European states and the problem of maritime piracy, 1450-1750:

two historical studies.[to come out as a monograph in the Research

in Maritime History series, Memorial University, Newfoundland, Canada]

Piracy as a feature of European history: Mediterranean villages perchés

Fayence, Var, France. Vrisnik, Hvar, Croatia.

Fortified church of Sveti Marija, Vrboska, Otok Hvar dating from 1580s.

Pirates (from top left clockwise): Barbary corsairs, portrait by Pier Francesco Mola, 1650; Sir Henry Morgan, Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica, 1674-1688; Luso-Indian pirates flying Siamese flag with Malay crew, Ananda Ok-Kyaung temple murals; Anne Bonny, an Irish-

American tearaway (1697-1720).

Portuguese maritime world, 1500-1800.

Janjira sea fort, western India (one-time base of Kanhoji Angria, `pirate’ or `Lord High Admiral of the Maratha fighting fleet’, 1690s).

The Portuguese failure to address piracy. • Monopoly rights to `navigation’ granted by papal bull of 1455, but

contested both legally and in practice by jealous European powers like England and Spain and privateers operating under `letters of marque’ in the mid-Atlantic, off West Africa and on the trade run up to Antwerp.

• Indiscriminate violence in the Indian Ocean only stirred a violent response, which was allowed to consolidate piratic societies (the Mappilah).

• Office of `Provedor das Armadas da Índia, Brasil e Guiné’ established at Angra (Azores) in 1520, but threadbare by the time of the Anglo-Spanish War of 1585-1604. Convoys for private traders had to be self-organised; royal licensing scheme well-intentioned but offered little practical support; viagens de rota batida becamethe norm.

• International tribunals (Bayonne, 1535) ineffectual; pay-offs of well-placed French admirals and court officials led nowhere.

A more successful example: the Royal Navy and the end of the `Golden Age of Piracy’ (1690-1725)

• A global approach to piracy from a self-conscious global trading power. Pirates were apprehended and brought back to London, not tried in the colonies, where there were often special interests present.

• Royal Navy became a sizeable (48.000 seamen in 1713), regular, professional body: part of government (via Admiralty), with its own courts, paid from regular subsidies voted through Parliament.

• Legislation: `Act for the More Effectual Suppression of Piracy’ (1700); bounties for pirate-hunters; tough penalties (Execution Dock, Wapping & gibbetting), alternating with royal pardons, conditional on pirates entering the armed forces in lieu of trial.

• Propaganda war so that other European nations became allies against a `common enemy’, especially after Treaty of Utrecht (1713).

• Localised regime change (e.g. Adolf Esmit of Danish Virgin Islands removed, 1684).

• Piracy did not affect British trade growth over the `long 18th century’

Numbers Displacement tons (000s)

Year Line of Battle Cruisers British French Dutch

1680 95 20 129 132 64

1690 83 26 124 141 68

1695 112 46 172 208 106

1700 127 49 196 195 113

1710 123 57 201 171 119

1715 119 63 201 108 98

1720 102 53 174 48 22

1730 105 49 189 73 73

1740 101 58 195 91 91

1745 104 98 231 98 55

1750 115 108 276 115 41

1755 117 108 277 162 113

1760 135 172 375 156 137

1765 139 136 377 175 124

1770 126 112 350 219 165

1775 117 115 337 199 198

1780 117 187 372 271 196

1785 137 181 447 268 211

1790 145 180 459 314 242

1800 127 264 546 204 127

1805 135 569 182 139

1810 152 390 726 194 100

1815 126 616 228 60

The 18th century growth in English trade.

The 18th century growth in English trade

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

1699

1702

1705

1708

1711

1714

1717

1720

1723

1726

1729

1732

1735

1738

1741

1744

1747

1750

1753

1756

1759

1762

1765

1768

1771

1774

years

Th

ou

sa

nd

s o

f £

s Total exports and re-exports

Total exports

Source: Walter Minchinton, The growth of English overseas trade in the 17th & 18th centuries, London: Methuen, 1969.