*

AN ENGLISHWOMAN IN INDIA TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO

ILLUSTRATIONS

MAHRATTA GRABS AND GALLIVATS ATTACKING AN ENGLISH SHIP.
MAP OF MALABAR COAST.

* * * * *

THE PIRATES OF MALABAR

CHAPTER I

_RISE OF EUROPEAN PIRACY IN THE EAST_

Portuguese pirates--Vincente Sodre--Dutch pirates--Royal
filibustering--Endymion Porter's venture--The Courten Association--The
Indian Red Sea fleet--John Hand--Odium excited against the English in
Surat--The _Caesar_ attacked by French pirates--Danish depredations--West
Indian pirates--Ovington's narrative--Interlopers and permission
ships--Embargo placed on English trade--Rovers trapped at Mungrole--John
Steel--Every seizes the _Charles the Second_ and turns pirate--His letter
to English commanders--The Madagascar settlements--Libertatia--Fate of
Sawbridge--Capture of the _Gunj Suwaie_--Immense booty--Danger of the
English at Surat--Bombay threatened--Friendly behaviour of the Surat
Governor--Embargo on European trade--Every sails for America--His reputed
end--Great increase of piracy--Mutiny of the _Mocha_ and _Josiah_
crews--Culliford in the _Resolution_--The _London_ seized by Imaum of
Muscat.

From the first days of European enterprise in the East, the coasts of
India were regarded as a favourable field for filibusters, the earliest
we hear of being Vincente Sodre, a companion of Vasco da Gama in his
second voyage. Intercourse with heathens and idolaters was regulated
according to a different code of ethics from that applied to intercourse
with Christians. The authority of the Old Testament upheld slavery, and
Africans were regarded more as cattle than human beings; while Asiatics
were classed higher, but still as immeasurably inferior to Europeans. To
prey upon Mahommedan ships was simply to pursue in other waters the
chronic warfare carried on against Moors and Turks in the Mediterranean.
The same feelings that led the Spaniards to adopt the standard of the
Cross in their conquest of Mexico and Peru were present, though less
openly avowed, in the minds of the merchants and adventurers of all
classes and nationalities who flocked into the Indian seas in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. With the decadence of buccaneering
and the growth of Indian trade, there was a corresponding increase of
piracy, and European traders ceased to enjoy immunity.

In 1623 the depredations of the Dutch brought the English into disgrac