Henry Every
Henry Every, also known as Henry Avery, sometimes erroneously given as Jack Avery or John Avery, was an English pirate who operated in the Atlantic and Indian oceans in the mid-1690s. He probably used several aliases throughout his career, including Benjamin Bridgeman, and was known as Long Ben to his crewmen and associates.
Dubbed the Arch Pirate and the King of Pirates by contemporaries, Every was infamous for being one of the very few major pirate captains to escape with his loot without being arrested or killed in battle, and for being the perpetrator of what has been called the most profitable act of piracy in history. Although Every's career as a pirate lasted only two years, his exploits captured the public's imagination, inspired others to take up piracy, and spawned works of literature. He began his pirate career while he was first mate aboard the warship Charles II. As the ship lay anchored in the northern Spanish harbour of Corunna, the crew grew discontented as Spain failed to deliver a letter of marque and Charles IIs owners failed to pay their wages, so they mutinied. Charles II was renamed the Fancy and the crew elected Every its captain.
Every's most famous raid was on a 25-ship convoy of Grand Mughal vessels making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, including the treasure-laden Ghanjah dhow Ganj-i-Sawai and its escort, Fateh Muhammed. On 7 September 1695, joining forces with several pirate vessels, Every commanded the small pirate squadron. They captured up to in precious metals and jewels. This caused considerable damage to England's fragile relations with the Mughals. A combined bounty of £1,000—an immense sum at the time—was offered by the Privy Council and the East India Company for his capture. This is considered the first worldwide manhunt in recorded history.
Although a number of his crew were subsequently arrested, Every himself eluded capture, vanishing from all records in 1696; his whereabouts and activities after this period are unknown. Unconfirmed accounts state he may have changed his name and retired, quietly living out the rest of his life in either Britain or on an unidentified tropical island, while alternative accounts consider Every may have squandered his riches. He is considered to have died sometime between 1699 and 1714; his treasure has never been recovered.
Early life
Background
Modern scholarship suggests Henry Every was born on 20 August 1659 in the village of Newton Ferrers, about southeast of Plymouth, Devon, England. Parish records suggest that he was the son of John Evarie and his wife, Anne, maiden name unknown. The Every family of Devon was quite established at the time, and it is likely he was a kinsman of the Everys of Wycroft Castle. According to the deposition of William Phillips, a member of Every's crew who gave a "voluntary confession" after his capture, in August 1696 Every was "aged about 40 years," his mother lived "near Plymouth," and his wife was a periwig seller who lived "in Ratcliffe Highway." He wed Dorothy Arther at St James Duke's Place in London on 11 September 1690. There is no evidence that he had any children.The earliest biographical account of the man, The Life and Adventures of Capt. John Avery, states that he was born in 1653 in Cattedown, Plymouth. Although this location and date are now known to be incorrect, they have been frequently cited in earlier literature. Another suggested year for Every's birth is 1665, though this too is in error. The memoir's Dutch author, who wrote his account a little over a decade after the pirate had vanished, uses the name Adrian van Broeck, but this is probably a pseudonym. The account tells of Van Broeck's short captivity by Every's crew aboard Fancy, and claims that Every's father was a trading captain who had served in the Royal Navy under Admiral Robert Blake. Several later accounts of Every's life, most prominently Daniel Defoe's , have made reference to the earlier work, but it is of questionable veracity and has been described by the Dictionary of National Biography as "fiction, with scarcely a substratum of fact".
Although a theory existed that Every's birth name was actually Benjamin Bridgeman, especially in light of his nickname "Long Ben", and that "Henry Every" was in fact an alias, modern scholarship has debunked it. It is accepted by historians that "Henry Every" was the pirate's real name, given that he used this name when he entered the Royal Navy. As this was prior to the onset of his piratical career, he would have had no need for an alias. He used the name "Bridgeman" only after committing piracy. Every may have been a cousin of the well-known Every baronets, though this has not been proven conclusively.
Royal Navy service
Every was probably a sailor from his youth, serving on various Royal Navy ships. Popular accounts state that Every served aboard the English fleet bombarding Algiers in 1671, buccaneered in the Caribbean Sea, and even captained a logwood freighter in the Bay of Campeche, although these stories come from Van Broeck's fictional memoir. The substantiated record picks up in March 1689, shortly after the breakout of the Nine Years' War.During the conflict, England and its alliesthe Grand Alliance—Bavaria, the Dutch Republic, the Palatinate, Saxony, and Spainwere waging war against Louis XIV of France in an attempt to contain French expansion, and it was against this background that Every, now in his early thirties, was working as a midshipman aboard the sixty-four gun ship of the line HMS Rupert, then under the command of Sir Francis Wheeler. Every's naval records suggest he was something of a family man, who spent "little of his wages on extras such as tobacco and regularly consigned his pay to his family".
In mid-1689, HMS Rupert helped capture a large French convoy off Brest, France. This victory gave Every an opportunity to better his fortunes and by the end of July he was promoted to Master's mate, although he was probably the most junior of HMS Ruperts three Master's mates. In late June 1690, he was invited to join Captain Wheeler on a new ship, the ninety-gun HMS Albemarle. He likely participated in the Battle of Beachy Head against the French two weeks later, an engagement which ended disastrously for the English. On 29 August of that year, Every was discharged from the Royal Navy.
Every and the slave trade
After his discharge from the navy in 1691, Every became involved in the Atlantic slave trade. He was contract by the governor of Bermuda, Isaac Richier, to transport African slaves from West Africa to the Americas; during this period, Every operated primarily as a slave trader along the Guinea coast. According to English historian Douglas Botting, " a slaver Avery seems to have been more devious than most other practitioners of that sordid craft."In 1693, Every's activities along the Guinea coast had led other slave traders to take notice of him. Captain Thomas Phillips, a Welsh slave trader and captain of the Hannibal, a slave ship in the employ of the Royal African Company, wrote in his journal that "I have no where upon the coast met the negroes so shy as here, which makes me fancy they have had tricks play'd them by such blades as Long Ben, alias Avery, who have seiz'd them and carry'd them away." Every was also known to lure slave traders onto his ship by flying friendly colours, then seizing and chaining them in his ship's hold alongside their captives. Phillips, who according to his own writings had come across Every on more than one occasion—and may have even known him personally—also took note of Every's unusual slave trading commission from Richier, an unpopular royal governor who was later removed from his post in 1693 for misbehaviour. However, historians have noted that this part of Every's life is relatively undocumented.
Piratical career
Spanish Expedition Shipping
In the spring of 1693, several London-based investors led by Sir James Houblon, a wealthy merchant hoping to reinvigorate the stagnating English economy, assembled an ambitious venture known as the Spanish Expedition Shipping. The venture consisted of four warships: the pink Seventh Son, as well as the frigates Dove, James, and Charles II.Charles II had been commissioned by England's ally, Charles II of Spain, the ship's namesake, to prey on French vessels in the West Indies. Under a trading and salvage license from the Spanish, the venture's mission was to sail to the Spanish West Indies, where the convoy would conduct trade, supply the Spanish with arms, and recover treasure from wrecked galleons while plundering the French possessions in the area. The investors promised to pay the sailors well: the contract stipulated a guaranteed monthly wage to be paid every six months throughout the deployment, with the first month's pay paid in advance before the start of the mission. Houblon personally went aboard the ships and met the crew, reassuring them of their pay. All wages up to 1 August 1693, not long before the start of the mission, were paid on that date.
As a result of his previous experience in the navy, Every was promoted to first mate after joining the Spanish Expedition. The convoy's four ships were commanded by Admiral Sir Don Arturo O'Byrne, an Irish nobleman who had previously served in the Spanish Navy Marines. The voyage was soon in trouble, as the flag captain, John Strong, a career mariner who had previously served with Sir William Phips, died while the ship was still in port. Although he was replaced by Captain Charles Gibson, this would not be the last of the venture's misfortunes.
In early August 1693, the four warships were sailing down the River Thames en route to Spain's northern city of Corunna. The journey to Corunna should have taken two weeks, but for some reason, the ships did not arrive in Spain until five months later. The necessary legal documents had apparently failed to arrive from Madrid, so the ships were forced to wait. As months passed and the documents still did not arrive, the sailors found themselves in an unenviable position: with no money to send home to support their families and unable to find alternative sources of employment, they had become virtual prisoners in Corunna.
After a few months in port, the men petitioned their captain for the pay they should have received since their employment began. If this request had been granted, the men would no longer have been tied to the ship and could easily have left, so predictably their petition was denied. After a similar petition to Houblon by the men's wives had failed, many of the sailors became desperate, believing that they had been sold into slavery to the Spanish.
On 1 May, as the fleet was preparing to leave Corunna, the men demanded their six months of pay or threatened to strike. Houblon refused to acquiesce to these demands, but Admiral O'Byrne, seeing the seriousness of the situation, wrote to England asking for the money owed to his men. On 6 May, some of the sailors were involved in an argument with O'Byrne, and it was probably around this time that they conceived of a plan to mutiny and began recruiting others.
One of the men recruiting others was Every. As William Phillips, a mariner on Dove, would later testify, 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." Since Every had a great deal of experience and was also born in a lower social rank, he was the natural choice to command the mutiny, as the crew believed he would have their best interests at heart.