they were intended for piracy in the Eastern seas. Whatever compunction
might be felt at attacking European ships, there was none about
plundering Asiatic merchants, where great booty was to be gained with
little risk. Sometimes the Governors were in league with the pirates, who
paid them to wink at their doings. Those who were more honest had
insufficient power to check the evil practices that were leniently, if
not favourably, regarded by the colonial community, while their time was
fully occupied in combating the factious opposition of the colonial
legislatures, and in protective measures against the French and Indians.
The English Government, absorbed in the French war, had no ships in the
Indian seas; but the straits to which English trade in the East had been
reduced, and the enormous losses caused by the pirates, at last forced
some measures to be adopted for coping with the evil that had assumed
such gigantic proportions.


[1] It appears likely that this was the John Steel mentioned by Drury as
his uncle in Bengal. There is very little doubt that much of Drury's
alleged slavery in Madagascar was spent among the pirates.

[2] It would appear that he assumed the name of Every on taking to piracy.

[3] Sir James Houblon was an Alderman of London, and a Governor of the
Bank of England at the time.

[4] The letter appears to have been left by Every with the natives of
Johanna, who gave it to the merchant captains who brought it to
Bombay.

[5] The quotation is taken from Johnson's History of the Pirates. In his