MARITIME HISTORY 



of repression adopted ; 1 the aiders and abettors ashore were now to be prosecuted and fined, and 

 the fines were to go towards recouping the victims ; the takers of pirates were to have a proportion 

 of the goods found on board, and commissions were to be granted to private persons to send out 

 ships pirate-hunting. 2 The commissioners set to work energetically, and soon succeeded in finding 

 misdemeanants in Suffolk. Within a month a number of Aldeburgh burgesses, who, surprised at 

 the new departure, at first 'utterly refused' to pay, were fined for dealing with pirates; they 

 subsequently thought better of it and offered what they considered ' reasonable ' compositions. 3 

 By December the commissioners had compiled a long list of receivers all over the county ; among 

 the offenders, as an actual pirate, was John Flicke of Woodbridge, probably a relative of Robert 

 Flicke, well known in naval history as a commander in the queen's fleets. 4 In another list Flicke 

 appears as paying ^3, with sixteen other delinquents, fined from ^3 to 4.$,* and one list of 

 Suffolk fines for 1577 amounts to jf 182 from fifty-nine persons, of whom thirteen lived at Ipswich. 6 

 Probably matters had not become worse in 1578, but the commissioners had found out more, and 

 in March forwarded another catalogue of forty-four receivers, many of whom were apparently 

 well-to-do people. 7 



In 1579 Aldeburgh was searched, with the result that an inventory of pirates' plunder found 

 in the houses was sent up to the Council. 8 The accused were sometimes recalcitrant ; in January 

 of this year two burgesses of Southwold and one of Dunwich refused to pay the fines charged on 

 them, and, in consequence, were sent for to London and ' ordered to attend here upon their 

 lordships until discharged.' 8 Obviously this might be made a more expensive punishment than the 

 original fine. There is incidental evidence that the abettors and protectors of Elizabethan pirates 

 were sometimes of much higher social standing than the persons who merely looked to a profit in 

 buying their booty. We get a hint of one such case in the same year when five gentlemen, living 

 near Woodbridge, were ordered to appear before the Privy Council to answer an accusation that 

 Anthony Newport, a notorious pirate, had escaped apprehension by their connivance. 10 By an Order 

 in Council of 16 December, 1582, jurisdiction in matters of piracy was suspended for three years in 

 those towns possessing Admiralty rights in order to avoid the conflict of authority which occurred 

 with the piracy commissioners in such places. This measure can hardly have had much effect, for 

 in 1586 pirates were resorting quite openly to Gorleston, which was in the Yarmouth jurisdiction, 

 to revictual. 11 It seems that when abroad the pirate or privateer was, as might be expected, even 

 less burdened with ethical scruples than when in English waters. About 1593 Edward Glemham, 

 who belonged to a Suffolk family, was cruising in the Mediterranean, and actually ' pawned ' l 

 several of his crew at Algiers in exchange for provisions. They were still in slavery when the 

 matter came before the Council in 1600; Glemham was dead and had left little property, so that 

 the queen authorized the Lord Mayor and the Trinity House to collect money for the redemption 

 of the men. 



The bounty system inaugurated by Henry VII, by which an occasional tonnage allowance 

 was made to the builders of new ships suitable for service in war, had, under Elizabeth, settled into 

 a grant of 51. a ton on all vessels of 100 tons and upwards. The expansion of trade and the 

 attraction of privateering stimulated shipbuilding everywhere, while the bounty conduced to an 

 increase of size in new vessels. For a time Ipswich, which by reason of the plentiful supply of 

 timber in the neighbourhood, became the shipyard of London, prospered exceedingly by the 

 demand. Besides the stimulus of war there were economic reasons for a revival of the shipping 

 trade under Elizabeth, but during the middle of the century there appears to have been a decline 

 of commerce with a consequent decrease of shipping. A paper, probably belonging to the beginning 

 of Elizabeth's reign, enumerates a long list of vessels 'decayed' since 1544; during the period 

 reviewed Ipswich and Harwich had lost the use of five ships of 600 tons, Walberswick one of 140, 

 and Aldeburgh one of 200 tons. 13 



The part that Suffolk took in the Spanish war was the supply of men, ships, and money. On 

 the south coast there were recurrent panics of imminent invasion, but Suffolk did not feel the actual 



1 S.P. Dom. Eliz. cxv, 32. For Suffolk : Lords Wentworth and North, Sir Robt. Wingfield, Sir Wm. 

 Waldegrave, Nicholas Bacon, Robert Jermyn, Edw. Grimston, and others, including the bailiffs and recorder 

 of Ipswich. 



'Add. MSS. 34150, fols. 6l, 64. In 1559 the judge of the Admiralty Court held that all goods must 

 be restored to the owners (S.P. Dom. Eliz. vi, 19) ; therefore this must refer to property belonging to the 

 pirates or unclaimed. There had been some doubt whether accessories ashore could legally be prosecuted 

 (Acts ofP.C. 6 June, 1577). 



'S.P. Dom. Eliz. cxv, 49. * Ibid, cxix, 6, 13, i. 



'Add. MSS. 12505, fol. 333. 'S.P. Dom. Eliz. cxxxv, fol. 15. 



'Ibid, cxxiii, 3. 'Ibid, cxxxi, 38. 'Acts ofP.C. 16 Jan. 1578-9. 



"Ibid. 26 April, 1579. "Ibid. 26 Sept. 1586. 



11 Ibid. 10 Mar. 1599-1600. Adjudications upon several of Glemham's captures exist among the 

 Admiralty Court papers. " S.P. Dom. Mary, i, 23. 



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