In the same season a gallant engagement was fought against pirates, though not in Indian waters.  The Company’s ship Caesar, Captain Wright, bound from England for Bombay, was chased off the coast of Gambia by five ships, carrying each from twenty to thirty guns, under French colours.  Wright had no intention of yielding without a struggle, so put his ship before the wind, to gain time for getting into fighting trim.  The Caesar was carrying soldiers, and there were plenty of men to fight the ship.  The boats were cut away, the decks cleared, ammunition and arms served out, three thousand pounds of bread which cumbered the gun-room were thrown overboard, and the tops were filled with marksmen.  As soon as all was ready, the mainsail was furled, and the ship kept under easy sail.  Before long the two smaller ships came up, hoisted the red flag, and began firing, one on the Caesar’s quarter and one astern.  Soon the three other ships, two of which Wright styled the Admiral and Vice-Admiral, came up.  The Admiral ranged up on the quarter and tried to board, but was obliged to sheer off, with the loss of many men and a bowsprit shot away.  The Vice-Admiral tried to board at the bow, but with no better success, losing a foreyard and mizzen-mast.  For five hours the engagement lasted, but the small-arm men in the Caesar’s tops fired so well that the pirates could hardly serve their guns.  The crew showed a wonderful spirits cheering loudly at every successful shot, till the discomfited pirates bore up, leaving the Caesar to pursue her way to Bombay, much knocked about as to hull, but having lost only one man killed and eight wounded.

In the following year came news to Surat of two vessels, under Danish colours, that had stopped English ships and seized native ones between Surat and Bombay.  The Phoenix, a British man-of-war, was at Surat at the time, so, together with the Kent, East Indiaman, it was despatched to look after the marauders, taking with them also two small boys, sent to represent the French and the Dutch.  In due time Captain Tyrrell returned, and reported that he had found a squadron of four vessels; that after a two days’ chase he had brought them to, when they turned out to be two Danish ships, with two prizes they had taken.  They showed him their commission, authorizing them to make reprisals on the Mogul’s subjects for affronts offered to Danish traders; so he left them alone.  A few months later the Portuguese factory at Cong, in the Persian Gulf, was plundered by an English pirate; another was heard of in the Red Sea, while Philip Babington an Irish pirate, was cruising off Tellichery in the Charming Mary.

By 1689 a number of sea rovers from the West Indies had made their appearance, and the factory at Fort St. George reported that the sea trade was ‘pestered with pirates.’  The first comers had contented themselves with plundering native ships.  Now their operations were extended to European vessels not of their own nationality.  In time this restriction ceased to be observed; they hoisted the red or black flag, with or without the colours of the nationality they affected, and spared no vessel they were strong enough to capture.