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His £90million raid on a Mughal ship became the stuff of legend and was the most lucrative act of piracy the world had ever seen.

But what happened next to ‘Pirate King’ Henry Avery has remained a mystery. Until now.

The notorious pirate captain vanished off the face of the earth in 1696, a year after the 150 crewmen of his 46-gun ship the Fancy pillaged gold, silver and jewels from an armed trading ship of the Mughal empire.

His disappearance had puzzled experts for more than 300 years but researchers now believe an unearthed letter written by Captain Avery himself in December 1700 has solved the case.

Dr Sean Kingsley, a marine archaeologist and pirate expert, says the letter shows that Captain Avery had taken a royal pardon to work for her Majesty's Secret Service.

The story of one of Britain's most fabled men has now been revived by Dr Kingsley in a book he has co-authored called - The Pirate King: The Strange Adventures of Henry Avery and the Birth of the Golden Age of Piracy.

'Pirates weren't good guys, but Avery is misunderstood,' says Kingsley. 'He's seen as a thug who stole an English frigate off Spain in May 1694 and turned pirate out of greed. That's not true.'

'Avery lives on in the public imagination because he was larger than life. Not only did he strike it big, he escaped the authorities with his head intact.'

Before turning to piracy, Avery began his life upon the sea fighting pirates of the Caribbean as a sailor working for the Spanish shipping expedition.

But this all changed when his Spanish employers refused to pay him and 80 of his other crew members, leading them to steal a ship in May 1694 and take to the high seas.

The following year, Captain Avery and his crew plundered an armed trading ship belonging to Aurangzeb, the ­Mughal Emperor in India, which ­contained treasures worth £600,000 — £90million today.

It was the biggest act of piracy ever known and England put a £1,000 (£120,000 today) bounty on Avery's head to spark the world's first global manhunt. 

Some versions of the story also suggest, grimly, that Captain Avery himself found 'something more pleasing than jewels' onboard the vessel — often said to be the daughter, granddaughter or another relative of emperor Aurangzeb. 

Captain Avery and his crew initially took their ill-gotten gains to Bourbon (now Réunion), before making way to the island of New Providence in the Bahamas.

Yet news of the bounty placed on their heads soon caught up with them — and what happened to the pirate and many of his crew after they fled has been a mystery ever since.

Avery's fate had stumped centuries of shipwreck hunters until 1978 when a misfiled letter was found in the Scottish Records Office by writer Zélide ­Cowan, whose husband, Rex, is Kingsley's co-author and pirate enthusiast.

But Mr Cowan was unable to decipher the coded letter until he met Kingsley decades later.

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His £90million raid on a Mughal ship became the stuff of legend and was the most lucrative act of piracy the world had ever seen.

But what happened next to ‘Pirate King’ Henry Avery has remained a mystery. Until now.

The notorious pirate captain vanished off the face of the earth in 1696, a year after the 150 crewmen of his 46-gun ship the Fancy pillaged gold, silver and jewels from an armed trading ship of the Mughal empire.

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His disappearance had puzzled experts for more than 300 years but researchers now believe an unearthed letter written by Captain Avery himself in December 1700 has solved the case.

Dr Sean Kingsley, a marine archaeologist and pirate expert, says the letter shows that Captain Avery had taken a royal pardon to work for her Majesty's Secret Service.

The story of one of Britain's most fabled men has now been revived by Dr Kingsley in a book he has co-authored called - The Pirate King: The Strange Adventures of Henry Avery and the Birth of the Golden Age of Piracy.

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Notorious pirate Captain Henry Avery (portrayed as an engraving) committed the most lucrative act of piracy the world had ever seen before disappearing in 1696 to never be seen again

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Experts believe an unearthed letter (pictured) written by Captain Avery himself in December 1700 has solved the 300-year-old case of his disappearance 

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'Pirates weren't good guys, but Avery is misunderstood,' says Kingsley. 'He's seen as a thug who stole an English frigate off Spain in May 1694 and turned pirate out of greed. That's not true.'

'Avery lives on in the public imagination because he was larger than life. Not only did he strike it big, he escaped the authorities with his head intact.'

Before turning to piracy, Avery began his life upon the sea fighting pirates of the Caribbean as a sailor working for the Spanish shipping expedition.

But this all changed when his Spanish employers refused to pay him and 80 of his other crew members, leading them to steal a ship in May 1694 and take to the high seas.

The following year, Captain Avery and his crew plundered an armed trading ship belonging to Aurangzeb, the ­Mughal Emperor in India, which ­contained treasures worth £600,000 — £90million today.

It was the biggest act of piracy ever known and England put a £1,000 (£120,000 today) bounty on Avery's head to spark the world's first global manhunt. 

Some versions of the story also suggest, grimly, that Captain Avery himself found 'something more pleasing than jewels' onboard the vessel — often said to be the daughter, granddaughter or another relative of emperor Aurangzeb. 

Captain Avery and his crew initially took their ill-gotten gains to Bourbon (now Réunion), before making way to the island of New Providence in the Bahamas.

Yet news of the bounty placed on their heads soon caught up with them — and what happened to the pirate and many of his crew after they fled has been a mystery ever since.

Avery's fate had stumped centuries of shipwreck hunters until 1978 when a misfiled letter was found in the Scottish Records Office by writer Zélide ­Cowan, whose husband, Rex, is Kingsley's co-author and pirate enthusiast.

But Mr Cowan was unable to decipher the coded letter until he met Kingsley decades later.

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View gallery

Captain Avery (portrayed as an engraving on the left) and his crew plundered an armed trading ship belonging to Aurangzeb, the ­Mughal Emperor in India, which ­contained treasures worth £600,000 — £90million today

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In September 7, 1695, Captain Avery's ship, the Fancy, engaged the Ganj-i-Sawai, which was owned by one of the world's most-powerful men, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. (Pictured: a 19th century artowrk depicting the battle between the two vessels)

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Some versions of the story suggest, grimly, that Captain Every himself found 'something more pleasing than jewels' onboard the vessel — often said to be the daughter, granddaughter or another relative of emperor Aurangzeb (Pictured: a 20th Century illustration depicting Captain Every's encounter with the Emperor's granddaughter)

Dr Kingsley is convinced the letter is a genuine and appears to show that Captain Avery was working to prevent a 'Catholic' invasion from France.

Speaking to the Times, Dr Kingsley said: 'There were fake pirate letters that people were pitching around in the 18th century to sell as a get rich quick scheme, but they are really dodgy and easy to identify — they say things like, 'By this rock walk three steps and go left etc'.

'In this, when he wants to conceal his meaning he uses letters and numbers in a code, and this is ­exactly what spies and ­ambassadors were using. It's also really unlikely that anyone would have the intelligence and information to forge it.'

The pair of authors also believe the document also details a list of treasures that are still waiting to be found.

'The mystery lives on today,' says Cowan. 'At the end of the 'Avery the Pirate' letter is the most astonishing list of treasure that he kept as his share of the booty looted off India. It's the stuff of dreams.'

'Part of it, so the legend goes, is still out there, somewhere buried away just waiting to be found.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13450745/Pirate-King-SPY-Unearthed-letter-claimed-solve-mystery.html

This is a historical and cultural documentary about the folklore of Turkey, the Ottoman Era, Austria and the Balkans. Are vampires real? Featuring modern day case studies, this is an exploration of the origins of Slavic vampire (vampyr) lore from the 19th Century back to the 17th Century, and how regional authorities used the military and civic law to understand a supernatural mystery.

#ottomanempire #vladtheimpaler #middleeasthistory #vampire

Chapters:
0:00 Preview: The Edirne Encounter
0:39 Intro: Turkey's Vampires
3:26 The Janissary Witches
8:14 Vlad the Impaler and the Vampire Elite
10:38 The Arnold Paole Vampire
17:30 Vampire Slaying Rules and Regulations
24:00 The Evliya Çelebi Ubir Travelogs
27:00 True Modern Day Encounters with Vampires
32:33 Ancient Egyptian and Sumerian Lore

The Timurid invasions against the Kartid rulers of Khorasan, which began in 783/1381, caused socioeconomic dislocation and unprecedented wholesale destruction and pillaging of towns, as well as brutal massacres of their populations (or, in more fortunate cases, the extraction of ransom money, large-scale confiscations, and the deportation of classes of people possessing specialized skills). Once he was established, Tīmūr’s (d. 807/1405) main concern, in the tradition of the Chingizid (see ČENGĪZ) models he sought to emulate, was to secure trade routes and to reestablish the exchange economy, with a view to enriching the Transoxanian base of his empire. However, the flight or enslavement of peasants and the banishment or murder of leading families disrupted social relations, and Persia’s economy remained disorganized (Aubin, pp. 90 ff.; Roemer, pp. 52 ff.).

The reign of Tīmūr’s son and successor, Šāhroḵ (811-50/1409-47), represented a dramatic departure from the irregular taxation practices and lack of concern for the agrarian economy, which had characterized the previous period. Šāhroḵ’s vizier, Ḡīāṯ-al-Dīn Moḥammad Ḵᵛafī instituted regular fiscal and administrative procedures (ʿOqaylī, p. 342).

The irrigation system, which in the Marv oasis, for example, had been ruined during the Mongol invasions, was repaired, and the first steps were taken to restore agricultural production (Ḥāfeẓ-e Abrū, I, p. 60, II, p. 9; Ḥabīb al-sīar IV, Tehran, p. 650). Sultan Abū Saʿīd (r. 855-73/1451-69) continued the development of the agrarian economy by increasing the acreage under cultivation—his vizier, Qoṭb-al-Dīn Ṭāwūs Semnānī, was responsible for constructing the Jūy-e solṭānī irrigation canal northeast of Herat and was credited with the highest yields ever produced in Khorasan (Ḵᵛāndamīr, pp. 385-86, 389; Esfezārī, I, p. 85)—and by confirming traditional patterns of water use (Abūnaṣrī Heravī, p. 15).

The Timurid ruler regarded by contemporaries as having raised agriculture to new heights in the Herat region, where the Timurid capital was located, was Sultan Ḥosayn Bāyqarā (873-911/1469-506). He took a personal interest in agriculture and even gardening (Subtelny, 1993, pp. 184-89). Esfezārī’s historico-geographical work, Rawżāt al-jannāt (comp. 897/1491-92), and Abūnaṣrī Heravī’s agricultural manual, Eršād al-zerāʿa (compl. 921/1515), relate specifically to the period of Bāyqarā’s rule. Along with the earlier geographical history of Ḥāfeẓ-e Abrū (compl. 823/1420), they present a detailed tableau of the agriculture of greater Khorasan during the 15th century, including the types of cereals, legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and flowers cultivated (for a summary of the contents of Esfezārī’s work, see Semenov, pp. 69-82; for a partial translation, see Barbier de Meynard, pp. 461-520). Bāyqarā appears to have played a direct role in the organization of agricultural production, on both state lands and lands belonging to the awqāf of the many shrine complexes, such as those at Gāzorgāh, Balḵ, Jām, and Mašhad.

The Timurids systematically developed these complexes, transforming them into vehicles for managing the lucrative, intensively irrigated agriculture of Khorasan (Subtelny, 1993, pp. 189 ff.).

Although agriculture remained the chief source of tax revenues, trade and commerce were also important in this period. Local craft production in Persia was initially weakened as a result of Tīmūr’s deportation of large numbers of skilled craftsmen and artisans to his Central Asian capital, Samarkand. After Šāhroḵ’s son, Uluḡ Beg, allowed these groups to return to their homes, local industries, on which the tamḡā tax continued to be imposed despite religious objections, resumed production. A balance appears to have existed between the sedentary and pastoral nomadic sectors, with the towns continuing to serve as the sites of exchange between them. The long-distance caravan trade, particularly in luxury goods such as porcelains and silk (with Estarābād as a chief manufacturing center), continued between eastern Persian and Central Asian cities under Timurid control, such as Herat and Samarqand, and India and China. But the Timurids, unlike their Mongol predecessors, were unable to promote the traditional Persian east-west trade along the so-called Silk routes. The reasons for this failure were the decentralized nature of their empire and political pressure from the Turkmen dynasties in the west (Fragner, pp. 524 ff.; Rossabi, pp. 352 ff.).

The political stability which had existed under the Timurids throughout the 15th century and which had enabled agriculture and commerce to flourish was brought to an abrupt end in the first decade of the 16th century by the nomadic Uzbek invasions, which toppled the Timurid dynasty. The fall of the Timurids for some time set back the economic prosperity which had taken a century to achieve. There are indications, however, that the increasing fiscal decentralization of the Timurid state, which had resulted from the growth of such fiscal immunities as soyūrḡāl land grants and the accumulation of a huge fund of awqāf, had already by that time put considerable economic pressure on the Timurid center. The situation necessitated the debasement of coinage and placed in jeopardy central political control (Subtelny, 1988, pp. 123-51; Fragner, pp. 559-61).

https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/economy-vi-in-the-timurid-period/