native princes, and left the Company's servants exposed to suspicion and imprisonment and their property to seizure and confiscation. It was precisely at this conjuncture that Avery's little piratical fleet made its capture. The vessel, the Gunswek, was bound from Bombay for Daman. Avery cleared it of all its treasure, and only released the pilgrims on payment of a heavy indemnity, and left the ship to be steered back to Bombay by the native crew. As to the ladies on board, Avery took to himself that one whom he supposed to be the daughter of the Great Mogul, and let his crew toss up for the rest as partners.
John Bruce in his Annals of the East India Company says nothing of the retention of the ladies, nor of the capture of the Mogul's daughter. It is likely enough that some women were taken and retained, but certainly no lady of so high a rank as the grand-daughter of Aurungzebe.
This outrage produced very unpleasant effects. Already in September, 1695, an interloping vessel turned pirate, and, bearing English colours, had plundered a ship belonging to Abdul Gopher, a merchant of Surat, and the governor of the place had been obliged to set a guard on the house of the Company to prevent its being wrecked by the enraged natives, and the servants of the Company from being massacred. News now arrived that the same pirate had attacked a ship belonging to the Mogul, conveying pilgrims to Mecca. If the first injury to an individual merchant was resented, this which was deemed a sacrilege roused fanatical resentment to fury, and obliged the Governor to put the President and all the English in irons to prevent their being torn to pieces by the inhabitants.
The Governor desired French, Dutch, and English to send vessels in search of the pirate, that by her capture
