A Story of Labous, England, and Taylor

A month later, Boone received intelligence of a serious loss to the Company's trade from the Madagascar pirates. On the 7th August, the Greenwich, Captain Kirby, and the Cassandra, Captain James Macrae, bringing the usual yearly investment for Bombay and Surat, were in Johanna roads, engaged in watering. At anchor, near them, was an Ostend ship that had called for the same purpose. A few days before, they had received intelligence that a French pirate, Oliver la Bouche, had run on a reef off Mayotta and lost his ship, and was engaged in building a new one. Thinking that the opportunity of catching the pirates at a disadvantage should not be lost, Macrae and Kirby agreed to go in search of them and attack them. They had just completed their arrangements when two strange sails hove in sight. They proved to be the Victory, a French-built ship of forty-six guns, commanded by the well-known pirate, Edward England, and the Fancy, a Dutch-built ship of twenty-four guns, commanded by Taylor.

Macrae and Kirby prepared to give them a hot reception, the Ostend ship promising to stand by them. So far were they from simply trying to make their escape that they looked forward to the handsome reward the Company would give them for the capture of the pirates. From what followed it is easy to see that Macrae's was the guiding spirit in this. Cables were cut, and they stood out to sea, but, owing to the light baffling winds, made little way. By next morning the pirates had closed, and bore down with a black flag (skull and crossbones) at the main, a red flag at the fore, and the cross of St. George at the ensign staff. The Greenwich and the Ostender, having a better wind than the Cassandra, had got some distance away. In vain Macrae fired gun after gun at the Greenwich to make Kirby heave to. In a most dastardly way the captain of the Greenwich pursued his course, taking the Ostender with him, till he had got well to windward; when, at a distance of two or three miles, he hove to and watched the fate of the Cassandra.

The Cassandra was a new ship of 380 tons, on her first voyage. Macrae was a thoroughly good seaman, with a fine crew that was attached to him, and was resolved to fight his ship to the last. Early in the engagement he gave the Victory some shots between wind and water, which made England keep off till he had stopped the leaks. Taylor got out the boats of the Fancy and tried to tow her alongside, to carry the Cassandra by boarding, but such good practice was made by the Cassandra's marksmen that the design was given up. At the end of three hours the Victory had repaired damages, and was closing again.

Macrae had lost so many of his crew that, giving up all hope of assistance from Kirby, he determined to run his ship ashore. The Fancy, which drew less water, followed with the intention of boarding, but got aground within pistol-shot, with her bows towards the Cassandra's broadside, and the action recommenced hotter than ever. There the two ships lay, both fast aground, pelting each other furiously, till the crew of the Fancy, finding the Cassandra's fire too hot for them, left their guns and ran below. Had Kirby come to his assistance at this moment, Macrae's triumph would have been assured; but this was the moment chosen by Kirby to bear up and shape his course for Bombay.

England in the Victory, seeing that the Greenwich might be disregarded, sent three boats full of men to reinforce the Fancy; by which time there had been so many killed and wounded on board the Cassandra that the crew, losing heart, refused to fight the ship any longer. Thirteen had been killed and twenty-four wounded, among the latter Macrae himself, who had been struck by a musket ball on the head; so some in the long boat and some by swimming reached the shore, leaving on board three wounded men who could not be moved, and who were butchered by the pirates.

Not deeming it safe to linger on the coast, Macrae and his crew hastened inland, reaching the town of the local chief, twenty-five miles off, the following morning. Exhausted with fatigue and wounds, almost naked, they were in a pitiable condition. The natives received them hospitably, supplied their wants to the best of their ability, and refused to surrender them to the pirates, who offered a reward for them.

After the first rage of the pirates at the heavy losses they had sustained, had abated, and [had been] soothed, no doubt, by the capture of a fine new ship with £75,000 on board in hard cash, Macrae ventured to open communications with them. Several among them had sailed with him, and his reputation for considerate treatment of his men was well known. With all their faults, they were not all of them men to resent greatly, after their first fury had cooled, the loss that had been suffered in fair fight; so England gave him a promise of safety, and he ventured himself among them. The Cassandra and the Fancy had been floated, and Macrae was entertained on board his own ship with his own liquors and provisions.

His position was not without danger, as there were many brutal fellows among the pirates. England, who had a reputation for good treatment of prisoners, befriended him; but Taylor, whose influence was greatest among the most brutal of the rovers, insisted he should be made an end of. In the midst of the quarrel, a fierce-looking fellow with a wooden leg and his belt full of pistols, intervened, asking with many oaths for Macrae, who thought his last moment had come. He was pleasantly surprised when the ruffian took him by the hand, and swore with many oaths that he would make mince-meat of the first man that hurt him; and protested, with more oaths, that Macrae was an honest fellow, and he had formerly sailed with him. So the dispute ended. Taylor was plied with punch till he was prevailed on to consent that the Fancy, together with some of the Cassandra's cargo, should be given to Macrae, and before he could recover from his carouse, Macrae had got safe to shore again.

As soon as the pirates had left the coast, in the Victory and the Cassandra, Macrae set to work to patch up the much-battered Fancy, and in a few days sailed for Bombay, with forty-one of his ship's company, among whom were two passengers and twelve soldiers. After forty-eight days of terrible sufferings almost naked, half starved, and reduced to a daily pint of water each, they reached Bombay on the 26th October. It would have been well for the Company if they had had more captains like Macrae. His arrival brought much obloquy on Kirby, whose shameful desertion was now made known.

From:  The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago, by John Biddulph, 1907.