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Hornbein
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The greatest all-time act of piracy was perpetrated in 1695 under the leadership of English captain Henry Every. Henry started out as an able seaman in the British navy. He rose to first mate on a privateer ship. A privateer is state-sponsored, like a pirate but with his despoiling limited by law to seizure of the property of a declared enemy. In those days all the empires licensed privateers. This was common practice. But in this case things went terribly awry. The crew saw no pay for six months. Their families were rendered desperately destitute. The deficit was blamed upon delayed paperwork. Riding at anchor in a port in Spain, the men were virtually imprisoned. Peaceful protests were in vain. The crew resorted to a bloodless mutiny. First mate Henry Every was elected as the new captain.
In need of ready income they engaged in piracy. They plundered various ships. The men reinvested the ensuing capital gains into a voyage to the more lucrative arena of the Indian Ocean, halfway around our Earth. This was quite literally a pursuit of self-interest. In spite of being grossly outnumbered and outgunned the pirates with great daring attempted to seize the Mughal ship Exceeding Treasure, which as we shall see well lived up to its name. The pirates' superior organization and technology combined with a touch of luck carried them to an infamous victory. Though in the deadly dangerous boarding of the Exceeding Treasure they had been aided by the crew of another pirate ship, Henry Every and his men upheld pirate tradition by cheating their accomplices, skulking away with all of the loot. Henry and the great majority of the crew were never captured. Henry hung up his pirate hat, prudently disappearing from the feeble scrutiny of history. The destiny of his immense fortune derived from equally great villainy remains to this day unknown.
Pirate captain Henry Every enjoying his ill-gotten gains. Artist’s impression.
This astonishing incident is well described elsewhere. The question remains though : how much was the Mughal treasure of gold, silver, and jewels worth?
Even then this was a source of some controversy. Henry had been an English privateer and was sailing an English warship, though acquired illegitimately through mutiny. The outraged Mughals shut down all trade with England until they were compensated for the enormous theft. The validity of this claim may be questioned but then as now the matter came down to money. Just how badly did England need that Mughal trade? Very much indeed. An insurance claim yielded £350,00 while the Mughals valued the Exceeding Treasure’s cargo as twice that. So let’s say £500,000 in 1695 pounds. What is that worth in today’s money? A reasonable way would be percentage of the UK’s GDP but such statistics aren’t available. The state of government finance was nascent — in 1695 the Bank of England had enjoyed but one year of age. So let’s go with the total royal tax revenue of England. That was about two million pounds. That makes the value of the treasure equal to 25% of England’s annual tax revenue. Today said revenue is about one trillion pounds, so now the equivalent value of the loot would be two hundred and fifty billion pounds. Quite a haul that. Mr. Every got 2% of this, five billion of our pounds, while the other men were each awarded 1%.
What other contenders for the crown of criminality? Consider the bankers of Moldova. In 2014 a few of them stole seventeen billion leu, 25% of that nation’s annual tax revenue, and for the most part seem to have gotten away with it. But I say thee nay. Moldovian crime just doesn’t have the same frisson of grandeur. Though a worthy effort by such a small crew, reminiscent of Henry Every’s one hundred and eleven men, it’s too pipsqueak.
In need of ready income they engaged in piracy. They plundered various ships. The men reinvested the ensuing capital gains into a voyage to the more lucrative arena of the Indian Ocean, halfway around our Earth. This was quite literally a pursuit of self-interest. In spite of being grossly outnumbered and outgunned the pirates with great daring attempted to seize the Mughal ship Exceeding Treasure, which as we shall see well lived up to its name. The pirates' superior organization and technology combined with a touch of luck carried them to an infamous victory. Though in the deadly dangerous boarding of the Exceeding Treasure they had been aided by the crew of another pirate ship, Henry Every and his men upheld pirate tradition by cheating their accomplices, skulking away with all of the loot. Henry and the great majority of the crew were never captured. Henry hung up his pirate hat, prudently disappearing from the feeble scrutiny of history. The destiny of his immense fortune derived from equally great villainy remains to this day unknown.
Pirate captain Henry Every enjoying his ill-gotten gains. Artist’s impression.
This astonishing incident is well described elsewhere. The question remains though : how much was the Mughal treasure of gold, silver, and jewels worth?
Even then this was a source of some controversy. Henry had been an English privateer and was sailing an English warship, though acquired illegitimately through mutiny. The outraged Mughals shut down all trade with England until they were compensated for the enormous theft. The validity of this claim may be questioned but then as now the matter came down to money. Just how badly did England need that Mughal trade? Very much indeed. An insurance claim yielded £350,00 while the Mughals valued the Exceeding Treasure’s cargo as twice that. So let’s say £500,000 in 1695 pounds. What is that worth in today’s money? A reasonable way would be percentage of the UK’s GDP but such statistics aren’t available. The state of government finance was nascent — in 1695 the Bank of England had enjoyed but one year of age. So let’s go with the total royal tax revenue of England. That was about two million pounds. That makes the value of the treasure equal to 25% of England’s annual tax revenue. Today said revenue is about one trillion pounds, so now the equivalent value of the loot would be two hundred and fifty billion pounds. Quite a haul that. Mr. Every got 2% of this, five billion of our pounds, while the other men were each awarded 1%.
What other contenders for the crown of criminality? Consider the bankers of Moldova. In 2014 a few of them stole seventeen billion leu, 25% of that nation’s annual tax revenue, and for the most part seem to have gotten away with it. But I say thee nay. Moldovian crime just doesn’t have the same frisson of grandeur. Though a worthy effort by such a small crew, reminiscent of Henry Every’s one hundred and eleven men, it’s too pipsqueak.