Suffolk Pirates and a Raid on the Manila Galleon

During a recent walk along the River Alde, at Snape in my native Suffolk, a sailing barge passed by. Such barges were once a common sight on the coast and rivers of Suffolk. My grandfather Harry Lucas captained a barge called the Raybel and his son Arthur sailed on the Thalatta. In the bookshop at Snape Maltings I picked up a book (Robert Malster, Maritime Suffolk), which, to my surprise, includes a few pages about a piratical escapade off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, in 1587.

 

A sailing barge on the River Alde

It might seem a rather long leap to go from the contemporary backwaters of Suffolk to the Pacific, but in the 16^th-century the east coast ports were among the most important in England. Dunwich, most of which was long ago swallowed by the North Sea, supplied a large part of the fleet that defeated the Armada of Felipe II, king of Spain. While his compatriots battled the Spanish, Thomas Cavendish, a gentleman adventurer from Trimley, Suffolk, set out to raid the Spanish empire in the Americas for profit with a privately-financed fleet of three ships. A number of other Suffolk men were on board, among them Francis Petty of Eye, who chronicled the voyage, the Ipswich merchant Thomas Eldred, and Thomas Fuller also of Ipswich. Eldred was famous enough to have a pub named after him in Ipswich.

 

Left to right: Drake, Cavendish, Hawkins, British School 17th century

Navigation was a dangerous business in those days. In early 1587, the fleet spent seven weeks passing through the Straits of Magellan at the foot of South America. The smallest of the ships, the Hugh Gallant, was so damaged that it nearly sank. The other two, Desire and Content, had rounded the Cape earlier and put ashore to look for water, only to be attacked by Indians, who mistook the English sailors for Spaniards. Schoolboys of my generation learned of famous sailors such as Cavendish, Drake and Hawkins as English heroes. To the Spanish, they were, of course, murderous pirates. Cavendish was certainly piratical as he made his way up the coast of South America, engaging in occasional combat with Spanish forces and burning settlements. By the time the ships reached the coast of Ecuador, the complement of men was so reduced that Cavendish decided to sink the Hugh Gallant and distribute its crew among the remaining two ships.

Off the coast of Mexico Cavendish seized a large Spanish ship. A captured Frenchman had enticing news: the merchants of Mexico were expecting a galleon from Manila with a rich cargo. Cavendish sailed north to the coast of Baja California until he sighted the Santa Ana. The Spanish galleon was much larger than the English ships, but it was heavily laden and had no cannon. Its only defences were Spanish soldiers armed with pikes and arquebuses. The smaller but more manoeuvrable Desire and Content’s cannon bombarded the Santa Ana until the crew were forced to surrender. Cavendish loaded gold and precious textiles on to his ships, set the Spanish crew ashore and set light to the Santa Ana. Then he continued his voyage across the Pacific, around the Cape of Good Hope, and returned home with a handsome profit and the fame of circumnavigating the globe.

 

A map of Cavendish's circumnavigation

The journey from Acapulco to Manila was a perilous and unpleasant undertaking, especially the return from the Philippines, which could take from three to six months. Space on board was limited, so much so that in 1620 the King issued an order limiting passengers to one slave per person to conserve supplies. Rats, cockroaches and other bugs were endemic, food rotted and became worm-ridden, water could become foul or simply run out. Scurvy, bubonic plague, typhoid and dysentery were common. The risk of death was such that all passengers were obliged to confess and take communion at Manila before leaving for Acapulco. A royal decree ordered that there should be two pilots on each galleon, since pilots frequently died en route.

 

Model of a Manila galleon

A Japanese fall front cabinet, 16th or 17th century

In June 1624 a Catalan scribe by the name of Gaspar Pagés de Moncada boarded a galleon in Manila. Gaspar took some precautions against the privations of the voyage. He took on board a barrel of chocolate, known to keep when other foods had rotted, and four amphorae of wine, so that he did not have to depend on the ship’s limited water supply. He also took with him a range of exotic Asian silk and cotton fabrics, items made of marble, a Japanese writing desk, two Chinese porcelain plates (broken) and a salt cellar. The fabrics included two pairs of Chinese silk stockings (one silver coloured, the other white).  Gaspar planned to sell his modest treasure of Asian goods in Mexico to make a quick profit. He hoped to return to the two houses and the vineyards he had left behind in Cataluña, but he would never see them again. He fell ill on the journey and was set ashore in January 1625. His final resting place was historic, since he was buried in February in the church of the town of Colima, now the cathedral, built 1525-1540, less than 20 years after the Conquest of Mexico.

 

Colima cathedral

Just as Gaspar would never again see his native Cataluña, Thomas Cavendish would eventually die far from the estuaries and marshes of Suffolk. The Content disappeared from view soon after the looting the Santa Ana, and Cavendish set out alone in the Desire across the Pacific to complete his circumnavigation of the globe. He sank his profits from the Santa Ana in a fleet of five new ships and in 1591 set out once again to raid the Pacific coast of the Americas. This expedition was an utter disaster and Cavendish died in May or June 1592, probably near Ascension Island in the south Atlantic.

These connections between far-flung places, are a reminder to those of us who now travel with ease from Europe to the Americas and to Asia, that our global world has its roots in events some five centuries ago. Gaspar and Thomas were, no doubt, driven by dreams of riches, but they also had a capacity to tolerate privations and death in ways that we would hardly imagine if historical documents did not reveal them to us.