So, you know, you sort of read an extract of what happened to these poor women and the poor men who were involved. But let's talk about it a little bit more because you've got more sources. So what's interesting is that I think even at the time, mass rape is not fair for storytellers. And so what the British do is that when this story is told in the ballads and in the bars of Portsmouth and what have you, this whole story is glossed over. And in its place, you have a romantic legend, which appears to be entirely fictional because we've got Kafi Khan, who actually meets the survivors in Surat and has this firsthand.

15:52And it's very interesting what the English do in their version. So in their version, they allege that the princess, the mogul princess, of course, falls in love and marries Avery. And that they set up court in their republican empire in Madagascar. And they have a son who is called, in the English sources, Mulatto Tom, who later succeeds to the kingdom. Now, we now know, of course, that this is bollocks from start to finish. Yeah, he was a rapist and he presided over a troop of rapists who did something dreadful for a number of days. That is exactly the actual story. And so, let's just go a bit further though on the way that the romanticised version rose-tints this.

16:35Oh God, is this thanks to Daniel Defoe? Who is it who gives us this romanticised version? It's not Daniel Defoe. Daniel Defoe does write a version of Avery's life called The King of the Pirates or Long Ben. And Daniel Defoe is responsible for the romanticization of this man. But in actual fact, the detail about the love story comes from a Dutch writer who uses a pseudonym, Adrian van Broek. And in 1709, which is only a decade after this, he publishes this sort of rose-tinted version, The Princess and Avery Live Happily Ever After. And this is what he writes. As time obliterates the most deep impressions of sorrow, so the lady was not long before she forgot the pleasures of her grandfather's court in the joys of her own and found herself happily brought to bed with a son.

17:23While the female part of her retinue were no less backward in presenting their husbands with the fruits of their conjugal endearments. I've just thrown up in my mouth. Sorry, that's disgusting. They really enjoyed it. They loved it. They were set free by it. That's the English myth. And they lived happily, sexily ever after. And but for the fact that we have Kaffee Khan, who actually interviews the survivors, we wouldn't know better about this. So again, it gives the whole story of pirates, because presumably this is not, I mean, you're never going to have another floating harem like this. But it's kind of been a unique story.

17:57And it does bring home to us what actually we're talking about when we're talking about piracy. We are talking about rape, loot and pillage. But also the impact of taking the grand Mughal's granddaughter and raping her and dishonouring her in this way would have been the most seismic blow diplomatically between the two countries as well. And as I said, this is taking place in the aftermath of the British in Bombay trying to defeat Aurangzeb's armies and being swatted in a matter of hours, what's called the War of Joshua Child. And it's one of the great humiliations of the English in India. But this is a serious haul.

18:38They've got from the Gungi Suwai something between£200 ,000 and£600 ,000 at that time, 500 ,000 gold and silver pieces. But as you say, more important than this is the fact that they have dishonoured the emperor's womenfolk, which is a completely unforgivable crime in the eyes of the Mughals, quite understandably. Right. So, I mean, look, let's take a break at this point, but join us after the break where we tell you what Avery does with his pockets full of stone and jewels and his fingers dripping with blood and gore.

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20:01floating harem and all these slave girls, as well as the well-born hajis from Aurangzeb's court, they seem to just spend five days in an orgy of rape. Rape, violence and murder. And then is it the reason that we have people who tell the tale? Because having had their five days of debauchery, they just kind of leave the Gungi Sawai because it's dead in the water. They just leave it floating. And they carry on and they make this dash to the Bahamas, which is where supposedly they're going to tell their torrid stories and count out money between themselves. While they are there sailing for the Bahamas anyway, and this poor stricken vessel, some people are managing to get to safety, others not so lucky.

20:42Many of the women, as we heard before the break, killing themselves after their experience over the last five days. What is very, very important is you cannot do this to a Mughal emperor's family member and get away with it. He does not care at all that these are pirates. In his head, these are the English. And just remember, this is the same time that the East India Company is trying to romance the Mughals, trying to get trading activities up and running with the Mughals. But for him, he looks at them and all he sees is the debasement of his family and his friends. And because the pirates have left survivors, which not all pirates do in all situations, they come back eventually, those that do survive, to Surat, where they tell Kafi Khan and the rest of the officials all the details of what's happened.

21:33And crucially, the fact that Avery, of course, always likes to be the Englishman and he's flying the English flag. So the flag of St George is attached to what the Mughals regard quite rightly as a kind of floating rape ship. And so he gets back to Surat and as soon as word begins to spread, the English realise that they are in for an absolute catastrophe. It's only 10 or 15 years since they last fell out with the Mughal. They were all clapped in irons then. Many of them were killed. And they know exactly what's coming. There's a huge reward that's offered for the capture of Avery. And that from both sides, because it's in the East India Company's interest to have him clapped in eyes and brought before the emperor.

22:13And the emperor wants nothing more than to have his head on a spike. But he is very hard to find. Remember, he's hiding around the Bahamas somewhere. So they've got sort of bounty hunters out there trying to look for him and find him, and they can't find him. And while this is going on, the rhetoric between the Mughals and the English and the East India Company is getting hotter and hotter. And it's just the lashing out that takes place inevitably is that they say, right, you know what? We're going to throw a cordon of troops around your East India Company factory, which is in Surat at the time.

22:49And that means, you know, if you do not produce this rapist and this murderer before us, you will die. And that's very much the implication. You surround a place with guns and you say, I don't care. I don't care who did it. We've got you right now. And so it's a really scary time for those people working for the East India Company. So the guy who has to deal with all this is the chief factor of Surat. That means basically the East India Company's head of station at the port, and he's called Samuel Anersley. So the first thing he does is he offers double compensation for what was taken to anyone who can prove that the company's ships were not involved, that it was somebody operating under their own steam, so to speak.

23:30And while all this is happening, there's actually a mob heading for Surat Castle because the survivors say that the pirates were English. They flew the Cross of St. George, and among their number are some ex-India company sailors who speak openly about avenging the previous time that Aurangzeb clapped all the company people in irons, which was the War of Joshua Child. So enough survivors come who are able to link, not just by the colours that are flown, but by the actual conversation and the quotes from the pirates, that these guys are definitely English and connected to the company. So the company is in very serious trouble.

24:13So, I mean, what do they do to the Brits that they round up or surround? Yeah, 300 troops go into the factory. Well, we have Andersley's own account. He said, it's needless to write of the indignities, slavish usages, and tyrannical insultings we hourly bear day and night. And to expatiate on so hateful a subject would no ways redress or alleviate our sufferings. So their fate now rests on Aurangzeb, the emperor, whose fury about hearing of the sacking and the rapes is a terrifying prospect for them. Piracy is bad enough, but the rape of the royal family is something. And so they're all expecting they're going to be killed in the most vile and terrible way.

24:56But they are out there instantly working on this. And they get the merchants in the town to offer heavy bribes to get them out. Various officials have their palms covered. Remember, by this stage, the English already got important merchants in Surat. Although they're fairly new arrivals, they're well in there. So there's a whole chain of merchants who do well out of the English trade, who do not want to see the English thrown out. They don't want it to be blown up completely because they're making money from it. So look, I think these days you call this diplomatic back-channeling, but you've got sort of these wealthy merchants, Surat merchants, saying, look, honestly, are you sure you're angry at the right people?

25:37They say it's not them and we have this evidence to produce to you. You've got sort of British diplomacy going into overdrive, trying to convince Aurangzeb, do not be angry with us. We're on your side. We want to get them as much as you do. And inexplicably, this reaches the angry Aurangzeb, who does seem to calm down a little bit. You know, he believes, if not the English, who he probably hates them, but his own people coming and telling him. And they managed to convince him that, look, you know what you need to do is just don't blow everything up. all right, you don't like the English anymore.

26:11Why don't we work with the Dutch and the French companies who will now escort our fleets? That's what we'll do because we've still got to do the same routes. We've still got to do business. There is a price of business. And all right, we get it. You don't like the English anymore. The East India Company's name is mud. Why don't we get the Dutch and the French to escort us and look after us, and they will be responsible for suppressing piracy? And it's on those terms that Aurangzeb kind of stops the nine months of bloodletting and the imprisonment of the Surat workers and releases them. And then trade begins again.

26:44But for nine months, there's a convulsion of trade. Nothing happens. Nobody's going to take to the seas again. I think what happens is that Aurangzeb finally is convinced that this isn't the company, that this is a bunch of pirates and that the company itself, I don't know whether they've captured letters or whatever it is, but finally after nine months, the factors are released and And the manhunt for the most wanted man in the world begins. Yeah, where is he? Where is Avery, William? Where has he gone? Well, he's caused all of this utter commotion and disgraced the English flag that he said he was so proud of.

27:17Where's he gone? So every sailor, every ship in the world is looking for Avery now because there's an enormous price on his head. And if anyone can bring in one of his sailors, any of his ships, but above all Avery himself, they are in to make their own fortune. So what we know, and historians have begun piecing it together, and we've got quite a lot of evidence what goes on. The first place that Avery goes is the French island of Bourbon, which is modern Réunion, not so far from Madagascar. Madagascar, of course, was always the great pirate centre. And it's apparently in Réunion that the spoils are divided.