Henry Every

Emerging from the Golden Age of Piracy, Henry Every would eventually become known as “The King of Pirates.” However, after managing to disappear amidst a global manhunt, his fate remains unknown centuries later…

Piracy, the practice of attacking and robbing ships at sea, has existed for nearly as long as transportation itself.

Thousands of years ago, in the Late Bronze Age, a mysterious band of people known only as the "Sea People" attacked and raided ships and ports throughout the Mediterranean. They ended up changing the course of humankind, for better or worse, and were among the most high-profile examples of piracy in their day and age. They were followed more than two millennia later by the Vikings - a culture built almost entirely around the concept of piracy - whose violent nature ended up reshaping the entirety of Europe.

In addition to these two, there remain hundreds of examples of pirates throughout human history... but when most of us think of pirates, our mind jumps to what is commonly known as the Golden Age of Piracy. This was the time period between roughly 1650 and 1730, in which pirates began to harass navies and traders making the long, perilous journey between the Old World and the New, as European interests began spreading outward to the East and towards the Americas. These vast distances being traversed by ships provided pirates with the opportunity to strike, and the conflicts that had been stewing among these European nations for decades (if not centuries) - paired with the lax control they held over their burgeoning colonies thousands of miles away - provided pirates with the perfect market to sell their wares.

Many well-known pirates would surface during this Golden Age of Piracy; many whose notoriety lives on to this day. This includes Henry Morgan (immortalized as "Captain Morgan"), "Calico" Jack Rackham and his partner/lover Anny Bonny, "Black" Bart Roberts, and Edward Teach himself (more commonly known as "Blackbeard").

Among them, however, was an individual who isn't as well-known today, but whose impact upon the world remains just as large (if not greater than the rest). He was one of the first pirates to achieve international notoriety - becoming the first known global fugitive - who helped bring about the Golden Age of Piracy by inspiring Blackbeard and some of the other names you might be familiar with.

He was a man who embraced the savage world of piracy, earning himself the reputation of being the "King of Pirates"; who managed to escape with not only his riches but - more importantly - his life.

This is the story of Henry Every.

The origins of the individual known as Henry Every remain clouded in doubt, but we can surmise a lot about his early life from what was later written about him.

Every was believed to have been born in August of 1659, in Newton Ferrers, a small village just outside of Plymouth (in the English county of Devon). There, he most likely grew up as a member of the relatively-affluent Everys of Devonshire, but an extended member of the family (not among the individuals that lived in Wycroft Castle).

Every's date-of-birth has been disputed over time, with other potential years being floated around: such as 1653 and 1665. However, the 1659 date is what most historians tend to stick to since it makes the most sense in Every's story.

Henry Every was believed to have been the only child of John and Anne Every. While his mother's maiden name remains unknown, it was believed that his father, John, was a wealthy sailor that had once served in the Royal Navy but had gone on to earn a small fortune in the liquor trade afterward. Since Henry was the only child of their pairing, it is believed that his parents wanted to provide him with the best upbringing and education possible, and they doted upon him throughout his youth.

However, according to legend, Henry Every only ever wanted one thing in his life: to live out on the sea. So, as soon as he came of age, he decided to end his education and follow in his father's footsteps by enlisting in the Royal Navy.

It's important to note that, at this point, England's Royal Navy was not quite the superpower that it would later become known as. Throughout the early 17th century, Barbary corsairs had been launching assaults on coastal villages throughout England, capturing slaves and damaging the integrity of the crown (which led to national unrest and dissent). King Charles I had attempted to create a grand navy to push back against these forces, but funding such a force turned out to be a headache. Despite not having the funds on-hand to create such a navy, King Charles continued anyways, and this was one of the many contributing factors that led to the English Civil War (which resolved itself just a short time before Henry Every's birth).

By the time Henry enlisted more than a decade later, the Royal Navy had been created, which no longer existed under the thumb of the crown, but rather, as a national institution of England itself.

It's not known when, exactly, Henry Every decided to enlist, but rumors would later be propagated about his involvement in certain military actions. Some believed him to have participated in the English attack on Algiers in 1671; while others said he sailed around the newly-discovered Caribbean as a privateer, transporting goods to-and-from the New World. Most of this is based on rumor and hearsay, published years after the fact, so it's hard to separate fact from fiction.

However, it is believed that by the time Henry Every later came to prominence, he was married to a woman named Dorothy Arther, whom he supposedly married while serving in the Royal Navy. While the two didn't have any known children, he was a dedicated family man that often sent his wages home to his wife (unlike his cohorts, Every wasn't known to partake in heavy drinking or tobacco usage).

The sailor named Henry Every finally came to official prominence while he was serving aboard the HMS Rupert, a 64-gun battleship under the command of Sir Francis Wheeler. There, he had risen to the rank of midshipman, and was known to participate in many of the ship's actions throughout 1689 and the following year (1690). The Nine Years' War had kicked off in 1688 and resulted in a European coalition aimed at deposing France's King Louis XIV.

In the early months of 1689, while most of the fighting was focused around France's border, the HMS Rupert ended up capturing a large convoy of French ships just off of the coast of Brest. This ended up being a boon for the ship's captain and crew; including Every, who was later promoted to Master's mate as a result.

The following year (1690), Sir Francis Wheeler left to command a 90-gun gunship, taking many of his former-crew with him (including Every). Aboard this new gunship, they would participate in the infamous Battle of Beachy Head in the English Channel, where a combined English and Dutch force would unsuccessfully face off against the brunt of the French navy. This resulted in the loss of more than 10 ships in total for the English and Dutch, while the French lost none, and would end up being one of the most resounding losses for England in the Nine Years' War.

The month after this battle (August 1690), many of the men that had survived were discharged from the Royal Navy. This included Henry Every, who was still young and yearned to live his life at sea. Over the next few years, he would eke out a living on the ocean, which began to take him further into the depths of immorality and illegality.

After being cast out of the Royal Navy, Henry Every set his sights upon the slave trade; which, at this point in history, was booming... but was also heavily-regulated.

Companies such as the Royal African Company maintained a monopoly over the slave trade, selling licenses to aspiring slave traders at an exorbitant cost. Every, who had come from an upper-middle-class family, was either unwilling or unable to pay these fees and decided to forego the license in his pursuit of obtaining and selling slaves. Despite Every never obtaining a license to purchase and sell slaves, records indicate that he was well-known to other slave traders along the African coast.

Henry Every had begun to operate under the name "Benjamin Bridgeman," which would become known as his main alias. His fellow crew-members referred to him as "Long Ben," which referenced his long frame as well as a shortened version of his alias. Under these names, Every had begun to sail under the English flag, oftentimes using it to lure in other slavers that took him to be a friend. Under this guise, Every and his men would quickly seize control of the slaver's ships, taking them captive along with their slaves (whom they later sold off in the Bahamas and Bermuda).

For this reason, Every was not well-liked by fellow slavers, and his reputation began to precede him. While very little of this was documented in written records at the time, these rumors would survive long after Every's subsequent exploits... as his involvement in the slave trade is believed to have been his stepping stone into full-scale piracy.

Spanish Expedition Shipping was a private venture launched by investors from London, who purchased four ships: the Seventh Son, Dove, James, and Charles II. The venture had received a commission from King Charles II of Spain (hence the namesake of the convoy's flagship), who wanted the ships to prey upon French vessels in the West Indies. There, they would be responsible for protecting Spain's interest (as well as their ally, England's), and harass French vessels; bringing back whatever spoils of war they could seize.

In an era full of privateers - which was essentially legitimate piracy - this was a rather legitimate job for someone like Henry Every, who had failed to turn a profit after spending roughly three years in the illegitimate slave trade. He decided to join up with Spanish Expedition Shipping in the summer of 1693 (shortly it was set to launch), and because of his prior naval experience, he received the starting rank of first mate.

However, Every - and the rest of the men he was serving with - would soon begin to experience the mismanagement of the entire expedition. Everyone aboard was paid their first month upfront, but would then be paid every six months throughout their deployment... a decision that would ultimately prove costly for everyone involved.

For the expedition's maiden voyage, they were sailing the small four-ship fleet from England to Spain. This was supposed to take no longer than a fortnight - two weeks at the most - but ended up taking upwards of five months due to a series of setbacks: not only mismanagement but serious misfortune. After leaving England in August of 1693, the fleet would not arrive in Spain until well into 1694... but that is only where the bad luck began.

After arriving at the Spanish port city of Corunna, the crew aboard the four ships discovered that the expedition's letter of marque had not yet arrived, which would officially license them as privateers of the Spanish government. So, until the papers got there, they had to simply stay put in the port; unable to leave their ships for any long duration of time, and unable to pursue work off-ship. At the end of the first six months, they had also not yet gotten paid, resulting in them living in squalor, and being unable to send any money home to their families.

Essentially, the crew aboard the four ships was living in captivity. Many men feared that they had been betrayed by the expedition's leadership, and were going to be sold into slavery themselves.

This would carry on for a matter of months, with the crew having to blindly trust the expedition's leader, Admiral Sir Don Arturo O'Byrne: an Irish nobleman who had previously served in the Spanish Navy Marines. While his prior service led to him receiving a lot of respect from the crew early on, that respect would continue to deteriorate with each passing day, as the men had to endure without pay. Needless to say, after months spent locked inside of a Spanish port, any support that Admiral O'Byrne might have once commanded was gone.

It wasn't until May of 1694 - nearly a year after leaving England - that the four-ship fleet finally began preparing to leave. At this point, none of the crew had been paid since the prior August, and the men banded together, threatening to strike if they did not get paid. They ultimately brought their terms to Admiral O'Byrne, who - at first - seemed to show support for them, but quickly turned hostile against the crewmen. This is when serious talk of mutiny began, and among the voices gathering support on the four ships, Henry Every's was among the loudest.

William Phillips, a crewman that served aboard the Dove, later testified that Every went:

"... up & down from Ship to Ship & persuaded the men to come on board him, & he would carry them where they should get money enough..."

After wasting nearly a year of these men's lives, they had finally had enough.

On the evening of May 7th, 1694 (Monday), Admiral O'Byrne planned to spend the night away from the ships. He was sleeping ashore, and his absence created the perfect vacuum for the mutineers to strike.

At around 9:00 PM, Henry Every and roughly twenty-five others abandoned their posts, rushing onto the Charles II. Once aboard, they quickly seized control of the vessel without any bloodshed, quietly closing its hatches and securing its crewmen inside of their rooms. As they prepared for the ship to set out to the open seas - raising the anchor and preparing the sails - Henry Every approached the bedridden captain and told him:

"You must know, that I am captain of this ship now, and this is my cabin, therefore you must walk out; I am bound to Madagascar, with a design of making my own fortune, and that of all the brave fellows joined with me."

The captain of the James, another ship in the fleet, quickly noticed the mutiny taking place, having witnessed the desertion of his own men in real-time. He ordered his ship to fire upon the ship that Every and his men had just seized, but it was too late; the Charles II was able to quickly make its escape from the Spanish port and disappeared into the moonless night.

The vessel sailed out into the open ocean for several hours, before Every and his men gave the non-conspirators trapped aboard the ship a choice: to either join them or be let ashore at the first opportunity. Many decided to join in with the mutineers, but a few relented; including the ship's captain, Charles Gibson, who had been given the same option as the rest of the men.

Gibson, who had been bedridden at the time of the mutiny, was taken aback by the mutiny itself. While it has never been revealed how or why he had become bedridden, rumors persevere to this day that he was a drunk, who - as newspapers reported in the 19th century - was:

"... mightily addicted to punch."

Yet, despite this, Captain Gibson still commanded a great deal of respect from the mutineers, and Henry Every even offered to let him keep his role as captain, as long as he agreed to stand by the mutiny. According to the author Charles Ellms, who wrote about this in the early 19th century, Every told Gibson:

"... if you have a mind to make one of us, we will receive you; and if you turn sober, and attend to business, perhaps in time I may make you up of my lieutenants; if not, here's a boat, and you shall be set on shore..."

Gibson was just one of a handful that relented against the offer of piracy, and they were all later set free without incident. However, the men who decided to remain aboard the ship - who supported the mutiny and wanted to pursue a life of piracy - unanimously elected Henry Every as their new captain. As one of his first acts, he decided to rename the ship Charles II to the Fancy: a name that he thought not only defined the ship itself but the lives that those aboard would someday lead.

After leading a mutiny against Spanish Expedition Shipping, Captain Henry Every and his men - who numbered about 85 in total - decided to sail away from Europe, towards the Indian Ocean.

About a year prior, the pirate Thomas Tew had managed to ambush a large vessel en route from India to the Ottoman Empire, which had been carrying more than £100,000 in gold and silver (as well as ivory tusks, spices, gems, jewels, and silk). Captain Every and his men would follow in Tew's footsteps and pursue a life of piracy, with the pay being distributed pretty evenly: for every one piece of treasure that the crew-members received, Captain Every would receive two pieces, and they would divvy up the loot that way.

The year prior, Thomas Tew had helped create a path that future pirates could follow, which would later become known as the Pirate Round: a sailing route that led from Europe to India, wrapping around the southern tip of Africa, sailing through Madagascar, and managing to avoid the lanes typically used by other privateers and the East India Company. Captain Every and his men would begin to follow this precise route, as they prepared to pursue their fortune.

Following the mutiny in the latter half of 1694, Henry Every would have a poem published in London, titled "A Copy of Verses." In this poem, he called upon Englishmen to join his crew, promising to "glut them with gold" should they join him on his journey. He ended the poem with the verse:

"Now this is the Course I intend for to steer;
My false-hearted nation, to you I declare,
I have done thee no wrong, thou must me forgive,
The Sword shall maintain me as long as I live."

As the mutineers made their way to the Indian Ocean, they began to commit their first acts of piracy; which mainly comprised of harassing small merchants and villages along Africa's western coast. There, they took numerous slaves, and actually bolstered their ranks with experienced sailors... oftentimes giving the men aboard the ships they raided an option: join them or die. Within a month, they had increased the size of their force to nearly a hundred.

The Fancy then sailed into the port of Bioko, a small island just off the coast of (what is today) Cameroon. There, the crew began to careen and cut down the number of docks on the Fancy, which would make it sleeker: not only making it a quicker ship, but much more maneuverable. It would soon become known throughout the region as being one of the fastest ships on the ocean... a reputation that was not just given but earned.

After leaving Bioko, Captain Every continued sailing south, towards the Cape of Good Hope; which, at the time, marked the dividing line between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Along the way, they could continue to engage in small acts of piracy, raiding Dutch and French vessels. This not only provided loot for the crew but also bolstered their ranks, with many of the Dutch and French sailors they attacked choosing to join the pirates. They now had a force of about 150 fighting men, which - paired with a ship of the Fancy's size and speed - made them a formidable force as they entered the waters of the Indian Ocean.

The Fancy would begin to sail up the eastern coast of Africa, eventually stopped in Madagascar for supplies. At the time, Madagascar was known as a haven for pirates in the Indian Ocean; similar to the roles that Jamaica and Tortuga had played in the Caribbean. Here, Every would write out a formal declaration to English sailors, pledging not to attack or kill any of them if they flew the King's Colours.

However, it is not believed that sailors - particularly English sailors - took much stock in this warning, as Every had already attacked numerous English vessels during his travels and was an active fugitive of the Crown (having mutinied against an English company and stolen their ship). Years later, historians would speculate that this declaration was nothing but a ruse from Henry Every, who hoped to avoid attracting the attention of the East India Company; who, at this point, controlled a large chunk of the trade throughout the Indian Ocean.

After leaving the Comoro Islands, Every and his men set course for the island of Perim; a lifeless rock that sits at the entrance of the Red Sea, just off the coast of Yemen (what was then the Ottoman Empire). There, Every and his crew began to patiently wait; not only for their prey but for allies to present themselves. And oh, did they.

Captain Every was soon joined by five other pirate captains, who were employed as privateers at the time. This included: the aforementioned Thomas Tew, Joseph Faro, Richard Want, William Mayes, and Thomas Wake. Among them, they commanded just under 300 men; which, when paired with Every's crew, brought the number of their fighting force to around 440 men. This was a formidable fleet, no matter how you sliced it.

Even though Henry Every was the only captain among them that was not a privateer (he was actually a fugitive to the Crown at the time), he was elected as the leader of this ragtag group of pirate misfits. Here, lying in wait on the island of Perim, these men would prepare for the act that would go on to define their lives - and in some cases, end them - one of the largest acts of piracy of all-time.

From his prior experience in sailing the Indian Ocean (mainly his failed venture as a slave-trader), Henry Every had learned about some of the local traditions and customs. Among them was the annual trip that Muslims would make every year, traveling to Mecca in the spring and summer months. Every knew that many of the wealthy Muslims would often travel by sea, through the Gulf of Aden and up the Red Sea, where they had to sail by Perim Island... which was, conveniently, where Every and his allies now lie in wait.

This pirate fleet knew that the ships sailing by would be well-protected, likely guarded by numerous gunships. But with their speed and numbers, they could conceivably overrun some of the slower ships, surround them, and then loot them for all they were worth.

Having arrived at Perim in August of 1695, Captain Every and his men knew that a fleet belonging to the Grand Mughal of India would soon begin sailing through, on their way to Mecca (in what is now Saudi Arabia). Inside those ships would be plunder beyond their wildest dreams; likely enough to set up each of the pirates with a comfortable retirement.

At this point in history, the Grand Mughal of India - Emperor Aurangzeb, who ruled over the entire Indian subcontinent - was one of the wealthiest individuals in the entire world. His empire was rumored to command a wealth more than ten times the value of France, and any fleet under his command would likely contain an extreme amount of wealth... which was more than worth the risk to this coalition of pirates.

After lying in wait for several days, opportunity soon presented itself in the form of a 25-ship Mughal fleet, which was sailing out towards the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden, having come from the Indian port city of Surat. This fleet actually managed to sail past Perim in the cover of night, but the pirate fleet would begin to give chase, hoping to make up ground before the Mughal fleet slipped away into the Red Sea.

While pursuing the Indian ships, battles would begin to break out between the fleets; with the pirate Thomas Tew perishing in the chaotic first few hours. Tew, the notorious buccaneer that had inspired Every to pursue a life of piracy in the Indian Ocean, was reportedly disemboweled by a blast from a cannon; and his ship, the Amity, would break off from the rest of the fleet, never to be seen again.

Several other ships would break off from the pirate coalition in their pursuit of the Indian fleet, including the Dolphin - captained by Richard Want - which started to fall behind, and was later scuttled and burned by the crew (who joined the crew of the Fancy); as well as the Suzanna - captained by Thomas Wake - which fell behind early on, but would eventually rejoin the pirate fleet days later. All the while, the Mughal fleet would suffer losses of their own, and the scattered pursuit by the pirates led to ships of varying sizes and speeds breaking off from the rest.

Within just a few days, the pirates caught up with one of the Indian ships: a 600-ton vessel named the Fateh Muhammed, which was owned by one of the wealthiest merchants in India, Abdul Ghafur (whose wealth at the time was relatively equal to the entirety of the East India Company). Due to the Fateh Muhammed suffering significant losses during an early skirmish with Thomas Tew's Amity, the crew put up very little resistance to the boarding pirates. Captain Every and his men quickly took control of the vessel and began to loot everything they could get their hands on: which, they would find, amounted to roughly £55,000 in treasure. This was more than enough to provide a single crew with significant riches, but when it was split up by the hundreds of men that made up the entire fleet, it came out to a relatively small average.

So the pirate fleet continued and started to make up ground on another ship, which turned out to be the largest in the Mughal fleet: a 1600-ton vessel with 80 guns called the Ganj-i-sawai (often anglicized as the "Gunsway"). Days after looting the first Indian ship, Captain Every's Fancy and the other three pirate ships caught up to the Ganj-i-sawai and prepared themselves for a hard-fought, violent siege at sea. The large Mughal gunship prepared to put up a valiant fight against the pirates, but a lucky shot from the Fancy at the onset of their back-and-forth managed to destroy the enemy's mainmast, rendering it immovable.

Now the pirate fleet began to circle the Ganj-i-sawai like vultures and experienced a second lucky stroke of fate when one of the heavy cannons inside of the Mughal ship exploded. This instantly killed many of the crew and fighting men that had been preparing below-deck, and started a fire aboard the ship that began to quickly spread. Even though the ship had held nearly 400 armed guards at the time it left port, many of them had either died or been consumed by the chaos surrounding them, as Captain Every and his men prepared to strike.

The men aboard the Fancy began scaling the sides of the Mughal vessel and started a vicious battle that would resolve itself over the next several hours. While the Fancy had been originally supported by five pirate ships, only three had survived the pursuit; and among them, only one - the Pearl - supported them as they boarded the intimidating Mughal ship. The others remained too cowardly to approach, fearing that the pirates would be overwhelmed by the fighting men inside of the oversized Indian vessel.

The captain of the Ganj-i-sawai, Captain Muhammad Ibrahim, would later write that he and his men fought valiantly against the pirates, with Ibrahim later testifying that:

"... many of the enemy were sent to hell..."

That much was true. Captain Every and his invading pirates were estimated to have lost more than a hundred men as they fought the guards aboard the Ganj-i-sawai, but they were able to fight their way throughout the entire ship and eventually forced a surrender. By the evening, Every's men had taken control of the ship, but the battle to get there had been vicious and bloody... and the hours and days that followed the fighting would be no better.

After the captain and crew of the Ganj-i-sawai surrendered, Captain Every and the remaining pirates would begin to subject those aboard to overwhelming brutality. Those that had fought against them received beatings and were later killed horrifically. The women aboard the craft were raped repeatedly by the pirates, and some were even taken captive by the pirates afterward. It was even reported that some women aboard the ship decided to commit suicide before they could be taken, fearing the sadism that awaited them should they survive. And anyone believed to have information about additional treasure - which they might have hidden in secret compartments aboard the ship - were viciously tortured until they told the pirates what they wanted to hear.

In the end, the pirate fleet would make off with somewhere around £500,000 in gold, silver, jewels, and Indian currency; a total that is worth approximately £90 million in today's money. Because Captain Every's crew had received very little assistance from the other pirates in their taking of the vessel, they weren't required to share any of this wealth with the rest of the fleet.

So the spoils of the Ganj-i-sawai were shared primarily among Captain Every and his remaining men; who, reportedly, also took a relative of the Mughal Emperor captive. She was rumored to be a daughter or granddaughter of Emperor Aurangzeb, but Captain Every reportedly told his men that she was worth more than the rest of the treasure combined. Because this young woman's identity has never been confirmed in the centuries since, her fate remains as much of a mystery as her name.

All-in-all, this would turn out to be one of the largest acts of piracy of all-time. When compared to the largest robberies ever, it is still among the largest (when accounting for inflation). Because this was so much money for the time, it made Henry Every the richest pirate in the entire world... and also transformed him into the first global fugitive.

After laying waste to several ships in the Mughal fleet, the survivors aboard them would slowly make their way back to India; arriving at the port city of Surat in a deteriorated condition. The trauma of what had been inflicted upon them - both physically and emotionally - was incalculable.

From there, word would begin to spread about the heinous violence that had been perpetrated upon these men, women, and children; all of whom had been pilgrims heading to their holy land of Mecca.

Khafi Khan, an Indian historian that lived at the time, later wrote about the atrocities perpetrated by the victorious pirate fleet:

"The whole of the ship came under their control and they carried away all the gold and silver. After having remained engaged for a week, in searching for plunder, stripping the men of their clothes and dishonoring the old and young women, they left the ship and its passengers to their fate. Some of the women getting an opportunity, threw themselves into the sea to save their honor while others committed suicide using knives and daggers."

John Sparkes, one of the pirates that participated in the debauchery, later confessed before his death that the:

"...inhuman treatment and merciless tortures inflicted on the poor Indians and their women still affected his soul..."

In the wake of this atrocity, Englishmen and women living in India were arrested; held in custody primarily for their own protection, as thousands in India began to demand blood. Local officials began pleading for the Mughal Emperor to seek vengeance against the heathens that had committed these crimes, and he seemed willing to oblige them: for a time, he seriously considered ordering an attack on the majority-English city of Bombay (which housed the East India Company), and he threatened to expel England's people and companies from his empire unless they paid compensation.

At the time, the East India Company was struggling to recover from the disastrous Child's War, which had tanked its wealth and power throughout the Indian Ocean. Now, after Henry Every's act of piracy, their entire business model was threatened, as the Mughal Emperor was now holding them responsible for not only compensating the victims but bringing Every and the pirates to justice.

After some negotiating, the East India Company agreed to pay all financial reparations, and brought forth a petition to the floor of Parliament, which named Every and his fellow pirates "enemies of the human race." A £500 bounty was placed on Every's head by the Privy Council of Scotland, and that would later be doubled by the East India Company; bringing the total reward to £1000 (which is about £250,000 in today's money). For the time, this was one of the largest rewards that had ever been offered by the Crown, as they were desperate to bring Every to justice so that they could begin to repair their relationship with the Mughal Emperor and his people.

They also offered total amnesty for anyone that came forward with information about Every and his whereabouts, with only one exception: Every himself could not claim the bounty or receive amnesty. This made it clear to anyone involved that Henry Every was to hang for the actions done under his command.

However, by the time this reward was announced, Captain Every and his men were long gone... having escaped the clutches of the vile East India Company as soon as possible.

After fleeing the scene of the crime, Henry Every and his men sailed for the tiny island of Bourbon; now known as Réunion, just east of Madagascar. They arrived there in November of 1695 and began to divide the spoils of their plunder.

Each man would end up receiving about £1,500 in gold and silver (the equivalent of roughly £200,000 in today's money). This was more than a typical pirate made in an entire lifetime, and these men had managed to steal it just under a week. Each man would also receive a share of the looted gems and jewels, which they could then sell off for further profit. Every's promise from the year prior - to glut each man with "gold enough to dazzle the eyes" - had come to fruition.

Many of the men aboard the Fancy decided to retire then and there, choosing to book their own passage home from Madagascar. This was especially true for many of the French and Danish crew members, who had only joined in the voyage in the preceding months after their own ships had been looted by Every's men along the African coast, but they would return home significantly richer than when they had left.

After some discussion, Every and his remaining crewmen set sail for the New World, choosing to leave behind Africa and India entirely. Primarily, they wanted to avoid the careful eye of the East India Company, who now had added incentive to bring back Every and his followers' heads on a pike. However, before they left the continent of Africa entirely, Every decided to invest a chunk of his newfound wealth in the slave-trade; purchasing roughly 100 slaves before setting sail. At the time, the slave-trade was how many pirates laundered their wealth; as they could invest their stolen earnings in Africa, purchase slaves, and then re-sell them in Europe or the Americas for local currency.

Now following the Pirate Round back to the Atlantic Ocean, Captain Every set a course for the Bahamas, and the Fancy would stop just once more along their voyage: this time, at Ascension Island, a barren spit of land in the middle of the Atlantic, roughly halfway between Africa and South America. There, more than a dozen of Every's crew-members would refuse to sail any further - leaving the ship entirely - and they were left behind. While stopped, however, Every and his men were able to capture several dozen sea turtles, which they would use as a food source for the next several weeks as they sailed up towards the Caribbean.

Captain Every and his men arrived in the Bahamas in March of 1696, anchoring at Royal Island before venturing into the newfound city of Nassau. Once there, Every began to offload his slaves for profit, and then dispatched four of his best men to meet with the governor of the colony, Sir Nicholas Trott, and deliver a letter for him.

In this letter, Every operated under the pseudonym of Henry Bridgeman. He claimed that he and his men were mere interlopers - unlicensed traders that were hoping to avoid entanglements with the English - and began laying the groundwork for a significant bribe, which he was sure - or, at least, he hoped - would convince the governor to let them stay.

Sir Nicholas Trott, who had just assumed control of the colony the year prior (1695), had been fearing an incursion from French forces and had just a few dozen troops at his disposal. For that reason, he was more than happy to let the crew of the Fancy stay in port for an indefinite period, as simply seeing the ship in the harbor would likely convince the French forces to keep their distance. And, if push came to shove, having a few extra dozen men around wouldn't hurt.

The bribe itself was just the icing on the cake for the governor, who accepted the gift willingly. The pirates had left him the Fancy itself: the ship that had guided them through the past two years of piracy. Inside, Governor Trott would find more than 50 tons of ivory tusks, as well as a good amount of gunpowder, ammunition, weapons, and ship anchors - which he was free to do with as he pleased. Trott would eventually sell the goods and have the ship scrapped for parts, destroying evidence that neither Every nor the governor wanted authorities to find.

For the next several months, the relationship between Every, his men, and the governor would remain amicable: with the pirates allowed to lie low under assumed names, while the governor was allowed to bolster his support among the locals while building up more of an infrastructure with his profits. However, due to the area's incredibly low population, the pirates began to quickly grow bored; with them blowing a large chunk of their wares at the few pubs and establishments nearby.

Eventually, word of Henry Every's exploits in the Indian Ocean would make their way to the island, and Governor Trott was unable to avoid the issue any longer. He would issue an arrest warrant for Henry Every and his men, but gave them a head-start, allowing most of the men to escape with a warning.

Out of the 113 men that had accompanied Henry Every to the Bahamas, only 24 would ever be captured by authorities; and among them, only 5 would be executed by the Crown for the vile acts of piracy that they had committed. Among the dozens that managed to escape and avoid detection was none other than Henry Every himself.

While lying low in the Bahamas with his men, Henry Every had given several different accounts of his eventual destination; which, years later, would be theorized to have been an attempt by him to muddy the waters and obscure his true destination... even among the pirates with whom he trusted his life.

After Every and his men split up and began fleeing the Caribbean, many ended up heading to the West Indies, while others began heading up further north, to the American colonies. There, they could either assimilate among the settlers, or book passage back to Europe; likely under assumed names.

It was reported that some of Every's men ended up hitching onto other pirate ships operating in the Atlantic Ocean at the time; including the Sea Flower, which was captained by Joseph Faro, one of the pirates that had participated in the 1695 ambush of the Mujosghul fleet. In June of 1696, Faro's ship would begin sailing to Ireland, and many believe that Every might have booked passage aboard it, hoping to return home to England; where it was rumored Every's wife, Dorothy Arther, was still living.

Over the next several years, many of Every's crewmen would be found or discovered, with roughly 75 of them having fled to the American colonies after leaving the Bahamas. Some would end up settling down in this burgeoning colonies, while 7 were eventually arrested and tried for crimes of piracy between the years of 1697 and 1705. However, none would be convicted of anything, with the settlers at the time not holding any ill will towards the pirates and eventually acquitting them.

An unknown number of Every's men ultimately made it back home to England, but over the next several years, two dozen of them would be arrested and charged with crimes of piracy. Of these 24 men, none were convicted of piracy, but 6 would be successfully tried for their original mutiny aboard the Charles II (the ship that was later renamed and rebuilt into the Fancy). One man was showed leniency, Joseph Dawson (who pleaded guilty), while five of the mutineers were eventually sentenced to death: Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes (the latter of whom was the only one to express remorse for his piracy).

These five men were executed on November 25th, 1696; having been hung right next to the River Thames, where their journey with Spanish Expedition Shipping had started more than three years prior.

Absent among them was Henry Every: the man that had led the pirate coalition against the Mughal fleet and plundered the largest booty in pirate history. After fleeing the Bahamas, the name Henry Every would disappear from all known records, and the man himself was never seen - or heard from - ever again.

"The Life and Adventures of Capt. John Avery" was a manuscript first published in 1709, which documented the life and times of Henry Every under one of the pseudonyms he had used (John Avery). This work was supposedly written by an author named Adrian van Broeck, who would have no other published works, and for the most part, remains an enigma himself. Just like the name "John Avery," it is believed that this was a pseudonym.

This book would claim that Every had been born in 1653, in the village of Cattedown (near Plymouth), and had recounted much of his early life to its author while he was being held prisoner on Every's ship, the Fancy. However, it seems like a lot of the information in this book was either falsified or made up entirely, as the author would then go on to claim that Every was ruling as a pirate king in the African nation of Madagascar: a verifiably untrue claim... but one that romanticized the image of Every and his fellow pirates for many.

This was followed soon thereafter by a play performed in London, at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, which ran for five evenings in 1712. Titled "The Successful Pyrate," the play was written and performed by famous playwright Charles Johnson and was heavily inspired by Henry Every's exploits, which had been exhaustively written about in the preceding years. However, while it was inspired by Every's exploits, it also sanitized a great portion of them, turning his life as a vicious pirate into a comedy; embellishing his vile treatment of the Indians about the Ganj-i-sawai and turning his capture of the Mughal Emperor's female relative into a romance.

John Dennis, an English critic, later critiqued the play for (what he described as) "encouraging Villany."

To this day, the fate of Henry Every - known as "The King of Pirates" by his peers and those that would follow him - remains a mystery.

Over the years, many would claim to know what had happened to him. This includes author Charles Johnson, who many believe to have been a pseudonym for Daniel Defoe, the author of "Robinson Crusoe." Johnson, who claimed to have served as a sailor himself, published a book in 1724 titled "A General History of the Robberies & Murders of the most notorious Pyrates." In it, he claimed that Henry Every had died in poverty in his nation of birth, England, after being swindled out of his wealth by merchants in Bristol.

A reprint of Johnson's book, titled "The History & Lives of all the Most Notorious Pirates and their Crew," was published in 1735, and expanded upon this; claiming that Every had settled in Devon (England) after his great escape, had changed his name, and ended up dying quietly in his sleep in June of 1714. After that, he was supposedly buried in a pauper's grave.

In the centuries since, both of these accounts have been disputed, as many find it unlikely that the author(s) of these books would have learned about Every's death without attempting to claim the bounty on his head. They had likely just heard about Every's death in various rumors over the years, which had built up Every into a larger-than-life character: a "Robin Hood of the sea," if you will, who had ascended from middle-class mediocrity to become the most feared pirate in the world, before settling back into anonymity after obtaining his wealth.

To this day, the fate of Henry Every remains a complete mystery, with him and his wealth disappearing, never to be seen again. However, his impact would continue to be felt upon the world decades after his vanishing act, as his actions would end up inspiring an entire generation of pirates, who took up after him and gave way to the Golden Age of Piracy. This includes such infamous names as Edward Teach (Blackbeard), "Black" Bart Roberts, "Calico" Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, "Black" Samuel Bellamy, Edward "Ned" Low, Walter Kennedy (an Irish pirate that grew up on tales of Henry Every, and later loved to recount them as he awaited the hangman's noose for his own sins), and even Edward England (the definitive pirate, whose skull-and-bones flag is what we envision when we think of pirates). Edward England, in particular, would model his career after Every's, harassing fleets throughout the Indian Ocean and even naming his flagship the Fancy in honor of Every himself.

However, Henry Every's earnings - which he had obtained in just two years - managed to eclipse the rest of them combined. When it came to pirates, Henry Every had not only shattered the mold; he had recreated it in his own image, and over the next century, pirates would come and go without anyone being able to fill it.

Even though Henry Every was not reported to have flown a pirate flag of his own making, the creation of the Jolly Roger was later attributed to him; with modern-day depictions of his flag being used by none other than Captain Jack Sparrow in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise. His legendary tale would even be adapted for the "Uncharted" video game series back in 2016.

In the centuries since his disappearance, Henry Every has been immortalized in numerous books, plays, movies, TV shows, songs, and video games, but to this day, his infamous story remains unresolved.

Episode Information

Writing, research, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Published on on April 12th, 2020

Producers: Maggyjames, Roberta Janson, Ben Krokum, Quil Carter, Peggy Belarde, Laura Hannan, Damion Moore, Amy Hampton, Scott Meesey, Steven Wilson, Scott Patzold, Marie Vanglund, Astrid Kneier, Lori Rodriguez, Victoria Reid, Gabriella Bromley, Jessica Yount, Aimee McGregor, Danny Williams, Sue Kirk, Sara Moscaritolo, Thomas Ahearn, Sydney Scotton, Marion Welsh, Seth Morgan, Alyssa Lawton, Kelly Jo Hapgood, Patrick Laakso, Meadow Landry, Rebecca Miller, Tatum Bautista, and Michelle Guess