THE PIRATE KING

An account of the life of a notorious British pirate and the first English novelist as they intersected in the shadowy world of royal espionage.

In 1978 in Edinburgh, a letter found by historian Zélide Cowan opened up the hidden life of the brash pirate Henry Avery, thought to have vanished once he engineered his attack on the riches-laden Mughal ship Ganj-i Sawai (Gunsway in English) in 1695. A traumatized youth brought up around the docks of Bideford and Plymouth in Devon, Avery turned to piracy as retribution after being disinherited. He managed to turn the mutinied ship Charles II into the murderous Fancy and set out for Madagascar, lying in wait in the Red Sea for the passing Gunsway and returning with fabulous riches for the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, the “ruler of 158 million people.” As marine archaeologist Kingsley and shipwreck hunter Cowan recount, Avery made a fortune and apparently disappeared, with a huge bounty on his head and his crew hunted far and wide. Meanwhile, his contemporary Daniel Foe (nom de plume Defoe), son of a prosperous candlemaker, became a failed merchant and dissenting pamphleteer, promoting the reign of William of Orange and later Queen Anne. Much of his work led him to imprisonment. The letter seems to reveal that Avery and Foe were friends—both avid Protestants, both fascinated by the sea—and co-conspirators for the royal spy agency, helping to plot the union of England and Scotland in 1707. Moreover, the research shows that Avery did not vanish, but actually bought his freedom and royal protection by working like Foe as a spy. The authors untangle a web of conspiracy and subterfuge to create an engaging story of the golden age of piracy, following the adventures of two enormously enterprising men.

An intriguing unraveling of a mystery that “beggars belief.”