CHAPTER I.
_RISE OF EUROPEAN PIRACY IN THE EAST_ Portuguese pirates--Vincente Sodre--Dutch pirates--Royal filibustering--Endymion Porter's venture--The Courten Association--The Indian Red Sea fleet--John Hand--Odium excited against the English in Surat--The _Caesar_ attacked by French pirates--Danish depredations--West Indian pirates--Ovington's narrative--Interlopers and permission ships--Embargo placed on English trade--Rovers trapped at Mungrole--John Steel--Every seizes the _Charles the Second_ and turns pirate--His letter to English commanders--The Madagascar settlements--Libertatia--Fate of Sawbridge--Capture of the _Gunj Suwaie_--Immense booty--Danger of the English at Surat--Bombay threatened--Friendly behaviour of the Surat Governor--Embargo on European trade--Every sails for America--His reputed end--Great increase of piracy--Mutiny of the _Mocha_ and _Josiah_ crews--Culliford in the _Resolution_--The _London_ seized by Imaum of Muscat.
From the first days of European enterprise in the East, the coasts of India were regarded as a favourable field for filibusters, the earliest we hear of being Vincente Sodre, a companion of Vasco da Gama in his second voyage.

Intercourse with heathens and idolaters was regulated according to a different code of ethics from that applied to intercourse with Christians.

The authority of the Old Testament upheld slavery, and Africans were regarded more as cattle than human beings; while Asiatics were classed higher, but still as immeasurably inferior to Europeans.

To prey upon Mahommedan ships was simply to pursue in other waters the chronic warfare carried on against Moors and Turks in the Mediterranean.
The same feelings that led the Spaniards to adopt the standard of the Cross in their conquest of Mexico and Peru were present, though less openly avowed, in the minds of the merchants and adventurers of all classes and nationalities who flocked into the Indian seas in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

With the decadence of buccaneering and the growth of Indian trade, there was a corresponding increase of piracy, and European traders ceased to enjoy immunity.
In 1623 the depredations of the Dutch brought the English into disgrace.
Their warehouses at Surat were seized, and the president and factors were placed in irons, in which condition they remained seven months.