Though they plied their calling at sea, almost with impunity, the pirates occasionally fell victims to Oriental treachery on shore.  Thus, James Gilliam, a rover, having put into Mungrole, on the Kattiawar coast, was made welcome and much praised for the noble lavishness with which he paid for supplies.  Soon there came an invitation to a banquet, and Gilliam, with some of his officers and crew, twenty in all, were received by the representative of the Nawab of Junaghur with excessive ceremony.  Much polite curiosity was evinced about the noble strangers.  “Why did they always go armed?  Were their muskets loaded?  Would they discharge them to show their host the European method?” The muskets were discharged, and immediately the banquet was announced.  “Delay to reload the muskets was inexpedient.  It would be time to recharge their weapons after the feast.”  And then, when seated and defenceless, there was an irruption of armed men, and Gilliam, with his followers, were seized and fettered.  For a year they lay at Junaghur, where two of them died.  In vain Gilliam contrived to send a letter to the Surat factory, asking that they might be claimed as British subjects.  President Harris knew that the least interest shown in the fate of the rovers would be fatal to the interests of the Company, and was relieved when he heard that they had been sent to Aurungzeeb’s camp; after which they are heard of no more.

In the beginning of 1692, authority was given to the Company’s commanders to seize pirates and hold them till the King’s pleasure was known, but the measure was of small effect.  The pirates were prime seamen, who outsailed and outfought the Company’s ships; while among the Company’s crews they had numerous sympathizers.  The prizes to be gained were so great and the risks so small, that the Company could hardly restrain their own men from joining the sea rovers.  Thus, in 1694, John Steel[1] ran away with the long boat of the Ruby frigate.  Sixteen others who had plotted to join him were detected in time, and clapped in irons.  The French and Dutch gave passes to all who applied for them, so Steel placed himself under French protection, and for two years ‘that rogue Steel’ finds frequent mention in the coast letters.  Four years later Steel was arrested in England.  But though the directors had been supplied with many accounts of his misdeeds, no sworn evidence could be produced against him, so Steel escaped scot-free.

All other pirates, however, were destined to be eclipsed in fame by Henry Every, alias Bridgman,[2] who now made his appearance in the Indian seas.  His exploits, the great wealth he amassed by piracy, and his reputed marriage with a Mogul princess, continued to excite the public mind long after he had disappeared from the scene.  Several biographies of him were written, one of them attributed to Defoe, all of them containing great exaggerations; and a play, The Successful Pirate, was written in his honour.