Henry Every

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 (London: J. Baker, 1709), 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 The King of Pirates (1720), 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. 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 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, "[as] 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 (RAC), 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 (of which famed navigator William Dampier was second mate), James, and Charles II (sometimes erroneously given as Duke). 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. 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. Mutiny and ascension to captaincy On Monday, 7 May 1694, O'Byrne was scheduled to sleep ashore, which gave the men the opportunity they were looking for. At approximately 9:00 p.m., Every and about twenty-five other men rushed aboard Charles II and surprised the crew on board. Captain Gibson was bedridden at the time, so the mutiny ended bloodlessly. James then fired on Charles II, alerting the Spanish Night Watch, and Every was forced to make a run to the open sea, quickly vanishing into the night. After sailing far enough for safety, Every gave the non-conspirators a chance to go ashore, even deferentially offering to let Gibson command the ship if he would join their cause. According to Charles Ellms, Every's words to Gibson were, "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." The captain declined and was set ashore with several other sailors. Some reports say that Every was much ruder in his dealings with Gibson, but agree that he at least offered him the position of the second mate. The Pirate Round At Maio, the easternmost of the Cape Verde's Sotavento islands, Every committed his first piracy, robbing three English merchantmen from Barbados of provisions and supplies. Nine of the men from these ships were quickly persuaded to join Every's crew, Every then sailed to the Guinea coast, where he tricked a local chieftain into boarding Fancy under the false pretence of trade, and forcibly took his and his men's wealth, leaving them slaves. Continuing to hug the African coastline, Every then stopped at Bioko in the Bight of Benin, where Fancy was careened and razeed. In early 1695, Fancy finally rounded the Cape of Good Hope, stopping in Madagascar where the crew restocked supplies, likely in the area of St. Augustine's Bay. The ship next stopped at the island of Johanna in the Comoros Islands. Here Every's crew rested and took on provisions, later capturing a passing French pirate ship, looting the vessel and recruiting some forty of the crew to join their own company. Every's total strength was now about 150 men. At Johanna, Every wrote a letter addressed to the English ship commanders in the Indian Ocean, falsely stating that he had not attacked any English ships. His letter describes a signal English skippers could use to identify themselves so he could avoid them and warns them that he might not be able to restrain his crew from plundering their ships if they failed to use the signal. It is unclear whether this document was true, but it may have been a ploy by Every to avoid the attention of the East India Company (EIC), whose large and powerful ships were the only threat Fancy faced in the Indian Ocean. In August 1695, Fancy reached the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, where Every joined forces with five other pirate captains: Tew on the sloop-of-war Amity, with a crew of about sixty men; Joseph Faro on Portsmouth Adventure, with sixty men; Richard Want on Dolphin, also with sixty men; William Mayes on Pearl, with thirty or forty men; and Thomas Wake on Susanna, with seventy men. All of these captains were carrying privateering commissions that implicated almost the entire Eastern Seaboard of North America. Every was elected admiral of the new six-ship pirate flotilla despite the fact that Tew had arguably more experience, and now found himself in command of over 440 men while they lay in wait for the Indian fleet. once the treasure was shared out among the pirate fleet, Every's crew received only small shares. Ganj-i-sawai, captained by one Muhammad Ibrahim, was a fearsome opponent, mounting eighty guns and a musket-armed guard of four hundred, as well as six hundred other passengers. The crew of Pearl, initially fearful of attacking Ganj-i-sawai, now took heart and joined Every's crew on the Indian ship's deck. A ferocious hand-to-hand battle then ensued, lasting two to three hours. Muhammad Hashim Khafi Khan, a contemporary Indian historian who was in Surat at the time, wrote that, as Every's men boarded the ship, Ganj-i-sawais captain ran below decks where he armed the slave girls and sent them up to fight the pirates. Khafi Khan's account of the battle, appearing in his multivolume work The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians, places blame squarely on Captain Ibrahim for the failure, writing: "The Christians are not bold in the use of the sword, and there were so many weapons on board the royal vessel that if the captain had made any resistance, they must have been defeated." Later accounts would tell of how Every himself had found "something more pleasing than jewels" aboard, usually reported to be Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb's daughter or granddaughter. (According to contemporary EIC sources, Ganj-i-sawai was carrying a "relative" of the Emperor, though there is no evidence to suggest that it was his daughter and her retinue.) At any rate, the survivors were left aboard their emptied ships, which the pirates set free to continue on their voyage back to India. The loot from Ganj-i-sawai, the greatest ship in the Mughal fleet, totalled somewhere between £200,000 and £600,000, including 500,000 gold and silver pieces. All told, it may have been the richest ship ever taken by pirates (see Career wealth below). on 18 August 1696 Sharing the spoils Every's pirates divided their treasure. Although it is sometimes reported that Every used his phenomenal skills of persuasion to convince the other captains to leave the Mughal loot in his care, quickly slipping away into the night with the entire haul, this comes from Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates, an unreliable account. More reliable sources indicate that there was an exchange of clipped coins between the crews of Pearl and Fancy, with Every's outraged men confiscating Pearls treasure. (Portsmouth Adventure observed but did not participate in the battle with Ganj-i-sawai, so Faro's crew received none of its treasure.) Every's men then gave Mayes 2,000 pieces of eight (presumably an approximate sum as the treasure captured would have been in Indian and Arabian coins of a different denomination) to buy supplies, and soon parted company. Aftermath and manhunt The plunder of Aurangzeb's treasure ship had serious consequences for the English, coming at a time of crisis for the East India Company (EIC), whose profits were still recovering from the disastrous Anglo-Mughal War. The EIC had seen its total annual imports drop from a peak of £800,000 in 1684 to just £30,000 in 1695, and Every's attack now threatened the very existence of English trade in India. When the damaged Ganj-i-Sawai finally limped its way back to harbor in Surat, news of the pirates' attack on the pilgrims—a sacrilegious act that, like the rape of the Muslim women, was considered an unforgivable violation of the Hajj—spread quickly. The governor of Gujarat, Itimad Khan, immediately arrested the English subjects in Surat and kept them under close watch, partly as a punishment for their countrymen's depredations and partly for their own protection from rioting locals. A livid Aurangzeb quickly closed four of the EIC's factories in India and imprisoned its officers, nearly ordering an armed attack against the city of Bombay with the goal of expelling the English from the Indian subcontinent. To appease Aurangzeb, the EIC promised to pay all financial reparations, while the Parliament of England declared the pirates hostis humani generis ("the enemy of humanity"). In mid-1696, the English government issued a £500 bounty (approximately £92.300 sterling as of 2023, adjusted for inflation English authorities also proclaimed that they would exempt Every from all of the Acts of Grace (pardons) and amnesties it would subsequently issue to other pirates (for instance in 1698). As it was by now known that Every was sheltering somewhere in the England's North American colonies, where he would likely find safety among corrupt colonial governors, he was out of the jurisdiction of the EIC. This made him a national problem. Accordingly, the Board of Trade was tasked with coordinating the manhunt for Every and his crew. Hypothesis of escape to New Providence Douglas R. Burgess argues in his 2009 book ''The Pirates' Pact: The Secret Alliances Between History's Most Notorious Buccaneers and Colonial America that Fancy had reached St. Thomas, where the pirates sold some of their treasure. In March 1696, Fancy'' anchored at Royal Island off Eleuthera, some northeast of New Providence in the Bahamas. Four of Every's men took a small boat to Nassau, the island's largest city and capital, with a letter addressed to the island's governor, Nicholas Trott. The letter explained that Fancy had just returned from the coast of Africa, and the ship's crew of 113 self-identified interlopers (unlicensed English traders east of the Cape of Good Hope) now needed some shore time. In return for letting Fancy enter the harbour and for keeping the men's violation of the EIC's trading monopoly a secret, the crew would pay Trott a combined total of £860. Their captain, a man named "Henry Bridgeman," also promised the ship to the governor as a gift once his crew unloaded the cargo. 's granddaughter and her retinue For Trott, this proved a tempting offer. The Nine Years' War had been raging for eight years, and the island, which the Royal Navy had not visited in several years, was perilously underpopulated. However, if Fancys crew stayed in Nassau it would more than double the island's male population, while the very presence of the heavily armed ship in the harbour might deter a French attack. On the other hand, turning away "Bridgeman" might spell disaster if his intentions turned violent, as his crew of 113 (plus ninety slaves) would easily defeat the island's inhabitants. Lastly, there was also the bribe to consider, which was three times Trott's annual salary of £300. Soon after, Trott met Every personally on land in what must have been a closed-door meeting. Fancy was then handed over to the governor, who found that extra bribes—fifty tons of ivory tusks, one hundred barrels of gunpowder, several chests of firearms and ammunition, and an assortment of ship anchors—had been left in the hold for him. The wealth of foreign-minted coins could not have escaped Trott. He must have known that the ship's crew were not merely unlicensed slavers, likely noting the patched-up battle damage on Fancy. When word eventually reached that the Royal Navy and the EIC were hunting for Fancy and that "Captain Bridgeman" was Every himself, Trott denied ever knowing anything about the pirates' history other than what they told him, adamant that the island's population "saw no reason to disbelieve them". Disappearance Burgess argues that when the proclamation for the apprehension of Every and his crew reached Trott, he was forced to either put a warrant out for Every's arrest or, failing to do so, effectively disclose his association with the pirate. Preferring the former choice for the sake of his reputation, he alerted the authorities as to the pirates' whereabouts but was able to tip off Every and his crew before the authorities arrived. Every's 113-person crew then fashioned their hasty escape, vanishing from the island with only twenty-four men ever captured, five of whom were executed. Every himself was never seen again. == Fate ==

which appeared in the September 1887 issue of ''Harper's Magazine'' British author and pirate biographer Charles Johnson suggested that, after attempting to sell his diamonds, Every died in poverty in Devon after being cheated out of his wealth by Bristol merchants. It is, however, unclear how Johnson could have discovered this. If Every was known to be living in poverty, it is most likely that he would have been apprehended and the large bounty on his head collected. So ascribing this fate to Every may have been a type of moral propagandizing on Johnson's part. Others have suggested that after Every changed his name, he settled in Devon and lived out the rest of his life peacefully, dying on 10 June 1714; however, the source for this information is The History and Lives of All the Most Notorious Pirates and their Crews (London: Edw. Midwinter, 1732), considered an unreliable (and slightly expanded) reprint of Johnson's General History. In October 1781 John Knill, the Collector of Customs at St Ives, Cornwall, held a meeting with a supposed descendant of Every who stated that his "father had told him that Captain Every, after wandering about in great poverty and distress, had died in Barnstaple, and was buried as a pauper ..." As the manhunt for Every continued in the decade following his disappearance, sightings were frequently reported, but none proved reliable. After the publication of a fictional memoir in 1709, which claimed Every was a king ruling a pirate utopia in Madagascar, popular accounts increasingly took on a more legendary, romantic flavour (see In contemporary literature). Although such stories were widely believed to be true by the public, they had no basis in reality. No reliable information about Every's whereabouts or activities emerged after June 1696. A 2024 book alleges that Every survived to covertly enter service as a Royal spy with the assistance of Daniel Defoe, largely on the basis of a coded letter attributed to "Avery the Pirate." == Fate of Every's crew ==

North American colonies About 75 of Every's crew sailed to North America in hopes of escaping the transcontinental manhunt. His crew members were sighted in the Carolinas, New England, and in Pennsylvania; some even bribed Pennsylvania Governor William Markham for £100 per man. This was enough to buy the governor's allegiance, who was aware of their identity and reportedly even allowed one to marry his daughter. Although other local officials, notably magistrate Captain Robert Snead, tried to have the pirates arrested, the governor's protection ensured that they remained audacious enough to boast of their exploits "publicly over their cups". Ancient coins allegedly taken from Ganj-i-Sawai were discovered in 2014 at Sweet Berry Farm in Middletown, Rhode Island. Later on, more coins were unearthed in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and North Carolina. British Isles John Dann (Every's coxswain) born in East Hoathly, Sussex, was arrested on 30 July 1696 for suspected piracy at the Bull Hotel, a coaching inn on the High Street of Rochester, Kent. He had sewn £1,045 in gold sequins and ten English guineas into his waistcoat, which was discovered by his chambermaid, who subsequently reported the discovery to the town's mayor, collecting a reward in the process. In order to avoid the possibility of execution, on 3 August Dann agreed to testify against other captured members of Every's crew, The government assembled the most prominent judges in the country to attend the trial, consisting of presiding judge Sir Charles Hedges, Lieutenant of the High Court of Admiralty; Sir John Holt, Chief Justice of the King's Bench; Sir George Treby, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; and six other prominent judges. Other than Joseph Dawson, all the pirates pleaded not guilty. One of the witnesses against the accused mutineers was David Creagh, second officer of Charles II. He testified that after refusing to participate in the mutiny—the only officer to do so—he was ordered to return below deck. On the way to his cabin, Creagh encountered May, Captain Gibson's former steward. May, described by Every as one of the "true cocks of the game, and old sportsmen", As before, the court continually stressed the need for the pirates' conviction. Judge Hedges condemned the "dishonourable" former jury and instructed their successors to act with "a true English spirit" by passing a conviction, repeatedly reminding them to "support...the navigation, trade, wealth, strength, reputation, and glory of this nation." This time, the jury returned a guilty verdict. The pirates were given their last chance to show why they should be spared execution, with most simply claiming ignorance and pleading for mercy. May argued that, being "a very sickly man", he had "never acted in all the voyage", while Bishop reminded the court that he was "forced away", and, being only eighteen years of age during the 1694 mutiny, desired mercy. Dawson, the only defendant to plead guilty, was granted a reprieve. The remainder of the death sentences were upheld. Sparkes was the only pirate to publicly express some regret, but not for piracy, which was of "lesser concern"—instead, he was repentant for the "horrid barbarities he had committed, though only on the bodies of the heathen", implying that he had participated in the violation of the women aboard the Mughal ships. His "Last Dying Words and Confession" declared that his eyes were "now open to his crimes", and he "justly suffered death for such inhumanity". On 25 November 1696, the five prisoners were taken to the gallows at Execution Dock. Here they solemnly gave their dying speeches before a gathered crowd, which included Newgate Prison ordinary Paul Lorrain. As they faced the River Thames, from where the Spanish Expedition voyage had begun only three years earlier, the pirates were hanged. Dann escaped the hangman by turning King's witness. However, he remained in England, having received on 9 August 1698 an, "Order for one Dann, lately Every's mate but pardoned, to attend the Board to-morrow." This he did on 11 August at the East India House, giving details of his voyage and plunder on board Fancy. In 1699, Dann married Eliza Noble and the following year became a partner to John Coggs, a well-established goldsmith banker, creating Coggs & Dann at the sign of the King's Head in the Strand, London. The bankers (particularly Dann) were duped by fraudster Thomas Brerewood, one of their clients, and in 1710 the bank became insolvent. Dann died in 1722. == Career wealth ==

Ganj-i-Sawai The value of Ganj-i-Sawais cargo is not known with certainty. Contemporary estimates differed by as much as £300,000, with £325,000 and £600,000 being the traditionally cited numbers. The latter estimate was the value provided by the Mughal authorities, while the EIC estimated the loss at approximately £325,000, nevertheless filing a £600,000 insurance claim. Others contend that the Mughal authorities' figure of £600,000 was a deliberate overestimate aimed at improving their compensation from the English. While some historians have argued that £325,000 was probably closer to the true value, and partly for the above reasons, others have criticized this position as being largely unsubstantiated. Although Every's capture of Ganj-i-Sawai has been cited as piracy's greatest exploit, Reportedly carrying the retiring Luís Carlos Inácio Xavier de Meneses, 1st Marquis of Louriçal, the galleon was laden with silver, gold, diamonds, gems, as well as pearls, silks, spices, works of art, and church regalia belonging to the Patriarch of the East Indies. The total value of the treasure on board has been estimated as being anywhere from £100,000 to £875,000 (£500,000 in diamonds and £375,000 in other cargo), all of which was divided among the crews of Cassandra and Victory, captained by Taylor and Levasseur respectively. If the latter number is correct, it would far eclipse Every's haul. Historian Jan Rogoziński has called Cabo "the richest plunder ever captured by any pirate", estimating its reported treasure of £875,000 to be worth "more than $400 million." In comparison, Rogoziński's analysis in 2000 claimed that the EIC's estimate of £325,000 for Ganj-i-Sawais goods equals "at least $200 million" while stating that the larger estimate of £600,000 taken would be equivalent to $400 million in 2000, approximately rivalling the raid committed by Taylor and Levasseur. In any case, if one accepts the EIC's estimate of £325,000, Rogoziński writes that even then "only two or three times in history did criminals take more valuable loot". Rogoziński's calculations in 2000 valued this at $30 million in modern currency. Every is known to have captured at least eleven vessels by September 1695, including Ganj-i-Sawai. == Legacy ==

, 1888 Influence among pirates Every's exploits immediately captivated the public's imagination, and some considered him a sort of gallant maritime Robin Hood who exemplified the working class idea that rebellion and piracy were acceptable ways to fight back against unfair captains and societies. In particular, Every accomplished his feats while many infamous pirates of the post-Spanish-Succession period—Blackbeard, Bartholomew Roberts, John Rackham, Samuel Bellamy, Edward Low, Stede Bonnet, and others—were still children, and his exploits had become legendary by the time they were young men. English pirate Walter Kennedy, who was born the same year Ganj-i-Sawai was plundered, had learned of Every's story at a young age and committed it to memory. When he retired from piracy, he returned to London to spend his riches, even opening a brothel in Deptford. However, in 1721, he was arrested and sentenced to death. While he awaited his execution, Kennedy's favourite pastime was recounting tales of Every's adventures. Another Irishman, Edward England, one-time quartermaster to Charles Vane, spent most of his career in the Indian Ocean raiding Mughal ships in much the same way Every had done two decades earlier. After parting ways with Vane, Edward England raided slave ships off the coast of West Africa. In 1720, he captured a 300-ton Dutch East Indiaman of 34 guns off the Malabar Coast and renamed his new flagship to Fancy. However, he was subsequently marooned on Mauritius by his mutinous crew after refusing to grant them permission to torture their captives. After fashioning a makeshift raft, he drifted to the very island believed to be ruled of the King of Pirates himself. No pirate utopia awaited him, however, and he died an alcoholic beggar. Ironically, this was the fictional but moralized fate Charles Johnson ascribed to Every in his General History. It has been suggested that, like Every before him, England had a "brief, yet spectacular career", and he may have come "closest to living out the Every legend." In contemporary literature Some fictional and semi-biographical accounts of Every were published in the decades following his disappearance. In 1709, the first such account appeared as a 16-page pamphlet titled The Life and Adventures of Capt. John Avery; the Famous English Pirate, Now in Possession of Madagascar (London: J. Baker, 1709). It was written by an anonymous author who, using the pseudonym "Adrian van Broeck," claimed to be a Dutchman who endured captivity by Every's crew. In the account, Every is depicted as both a treacherous pirate and a romantic lover; after he raids the Mughal's ship, he runs off with—and later marries—the Emperor's daughter. The couple then flee the Mughal's army to Saint Mary's Island, where Every sets up a pirate utopia similar to the fictional pirate state of Libertalia. Every even has several children with the princess and establishes a new monarchy. The King of Madagascar soon commands an army of 15,000 pirates and a fleet of 40 warships, and is said to be living in fantastic luxury in an impregnable fortress beyond the reach of his English and Mughal adversaries. Furthermore, Every mints his own currency: gold coins engraved in his royal likeness. Although wild rumours of Every's fate had been circulating for years, Adrian van Broeck's fictionalized biography provided the popular legend of Every that was to be borrowed by subsequent publications. Over time, much of the English public came to believe the memoir's sensationalist claims. European governments were soon receiving people who claimed to be Every's ambassadors from Saint Mary's, and as the legend grew even heads of state started to believe the astonishing stories. At one point, "English and Scottish officials at the highest level gave serious attention to the proposals of these 'pirate diplomats'," while Peter the Great "tried to hire the Saint Mary's pirates to help build a Russian colony on Madagascar." The idea of a pirate haven on Saint Mary's had become a household idea. Owing to his notoriety, Every was, along with Blackbeard, one of the few pirates whose life was dramatized on stage. Nevertheless, the play ran into several editions. In 1720 Every appeared as the primary character of Daniel Defoe's The King of Pirates and as a minor character in his novel Captain Singleton. Both tales acknowledged the widely believed stories of Every's pirate republic. It was Charles Johnson's influential General History (1724) that established the competing account of Every. Arriving over a decade after Adrian van Broeck's memoir, Johnson's "historical" account revealed that Every was cheated of his wealth after attempting to sell his ill-gotten goods, in the end "not being worth as much as would buy him a coffin". Yet another account appeared in The Famous Adventures of Captain John Avery of Plymouth, a Notorious Pirate (London: T. Johnston, 1809), although this is likely a retelling of earlier publications. In addition to the play and books written about Henry Every, a successful ballad was also printed in England during his career. Titled "A Copy of Verses, Composed by Captain Henry Every, Lately Gone to Sea to seek his Fortune," it was first published as a broadside sometime between May and July 1694 by the London printer Theophilus Lewis, and was reportedly written by Every himself. Consisting of 13 stanzas set to the tune of the 1686 ballad "The Success of Two English Travellers; Newly Arrived in London," it was subsequently collected by Samuel Pepys and added to the Pepys Library. At least 9 different reprints of the ballad, of varying similarity to the original published by Lewis, were printed between 1694 and 1907. In any case, the strength of the ballad likely played a role in the government's outlawing of Every nearly two years before he had become known as the most infamous pirate of his time. During Every's career, the government used the media to portray him as a notorious criminal in an effort to sway public opinion on piracy, but the result has been described as a "near-total failure". Much of the public continued to remain sympathetic to the pirate's cause. Every's flag There are no reliable contemporary accounts of Every's pirate flag, and the depictions created afterwards are both contradictory and of dubious origin. The 1724 book A General History of the Pyrates credited Every with flying a black flag emblazoned with two crossed bones forming an X. According to the ballad "A Copy of Verses," Every's "shield" was red with four gold chevrons and bordered in green. This may have been intended to describe his flag. Although red was a popular colour for pirate flags of the time, the meaning of the four chevrons is not certain; it may have been an attempt (justified or not) to link Every with the West-Country gentry clan of Every whose coats-of-arms showed similar chevrons. Another flag later ascribed to Every depicts a white skull in profile wearing a kerchief and an earring, above a saltire of two crossed bones, on a black or red field. This claim appears to have been invented for Hans Leip's 1959 book Bordbuch des Satans. There is no reliable evidence that Every actually flew any of the flags now associated with him. In modern popular culture • A pirate captain named "Avery" is repeatedly mentioned in the 1966 Doctor Who serial The Smugglers; the plot centres on the search for Avery's treasure. The 2011 Doctor Who episode "The Curse of the Black Spot," features a pirate captain named Henry Avery, played by Hugh Bonneville. The fictional Avery is depicted as having started his career in the Royal Navy before turning pirate, being dedicated to his wife and children, and having captured a great treasure from an Indian Mughal. It also provides a fictional aetiology for his disappearance. In a "prequel" released by the BBC prior to the episode, the fictional Avery names his vessel as "the good ship Fancy." Four episodes later, in "A Good Man Goes to War," the Doctor recruits Avery and son in their new capacity as space pirates to assist him at the Battle of Demon's Run. • George Macdonald Fraser's 1983 novel The Pyrates traces the adventures of Captain Benjamin Avery, very loosely based on Henry Avery. In 1986 the BBC released a movie adaptation of the novel with Marcus Gilbert in the role of Long Ben Avery. • Henry Every is mentioned repeatedly in the 2014–2017 TV series Black Sails, a prequel to Treasure Island. He is credited with inventing the Black Spot and discovering the Treasure Island. • Henry Avery is the focus of the 2016 video game ''Uncharted 4: A Thief's End,'' in which protagonist Nathan Drake and his brother Samuel hunt for his treasure. In the game, it is revealed that after founding the pirate utopia Libertalia, Avery and Thomas Tew killed each other over its treasure, with their corpses resting aboard Avery's ship on the island off the coast of Madagascar where Libertalia was built. == See also ==