MARITIME HISTORY 



Although foreign courts protested loudly it must not be supposed that 

 England alone produced pirates. In June, 1574, the vice-admiral of Dorset 

 wrote that ' there lies at this present so many pirates upon this coast, being 

 Frenchmen, that no English ship is able to pass to any place without great 

 danger.'^*" However, the English were undeniably the worst ; in 1577 new 

 commissioners were appointed, and still more stringent methods of repression 

 adopted, an attempt being made to strike at the root of the evil by reaching 

 the aiders and abettors ashore. Persons who helped pirates, or dealt with 

 them, were now to be prosecuted and fined, and the fines were to go towards 

 compensating 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 set out ships pirate-hunting.^" The new commissioners made 

 many interesting discoveries in Dorset, not the least being the difficulty in 

 obtaining disinterested jurymen ; in one case a member of a Weymouth 

 jury confessed himself a dealer with pirates, and there were no doubt many 

 others from whom no avowal was forced."" Three notorious pirates, 

 Robert Hicks,'** Court, and John Callis, haunted the Dorset coast, and the 

 reason for their preference is to be found in the long list of receivers with 

 whom they did business. Their 'chief boatmen,' i.e. carriers, were 21 in 

 number divided between Weymouth, Melcombe, and the villages along the 

 coast east of Weymouth. There were six carriers with carts going inland 

 and 75 other persons were named as buying from them or supplying them.'** 

 One of the obstacles the government had to surmount lay in the fact that 

 the pirates were often helped by men of higher social rank than those who 

 consorted with them merely for a profit. When Court's ship was driven 

 ashore Sir Richard Rogers of West Lulworth got her afloat again for the 

 man he should have arrested. Callis, this same year, proposed to Walsingham 

 to clear the Channel of pirates ; he said that he knew enough about their 

 habits to do more by himself than Elizabeth could if she spent ;r20,ooo, and 

 he inclosed a list of receivers.'*" 



Notwithstanding the energetic proceedings of the commissioners con- 

 ditions remained much the same. In 1580 a proclamation declared that the 

 pirates ' at this day commit more spoils and robberies on all sides than have 

 been heard of in former times.' '*^ There must have been still many receivers 

 left in Dorset, for in the same year the plunderers of two vessels off Orford- 

 ness brought their spoil round to Swanage and Studland for sale.'*^ In fact, 

 after their first blow, the commissioners of 1577 seem quite to have failed, for 

 in 1582 an official in the Isle of Purbeck complained that pirates swarmed 

 there, ' the common infamy of this poor island and me . . . the place of their 

 repair is here where in truth they are my masters . . . and when they choose 

 to come on land, they are so strong and well-appointed as they cannot be on 

 the sudden repulsed.' '*' At the same time the burgesses of Poole petitioned 



'*» S.P. Dom. Eliz. xcvii, No. 7. 



'" Add. MSS. 34150, fol. 61, 64. In 1559 the judge of the Admiralty Court held th.it all goods 

 must be restored to the owners (S.P. Dom. Eliz. vi. No. 1*9) ; therefore the new regulation must have referred 

 to property belonging to the pirates or uncl.iimed. There had been some doubt whether accessories ashore 

 could legally be prosecuted {^cts of P.C. 6 June, 1577), and the opinion of the law officers of the crown 

 was obtained (Harl. MSS. 168, fol. 1 14). '" S.P. Dom. Eliz. cxiii. No. 9. 



'" For more about Hicks, see F.C.H. Cornwall, i, 489. '" S.P. Dom. Eliz. cxiii. No. 24. 



'" Ibid. Add. XXV, No. 60. '« Ibid, cxlvi, No. II. 



'«■ Acts oj P.C. 15 July, 1580. "» S.P. Dom. Eliz. clvi. No. I (Fr. Hawley to W.alsingham). 



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