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Henry Every and the Ganj-i-Sawai (1695)

The taking of two ships out of the homeward Mocha fleet in 1695 by Henry Every's company and its consorts, the second of them the Great Mogul's own Gunsway, the days of violence aboard her, and the London trial of 1696 at which the jury acquitted on that very charge.

Also writtenthe Gunsway (the ship's name as the witnesses gave it in evidence at the 1696 Admiralty sessions); the Gansway (the spelling of the bill found by the grand jury in the printed trial of 1696); the Gunjsawaee (the spelling in Wright's history of the Surat factory, and in Annesley's own letters as Wright quotes them)

Dr Newton opened for the Crown at the Old Bailey on a charge of piracy in the robbing and plundering of the Gunsway, a ship of the Great Mogul and his subjects, in the Indian seas. This piracy in the Indies, he told the jury, was the company's last and their greatest, and the likeliest to do lasting harm to trade.3,4

Waiting for the Mocha fleet

At Bobs Key, by the mouth of the Red Sea, Every's men found an English vessel already riding there on the same errand. Another sail came in, and in the morning two more. Philip Middleton named May, Farrel and Wake as the captains. A pinnace went up to Mocha and brought back two men who could say what was coming down.5,6

The fleet passed them on a Saturday night. On the Sunday morning they took a vessel which told them it was gone by, and they consulted whether to follow or to stay there. They followed, and overtook it.7

The two ships

Out of the first ship came gold and silver, and men went aboard her to plunder her and keep her with the rest. Middleton made her three or four hundred tons; the abstract of the November sitting about two hundred and fifty, taken with small resistance, and thirty or forty thousand pounds in gold and silver out of her.8,9

They spied another sail, got up their anchor and stood to her. Middleton put that on the next day; Dann, at the same sessions, at about two days, and he had them lying at anchor at St. Johns when she came in sight. She was the Gunsway, taken after a running fight of two to three hours, with a hundred and eighty of the pirate company engaged. Several of her men were killed. When they had taken and plundered her they left her own men aboard to go to Surat again.10,26,11

Content note: the paragraph that follows describes torture, murder and sexual violence aboard the captured ship.

Over several days the pirates went through her. They tortured captives to make them give up hidden coin and jewels, murdered prisoners and raped women aboard, and a number of women are reported to have thrown themselves into the sea or killed themselves. Numbers of the dead and of the assaulted are nowhere securely recorded.1

What came out of them

They shared about a week afterwards, all the prizes they had taken. Some men had a thousand pounds, some eight hundred, some seven, some five, every man in the ship what the company thought he had earned. John Dann, asked the same question at the earlier sitting, put it at a thousand, five hundred and three hundred. Holt asked him whether it had not been the best prize of the voyage. It was, Dann said, and everyone aboard shared.12,13,14

Besides the coin there were jewels, and a saddle and bridle set with rubies meant as a present for the emperor. The Governor of Surat, answering Annesley, observed that "the Servants of God in this affair had lost 200,000 rupees", and that many of them had been beggared by it.15,16

Samuel Annesley, writing to the Company long afterwards, counted ten months "strictly shut up and fettered" on account of the King's ship.17

Surat and the Red Sea have records of their own here.

A proclamation went out for Every and the men named with him. They could be picked out, it said, by the quantities of Persian and Indian gold and silver they were carrying.18

The court, and the story that followed

The grand jury found bills against Henry Every, not yet taken, and six prisoners, for the felony and piracy of taking and carrying away a ship called the Gansway from persons unknown. The bill valued her at a thousand pounds and her goods at a hundred and ten, besides a hundred thousand pieces of eight and a hundred thousand chequins, taken ten leagues from the Cape St. John's near Surat.19,20

The jury acquitted all of them, against the court's expectation. The sessions were adjourned to the last day of October, the prisoners committed again on a new warrant for other piracies, and on those they were convicted. Sentence named the crimes as done upon the ships and goods of Indians, of Danes and their own fellow subjects, the head the court called the Indians being the other Moorish prize and not the Gunsway they had been acquitted on. Foreseth and the rest hanged at Execution Dock on 25 November 1696, and the trials have a page to themselves.21,22,2

Johnson's chapter of 1724 put several of the greatest persons of the emperor's court aboard the ship, and among them, it was said, one of his daughters on pilgrimage to Mecca. The marriage of that daughter to Every, and the kingdom he was given, are a fiction of the pamphlet literature. Johnson put the extravagant stories about Every down to the noise the business made in Europe and in India.23,24,25

The bill for the Gunsway gives no day for her taking. The East India Company's Surat and Bombay letter books, in the India Office Records at the British Library, would supply one. Khafi Khan's Persian chronicle, translated in Elliot and Dowson, is the account from the other deck, and would give her force, her people and the names of her dead.

What the evidence does not settle

Ganj-i-Sawai's armament and complement

  • Ganj-i-Sawai's guns and crew size are unresolved (62 to 80)

Date and place of the capture

  • Exact date and position of the capture are not fixed

Every's fate after 1696

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. Over several days after the boarding the pirates ransacked the Ganj-i-Sawai, tortured captives to make them give up hidden coin and jewels, murdered prisoners and raped women aboard, with a number of women reported to have thrown themselves into the sea or killed themselves; the numbers of the dead and the assaulted are nowhere securely recorded. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Period chronicle and secondary narrative: Muntakhab al-Lubab of Muhammad Hashim, known as Khafi Khan, consulted through translation and secondary citation; Golden Age of Piracy, Pirate Round: Capture of the Ganj-i-Sawai; echoed in part by the confessions of captured pirates in the 1696 Tryals
  2. Six of Every's men, Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis and John Sparkes, stood at Admiralty sessions in the Old Bailey building in the autumn of 1696; the first jury acquitted on the charge arising from the Ganj-i-Sawai, a second trial on a charge tied to the seizure of the Charles the Second secured convictions, and five of the condemned were hanged at Execution Dock on 25 November 1696, Joseph Dawson being reprieved on the reading the Archive's trial record holds Probable, the print's 'and the rest' not naming the man spared. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, for Several Piracies and Robberies committed in the company of Every the Grand Pirate, Admiralty Sessions at the Old Baily, 1696; with Golden Age of Piracy, Pirate Round: Capture of the Ganj-i-Sawai, for the first acquittal; the count of the hanged carried as disputed
  3. Dr Newton, opening for the Crown at the Admiralty sessions in the Old Bailey, told the court that the prisoners were indicted for piracy in robbing and plundering the ship Gunsway, belonging to the Great Mogul and his subjects, in the Indian seas, to a very great value. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, for several Piracies and Robberies by them committed, in the Company of Every the Grand Pirate (London, 1696), the speech of Dr Newton at the first sitting (library file every_tryals_1696.txt, lines 157-160)
  4. Dr Newton told the court that this piracy in the Indies was the company's last and the greatest in itself, and likely to be the most pernicious in its consequences, especially as to trade. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, for several Piracies and Robberies by them committed, in the Company of Every the Grand Pirate (London, 1696), the speech of Dr Newton at the first sitting (library file every_tryals_1696.txt, lines 172-174)
  5. Philip Middleton's evidence was that at Bobs Key the company found an English vessel already there on the same account, saw a second English vessel come in, and in the morning saw two more, May, Farrel and Wake being the captains. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, for several Piracies and Robberies by them committed, in the Company of Every the Grand Pirate (London, 1696), the evidence of Philip Middleton (library file every_tryals_1696.txt, lines 1371-1375)
  6. Dow and Edmonds report, from the Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1696-1697, that after the company had lain some time at the island at the mouth of the Red Sea Every sent a pinnace to Mocha, which took two men who gave information as to the ships coming down. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Modern scholarship: George Francis Dow and John Henry Edmonds, The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630-1730, printed p. 97, footnoted to the Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1696-1697, pp. 260-262 (library file dow_piratesnec.txt, lines 4399-4406)
  7. Philip Middleton's evidence was that the Mocha fleet passed the company on a Saturday night, that on the Sunday morning they took another vessel which told them the fleet was gone by, that they consulted whether to follow or stay there, and that they then followed and overtook it. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, for several Piracies and Robberies by them committed, in the Company of Every the Grand Pirate (London, 1696), the evidence of Philip Middleton (library file every_tryals_1696.txt, lines 1375-1380)
  8. Philip Middleton's evidence was that the first ship taken out of the fleet was of about three or four hundred tons, that gold and silver were taken out of her, and that men were sent aboard her to plunder her and keep her. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, for several Piracies and Robberies by them committed, in the Company of Every the Grand Pirate (London, 1696), the evidence of Philip Middleton (library file every_tryals_1696.txt, lines 1379-1384)
  9. The abstract of the trial of 6 November 1696 makes the first prize about 250 tons, taken with small resistance, with gold and silver taken out of her to the value of thirty or forty thousand pounds. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, for several Piracies and Robberies by them committed, in the Company of Every the Grand Pirate (London, 1696), the abstract of the trial of Friday 6 November 1696 (library file every_tryals_1696.txt, lines 2396-2398)
  10. Philip Middleton's evidence put the taking of the Gunsway on the day after the first prize, the company spying another sail, getting up their anchor and standing to her; she was taken after a running fight of two to three hours, several of her men were killed, and when they had taken and plundered her they left her own men aboard to go to Surat again. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, for several Piracies and Robberies by them committed, in the Company of Every the Grand Pirate (London, 1696), the evidence of Philip Middleton (library file every_tryals_1696.txt, lines 1384-1389)
  11. Dow and Edmonds report, from the Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1696-1697, that the second ship was taken after a fight of three hours and that one hundred and eighty men were engaged in it. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Modern scholarship: George Francis Dow and John Henry Edmonds, The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630-1730, printed p. 97, footnoted to the Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1696-1697, pp. 260-262 (library file dow_piratesnec.txt, lines 4408-4411)
  12. The abstract of the trial of 6 November 1696 states that about a week after the taking the company shared all the prizes they had taken, some having a thousand pounds, some eight hundred, some seven hundred and some five hundred, every man in the ship his share as they thought he deserved. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, for several Piracies and Robberies by them committed, in the Company of Every the Grand Pirate (London, 1696), the abstract of the trial of Friday 6 November 1696 (library file every_tryals_1696.txt, lines 2399-2401)
  13. John Dann's evidence was that of the shares some men had a thousand pounds, some five hundred and others three hundred. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, for several Piracies and Robberies by them committed, in the Company of Every the Grand Pirate (London, 1696), the evidence of John Dann (library file every_tryals_1696.txt, lines 1287-1290)
  14. The Lord Chief Justice Holt put it to John Dann that it was the best prize they had all the voyage, and Dann answered that it was and that all who were in the ship shared. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, for several Piracies and Robberies by them committed, in the Company of Every the Grand Pirate (London, 1696), the evidence of John Dann (library file every_tryals_1696.txt, lines 1267-1269)
  15. Dow and Edmonds report, from the Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1696-1697, that the second ship carried a great quantity of jewels and a saddle and bridle set with rubies designed as a present for the Great Mogul. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Modern scholarship: George Francis Dow and John Henry Edmonds, The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630-1730, printed pp. 97-98, footnoted to the Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1696-1697, pp. 260-262 (library file dow_piratesnec.txt, lines 4411-4413)
  16. Wright's history of the Surat factory quotes the Governor of Surat, answering a communication from Annesley, as observing that the servants of God had lost 200,000 rupees in the affair, by which many of them were turned faqirs. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Modern scholarship: Arnold Wright, Annesley of Surat and His Times (London, 1918), printed p. 168, quoting the Governor's answer to Annesley as Annesley recorded it (library file wright_annesley.txt, lines 5261-5272)
  17. Wright's history of the Surat factory quotes Samuel Annesley writing to the Company that he had been ten months strictly shut up and fettered on account of the King's ship, the Gunjsawaee. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Modern scholarship: Arnold Wright, Annesley of Surat and His Times (London, 1918), printed p. 225, quoting Annesley's answer to the Court of the East India Company (library file wright_annesley.txt, lines 6978-6983)
  18. The proclamation for apprehending Henry Every and the men named with him states that they may probably be known and discovered by the great quantities of Persian and Indian gold and silver which they have with them. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Royal proclamation: Proclamation for apprehending Henry Every, alias Bridgeman, and sundry other pirates, given under the signet at Edinburgh, 18 August 1696 (library file every_proclamation_1696.txt, lines 42-43)
  19. The grand jury found bills against Henry Every, not yet taken, and against six prisoners, for feloniously and piratically taking and carrying away from persons unknown a ship called the Gansway. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, for several Piracies and Robberies by them committed, in the Company of Every the Grand Pirate (London, 1696), the bills found by the grand jury at the first sitting (library file every_tryals_1696.txt, lines 118-124)
  20. The Gunsway indictment values the ship with her tackle, apparel and furniture at 1000 l. and the goods at 110 l., names 100,000 pieces of eight and 100,000 chequins, and lays the taking ten leagues from the Cape St. John's near Surat in the East Indies. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, for several Piracies and Robberies by them committed, in the Company of Every the Grand Pirate (London, 1696), the bill found by the grand jury, print p. 3 (library file every_tryals_1696.txt, lines 124-128)
  21. The jury brought in all the prisoners Not Guilty on the Gunsway charge, against the expectation of the court; the sessions were adjourned to Saturday 31 October and the prisoners committed on a new warrant for several other piracies, on which they were convicted; and according to the sentence Edward Foreseth and the rest were executed on Wednesday 25 November 1696 at Execution Dock. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, for several Piracies and Robberies by them committed, in the Company of Every the Grand Pirate (London, 1696) (library file every_tryals_1696.txt, lines 191-195 and 2459-2462)
  22. The sentence named the crimes as committed upon the ships and goods of Indians, of Danes and their own fellow subjects, the head the court called the Indians being the other Moorish prize, set upon 28 September 1695 forty leagues from Surat, and not the Gunsway, on which they had been acquitted. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, for several Piracies and Robberies by them committed, in the Company of Every the Grand Pirate (London, 1696), the two indictments read on 6 November 1696 and the sentence pronounced by the Judge of the Admiralty (library file every_tryals_1696.txt, lines 2335-2337 and 2450-2451)
  23. Charles Johnson's General History states that the ship taken was one of the Great Mogul's own, that several of the greatest persons of his court were in her, and that among them, it was said, was one of his daughters going on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Possible Consistent with the evidence, not established. Period narrative: A General History of the Pyrates (London, 1724), the chapter Of Captain Avery (library file gut40580_johnson_general_history.txt, lines 1658-1661)
  24. The story that Every married a daughter or granddaughter of the Great Mogul and founded a pirate kingdom is a later fiction carried by the pamphlet literature and not by the documents of the taking. Speculative An inference, not a finding. Period narrative: A General History of the Pyrates (London, 1724), the chapter Of Captain Avery (library file gut40580_johnson_general_history.txt, lines 1506-1509)
  25. Charles Johnson's General History states that the great noise the taking made in Europe as well as in India was the occasion of all the romantick stories which were formed of Avery's greatness. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Period narrative: A General History of the Pyrates (London, 1724), the chapter Of Captain Avery (library file gut40580_johnson_general_history.txt, lines 1679-1681)
  26. John Dann's evidence was that about two days after the first prize they were lying at anchor at St. Johns when a great ship called the Gunsway appeared, and that they weighed anchor and fought her. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, for several Piracies and Robberies by them committed, in the Company of Every the Grand Pirate (London, 1696), the evidence of John Dann (library file every_tryals_1696.txt, lines 1238-1243)