The Pirates Own Book (7 page)

At day break the next morning, finding it necessary to drive the enemy
still further in, to get a nearer view of his defences, I moved forward
the rifle company of the 65th regiment, and after a considerable
opposition from the enemy, I succeeded in forcing him to retire some
distance; but not without disputing every inch of ground, which was well
calculated for resistance, being intersected at every few yards, by
banks and water courses raised for the purpose of irrigation, and
covered with date trees. The next morning the riflemen, supported by the
pickets, were again called into play, and soon established their
position within three and four hundred yards of the town, which with the
base of the hill, was so completely surrounded, as to render the escape
of any of the garrison now almost impossible. This advantage was gained
by a severe loss. Two twenty-four pounders and the two twelves, the
landing of which had been retarded by the difficulty of communication
with the fleet from which we derived all our supplies, having been now
brought on shore, we broke ground in the evening, and notwithstanding
the rocky soil, had them to play next morning at daylight.

Aware, however, that the families of the enemy were still in the town,
and humanity dictating that some effort should be made to save the
innocent from the fate that awaited the guilty; an opportunity was
afforded for that purpose by an offer to the garrison of security to
their women and children, should they be sent out within the hour; but
the infatuated chief, either from an idea that his fort on the hill was
not to be reached by our shot, or with the vain hope to gain time by
procrastination, returning no answer to our communication, while he
detained our messenger; we opened our fire at half past eight in the
morning, and such was the precision of the practice, that in two hours
we perceived the breach would soon be practicable. I was in the act of
ordering the assault, when a white flag was displayed; and the enemy,
after some little delay in assembling from the different quarters of the
place, marched out without their arms, with Hussein Bin Alley at their
head, to the number of three hundred and ninety-eight; and at half past
one P.M., the British flags were hoisted on the hill fort and at the
Sheikh's house. The women and children to the number of four hundred,
were at the same time collected together in a place of security, and
sent on board the fleet, together with the men. The service has been
short but arduous; the enemy defended themselves with great obstinacy
and ability worthy of a better cause.

From two prisoners retaken from the Joassamees, they learnt that the
plunder is made a general stock, and distributed by the chief, but in
what proportions the deponents cannot say; water is generally very
scarce. There is a quantity of fish caught on the bank, upon which and
dates they live. There were a few horses, camels, cows, sheep, and
goats; the greatest part of which they took with them; they were in
general lean, as the sandy plain produces little or no vegetation,
except a few dates and cocoa-nut trees. The pirates who abandoned
Ras-el-Khyma, encamped about three miles in the interior, ready to
retreat into the desert at a moment's warning. The Sheikh of Rumps is an
old man, but looks intelligent, and is said to be the man who advises
upon all occasions the movements of the different tribes of pirates on
the coast, and when he was told that it was the wish of the Company to
put a stop to their piracy, and make an honest people of them by
encouraging them to trade, seemed to regret much that those intentions
were not made known, as they would have been most readily embraced.
Rumps is the key to Ras-el-Khyma, and by its strength is defended from a
strong banditti infesting the mountains, as also the Bedouin Arabs who
are their enemies. A British garrison of twelve hundred men was
stationed at Ras-el-Khyma, and a guard-ship. The other places sent in
tokens of submission, as driven out of their fortresses on the margin of
the sea, they had to contend within with the interior hostile tribes.

The town of Bushire, on the Persian Gulf is seated in a low peninsula of
sand, extending out of the general line of the coast, so as to form a
bay on both sides. One of these bays was in 1816, occupied by the fleet
of a certain Arab, named Rahmah-ben-Jabir, who has been for more than
twenty years the terror of the gulf, and who was the most successful and
the most generally tolerated pirate, perhaps, that ever infested any
sea. This man by birth was a native of Grain, on the opposite coast, and
nephew of the governor of that place. His fellow citizens had all the
honesty, however, to declare him an outlaw, from abhorrence of his
profession; but he found that aid and protection at Bushire, which his
own townsmen denied him. With five or six vessels, most of which were
very large, and manned with crews of from two to three hundred each, he
sallied forth, and captured whatever he thought himself strong enough to
carry off as a prize. His followers, to the number of two thousand, were
maintained by the plunder of his prizes; and as the most of these were
his own bought African slaves, and the remainder equally subject to his
authority, he was sometimes as prodigal of their lives in a fit of anger
as he was of his enemies, whom he was not content to slay in battle
only, but basely murdered in cold blood, after they had submitted. An
instance is related of his having put a great number of his own crew,
who used mutinous expressions, into a tank on board, in which they
usually kept their water, and this being shut close at the top, the poor
wretches were all suffocated, and afterwards thrown overboard. This
butcher chief, like the celebrated Djezzar of Acre, affecting great
simplicity of dress, manners, and living; and whenever he went out,
could not be distinguished by a stranger from the crowd of his
attendants. He carried this simplicity to a degree of filthiness, which
was disgusting, as his usual dress was a shirt, which was never taken
off to be washed, from the time it was first put on till worn out; no
drawers or coverings for the legs of any kind, and a large black goat's
hair cloak, wrapped over all with a greasy and dirty handkerchief,
called the keffeea, thrown loosely over his head. Infamous as was this
man's life and character, he was not only cherished and courted by the
people of Bushire, who dreaded him, but was courteously received and
respectfully entertained whenever he visited the British Factory. On one
occasion (says Mr. Buckingham), at which I was present, he was sent for
to give some medical gentlemen of the navy and company's cruisers an
opportunity of inspecting his arm, which had been severely wounded. The
wound was at first made by grape-shot and splinters, and the arm was one
mass of blood about the part for several days, while the man himself was
with difficulty known to be alive. He gradually recovered, however,
without surgical aid, and the bone of the arm between the shoulder and
elbow being completely shivered to pieces, the fragments progressively
worked out, and the singular appearance was left of the fore arm and
elbow connected to the shoulder by flesh and skin, and tendons, without
the least vestige of bone. This man when invited to the factory for the
purpose of making an exhibition of his arm, was himself admitted to sit
at the table and take some tea, as it was breakfast time, and some of
his followers took chairs around him. They were all as disgustingly
filthy in appearance as could well be imagined; and some of them did not
scruple to hunt for vermin on their skins, of which there was an
abundance, and throw them on the floor. Rahmah-ben-Jabir's figure
presented a meagre trunk, with four lank members, all of them cut and
hacked, and pierced with wounds of sabres, spears and bullets, in every
part, to the number, perhaps of more than twenty different wounds. He
had, besides, a face naturally ferocious and ugly, and now rendered
still more so by several scars there, and by the loss of one eye. When
asked by one of the English gentlemen present, with a tone of
encouragement and familiarity, whether he could not still dispatch an
enemy with his boneless arm, he drew a crooked dagger, or yambeah, from
the girdle round his shirt, and placing his left hand, which was sound,
to support the elbow of the right, which was the one that was wounded,
he grasped the dagger firmly with his clenched fist, and drew it back
ward and forward, twirling it at the same time, and saying that he
desired nothing better than to have the cutting of as many throats as he
could effectually open with his lame hand. Instead of being shocked at
the uttering of such a brutal wish, and such a savage triumph at still
possessing the power to murder unoffending victims, I knew not how to
describe my feelings of shame and sorrow when a loud roar of laughter
burst from the whole assembly, when I ventured to express my dissent
from the general feeling of admiration for such a man.

This barbarous pirate in the year 1827, at last experienced a fate
characteristic of the whole course of his life. His violent aggressions
having united the Arabs of Bahrene and Ratiffe against him they
blockaded his port of Daman from which Rahmah-ben-Jabir, having left a
garrison in the fort under his son, had sailed in a well appointed
bungalow, for the purpose of endeavoring to raise a confederacy of his
friends in his support. Having failed in this object he returned to
Daman, and in spite of the boats blockading the port, succeeded in
visiting his garrison, and immediately re-embarked, taking with him his
youngest son. On arriving on board his bungalow, he was received by his
followers with a salute, which decisive indication of his presence
immediately attracted the attention of his opponents, one of whose
boats, commanded by the nephew of the Sheikh of Bahrene, proceeded to
attack him. A desperate struggle ensued, and the Sheikh finding after
some time that he had lost nearly the whole of his crew by the firing of
Rahmah's boat, retired for reinforcements. These being obtained, he
immediately returned singly to the contest. The fight was renewed with
redoubled fury; when at last, Rahmah, being informed (for he had been
long blind) that his men were falling fast around him, mustered the
remainder of the crew, and issued orders to close and grapple with his
opponent. When this was effected, and after embracing his son, he was
led with a lighted torch to the magazine, which instantly exploded,
blowing his own boat to atoms and setting fire to the Sheikh's, which
immediately afterwards shared the same fate. Sheikh Ahmed and few of his
followers escaped to the other boats; but only one of Rahmah's brave
crew was saved; and it is supposed that upwards of three hundred men
were killed in this heroic contest.

With a History of the Pirates of Barrataria—and an account of their
volunteering for the defence of New Orleans; and their daring
intrepidity under General Jackson, during the battle of the 8th of
January, 1815. For which important service they were pardoned by
President Madison.

Jean Lafitte, was born at St. Maloes in France, in 1781, and went to sea
at the age of thirteen; after several voyages in Europe, and to the
coast of Africa, he was appointed mate of a French East Indiaman, bound
to Madras. On the outward passage they encountered a heavy gale off the
Cape of Good Hope, which sprung the mainmast and otherwise injured the
ship, which determined the captain to bear up for the Mauritius, where
he arrived in safety; a quarrel having taken place on the passage out
between Lafitte and the captain, he abandoned the ship and refused to
continue the voyage. Several privateers were at this time fitting out at
this island, and Lafitte was appointed captain of one of these vessels;
after a cruise during which he robbed the vessels of other nations,
besides those of England, and thus committing piracy, he stopped at the
Seychelles, and took in a load of slaves for the Mauritius; but being
chased by an English frigate as far north as the equator, he found
himself in a very awkward condition; not having provisions enough on
board his ship to carry him back to the French Colony. He therefore
conceived the bold project of proceeding to the Bay of Bengal, in order
to get provisions from on board some English ships. In his ship of two
hundred tons, with only two guns and twenty-six men, he attacked and
took an English armed schooner with a numerous crew. After putting
nineteen of his own crew on board the schooner, he took the command of
her and proceeded to cruise upon the coast of Bengal. He there fell in
with the Pagoda, a vessel belonging to the English East India Company,
armed with twenty-six twelve pounders and manned with one hundred and
fifty men. Expecting that the enemy would take him for a pilot of the
Ganges, he manoeuvred accordingly. The Pagoda manifested no suspicions,
whereupon he suddenly darted with his brave followers upon her decks,
overturned all who opposed them, and speedily took the ship. After a
very successful cruise he arrived safe at the Mauritius, and took the
command of La Confiance of twenty-six guns and two hundred and fifty
men, and sailed for the coast of British India. Off the Sand Heads in
October, 1807, Lafitte fell in with the Queen East Indiaman, with a crew
of near four hundred men, and carrying forty guns; he conceived the bold
project of getting possession of her. Never was there beheld a more
unequal conflict; even the height of the vessel compared to the feeble
privateer augmented the chances against Lafitte; but the difficulty and
danger far from discouraging this intrepid sailor, acted as an
additional spur to his brilliant valor. After electrifying his crew with
a few words of hope and ardor, he manoeuvred and ran on board of the
enemy. In this position he received a broadside when close too; but he
expected this, and made his men lay flat upon the deck. After the first
fire they all rose, and from the yards and tops, threw bombs and
grenades into the forecastle of the Indiaman. This sudden and unforeseen
attack caused a great havoc. In an instant, death and terror made them
abandon a part of the vessel near the mizen-mast. Lafitte, who
observed every thing, seized the decisive moment, beat to arms, and
forty of his crew prepared to board, with pistols in their hands and
daggers held between their teeth. As soon as they got on deck, they
rushed upon the affrighted crowd, who retreated to the steerage, and
endeavored to defend themselves there. Lafitte thereupon ordered a
second division to board, which he headed himself; the captain of the
Indiaman was killed, and all were swept away in a moment. Lafitte caused
a gun to be loaded with grape, which he pointed towards the place where
the crowd was assembled, threatening to exterminate them. The English
deeming resistance fruitless, surrendered, and Lafitte hastened to put a
stop to the slaughter. This exploit, hitherto unparalleled, resounded
through India, and the name of Lafitte became the terror of English
commerce in these latitudes.