Rebirth of Empire (2 of 2) - The Hunt for 'Piranha' (2 of 2)
Lusitania
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Rebirth of Empire (Part 2 of 2) (Cont.)
The Hunt for ‘Piranha’ (2 of 2)
Battle of Dili (1781) & Capture of the ‘Piranha’
William’s chain of provocations, however, could not go unanswered any further and the Chinese Emperor, the China Sea pirates and the Dutch navy began to issue pursuit of William ‘Piranha’, not knowing where he was based but able to trace his followers. Feeling the pressure of local powers uniting against him once again, William decided to return his operations to the easternmost Spice Islands, rebasing himself in Tidore where his enlarged fleet would regain strength while the angered emperors and Stadtholders cooled off. He turned his sights to the most vulnerable colonies and kingdoms of the endless archipelago, where his preferred tactics would make him unstoppable.The Hunt for ‘Piranha’ (2 of 2)
Battle of Dili (1781) & Capture of the ‘Piranha’
And for a short while it was so, with the Dutch unable to isolate his movements and entrap him, allowing William to plunder back much strength. He also began targeting Portuguese possessions and eventually intended to capture Dili itself, turning it into his own pirate fortress. This hubris and overreaching proved to be his downfall, however, for by the time the Piranha was ready to strike Dili, the Hammershark was there to prey on him.
On November 1781, as he prepared himself to raid the Timor coast, William was caught against the shore by the squadron of Admiral Rebelo, whose HMS Beira Prince led in a surrounding tactic that would neutralized William’s typical speedy and infiltrative maneuvers. Pushing the superior weight of his ships against William, the ‘Hammershark’ successfully cornered Piranha and ordered an immediate firing and boarding to prevent the wild card pirate from escaping his grasp again. The professional sailors were quick to follow command and William suddenly found his proud fleet be mercilessly bombarded and seized.
Rebelo counter-ambushed William once again and immediately sunk half his fleet
With a rocky shore grinding him like an anvil, William realized there was a legitimate chance he could be captured all at once despite the gains he accumulated in the China Sea, but true to his nature he instead chose to bite back and engaged the Portuguese Navy directly, but there was one thing he did not count on; the Portuguese Marines.
Trained in naval action and shock tactics, the Marines were unlike the ordinary Bluecoat and sailor in the sense they thrived on pirate-style combat, and the crew of the pirate ship ‘Reaper’ found this out the hard way as they attacked the HMS Verney with a boarding action in an attempt to create an opening in Rebelo’s ship line. Their rope-swinging and boarding was met with trained saber rattle and musket firing which successfully fought off the buccaneers, who then realized they stuck themselves to a warship of superior firepower that did not hesitate to repel their melee attack and blast their deck to splinters.
William’s pirates attempt to board HMS Verney but were immediately countered by the Marines
The battle further progressed unfavorably at an alarming rate, with William’s best ships falling into tactical traps and unable to out-fire, board, slip through or even properly turn their broadsides to the Portuguese virtual blockade. Half of his ships began surrendering within the hour but William, true to his nature, refuse to give up and ordered his flagship to ‘ram the Beira Prince’, a move that wasn’t even expected to work given the contemporary design of his warship but would at least allow him to die fighting to the end.
Predicting this desperate move from years of driving his enemies into corners, Anthony Rebelo ordered his squadron to open chain-ball fire on William, shattering his sails and stopping the pirate’s movements on its tracks. At 14:39 PM, Anthony’s marines boarded the ‘Amazona’ and captured the entire crew, including William who attempted to bite his own tongue upon feeling the saber on his throat.
Surrender, Punishment Philosophy & Letter of Marque
“I will surrender to no man but the one who beat me. It was not the Prince of Lisbon that beat me today. It was a ‘shark’. I will offer my sword to him, and to no one else.”
-William ‘Piranha’, as his flagship was boarded by Rebelo
“I will surrender to no man but the one who beat me. It was not the Prince of Lisbon that beat me today. It was a ‘shark’. I will offer my sword to him, and to no one else.”
-William ‘Piranha’, as his flagship was boarded by Rebelo
The capture of ‘Piranha’ signaled a mark of honor on Vice-Admiral Hammershark’s career, having personally put an end to the career of a man who, for a moment, made the East believe he would become a pirate king. The bounty on Piranha’s death alone was worth a fortune, but Rebelo was under orders to capture the pirate by the Portuguese Navy and not the sultans of Arabia. The corsair had attacked Portuguese ships and ports over the years, but extraordinary circumstances compelled Rebelo to not immediately execute the pirate.
The most important circumstances were the ongoing Luso-Dutch hostilities and the abolishment of the Death Penalty in Portugal.
In 1781, the people of Portugal were beset by Theodorian Thought, the philosophical current, doctrine and idea based on humanistic principles, on the concept of Social Contract and on the sanctity of life proposed by ‘Teodoro de Almeida’, an ecclesiastic philosopher, at the height of the society’s Value Void Years (1775-1780). Based on the fundamental ‘Five Arguments of Theodore’, which addressed Religion, Society, Nation, ‘Right to Rule’ and Vengeance, it argued for the ‘National missioning of all Portuguese against Death Penalty throughout the world’. This radical string of thought believed it was Portugal’s destiny as an empire to combat Death Penalty, in a parallel to Britain’s mission to combat slavery, and it took the country by storm due to elevated anxieties stemming from the harshness of Pombaline rule, the rumors of the French Revolution’s barbarity and a popular desire to rediscover Portuguese identity after the events of the Order of Christ Conspiracy.
Theodore of Almeida’s philosophy shaped Portuguese society and indirectly spared William’s life
This acknowledged the brutality of life but argued that humans, as rational beings, had the duty and desire to rise above that brutality by all means necessary in a manner similar to how British were arguing against slavery. The purest expression of this thought was the treatment of prisoners; while they could be contained in a cell, distanced by exile or disciplined by pain, all of which were relative punishments, it was no one’s right to take their life, which was an Absolute punishment (mostly based on an argument that it would deprive them of the chance to redeem themselves which, albeit fallacious, was compatible with the fragile state of mind of Portuguese society at the time).
Theodorian Thought characterized the Portuguese social revolution, allowing it to counter the spread of French Revolutionary ideals and, later on, Malthusian Thought, and it dictated that the military, which was a force of the state, could not act in a manner contrary to the society the state represented. This included captured pirates, which were traditionally considered vile beyond all levels (particularly and ironically by the Portuguese themselves, who historically and consistently suffered horrors and misfortunes under Barbary corsairs and European privateers).
This put Rebelo in a delicate situation regarding William, whom he intended to capture but knew the young pirate would face hanging should he be delivered to the Sultans, the Chinese Emperor or even the nearby governor of Dili. Anthony ‘Hammershark’ therefore decided to negotiate with William the terms of his surrender, which included his enlistment as a privateer under King Joseph II. The main reason for this was the ongoing conflict with the Dutch (which lingered from 1780 till after William’s capture). Should William accept Rebelo’s offer, his life and that of his captured crewmen would be spared, he would be given a new crew to take over and his piracy activities would be continued and even funded by King Joseph II against the Dutch.
To the surprise of everyone on board except Rebelo, William accepted.
After a lifetime of piracy and murder, William ‘Piranha’ surrenders to Anthony ‘Hammershark’ Rebelo
The event of William’s surrender became one of historical discussion; the pirate was known for his vile aggression, rogue background and refusal to take orders from even the biggest of sea dogs. It was not well understood why the same man who refused the vassalage ultimatum of Zheng Yi at the cost of a massive, difficult sea battle, spent years subverting the dominance of sea powers in various areas of the Asian waters and even attempted to bite his tongue after capture by Rebelo would accept the deal offered by that very same captor of technical enslavement to the Portuguese Navy.
William’s motives were the same that motivated any man of his nature; he had been defeated honorably by a superior sea warrior and wished to fight on under his command. By his own words, he did not surrender to Joseph II, to whom Anthony swore an oath of obedience, but to Anthony ‘Hammershark’ himself. While the Letter of Marque he would receive would be marked by the ring of the King, it was to Anthony he held respect, not the runt in Lisbon. Secondly the act of privateering allowed him to live the life he had so far enjoyed and profited from, except he would have to live with the fact his crewmen were soldiers in pirate clothes instead of actual bloodthirsty corsairs (which made his sleep more comfortable, in fact).
All William would really miss out on was the glory of being an independent corsair punching the nose of eastern pirate lords, something which benefits were being over the years gradually outweighed by their worrying repercussions, as William’s enemies rose by the years despite his many unlikely victories. As a privateer under an organized navy, he would be better equipped, better fed, better clothed and had the prospects of increasing his glory and fame beyond the mere limits of a dying Pirate Age. It would all depend on how much he was willing to risk under his new masters and he was willing to try it after the catastrophic defeat he suffered at Dili.
Therefore, from that moment onwards, William ceased to be a pirate and instead became William ‘Piranha’ de Távora, a man that would eventually reach vice-admiralty, refuse a promotion to admiralty and be remembered as a crucial naval reformer of his age. He would play a crucial role in the Luso-Dutch Wars of the 1780s, being almost singlehandedly responsible for the defeat, sinking and capture of dozens of warships, and would take part in major sea battles from the early French Revolutionary Wars to the Luso-Moroccan wars of the 1820s.
Legacy, Culture & Heroism
William was at his time known as one of the bloodthirsty relics of the Pirate Age, but his life as a privateer and eventually as a Vice-Admiral of the Portuguese Navy would transform him into an historical symbol of Portuguese seafaring. Throughout the 1800s his acts and battles were romanticized, impressed, dramatized and echoed, influencing Portuguese naval doctrine with his belief in superior mobility tactics all the way to the 20th century and the rise of the submarine fleets despite some fellow mariners of his time, including Rebelo and later on the Marquis of Nisa, surpassing him in battle feats scale.
The rogue and proud attitude he displayed, however, catapulted him into a pedestal of masculine adventurism beyond his actual accomplishments and he joined the ranks of characters like Blackbeard and Sandokan as a man of rebellious and romantic endeavors, with many of his feats being remembered with exaggeration and excessive apologies in the form of books, theater, epics and, eventually, comic books about his adventures in the East.
An Adventure in the China Seas
William was featured heavily in Corsair comics in 20th century Portugal
His legendary status was impactful even during his lifetime and it helped further the romanticism and neo-classicism that took over Portugal during the defense against the French invasions of Napoleon Bonaparte, an impact he often ridiculed as ‘desk dribble’ from writing men who didn’t really understand the harshness of the sea.
The hunt for the pirate ‘Piranha’ was, then, in conclusion, a campaign of great importance for Portuguese naval history and it would influence conflicts from the Anglo-Dutch Wars to others well beyond his death, including World War I.
Note:
We have now completed not only Hunt for Piranha but also Rebirth of Empire volume 2. It is important to understand the impact of our journey and where we go from here. We have not only covered the reign of king Joseph 1 but the first few years of king Joseph II whom we call the "Great", these have been tumultuous years with more changes and development than in previous few centuries. All of them had their source in one person Marques Pombal. For while the events over the last three decades have not been entirely his doing it was his vision and initiative that brought the country to the moment in time. Had fortune not touched Pombal and more importantly Portugal many of this person efforts might of been squandered or even reversed by the reactionary forces still present in the country at end of king Joseph I reign. I shudder to think what the country would of turned out had the we had the misfortune of Prince Maria ascend the throne. We can also wonder what would of happen to the many developments and changes the country and empire had witnessed if the right partners had not appeared in Pombal's path and ended up in his cabinet and working alongside Pombal for betterment of the country, for all the tasks accomplished in the last 3 decades would of been high improbable to be done by one person, at least with long lasting impact and in the detail they were done during this time. Lastly we finish with few words regarding William Távora and both the impact he had during this time in the dangerous waters that were the Indian and China Seas at that time. More importantly the affect he will have in the next great challenge facing not only the country but the whole empire. For next up is what had been described as the epic tale of the country's fight for survival and expansion apply named "The Three-Years War 1780 -1783". For it will be a time for the country to arise to the challenges being presented over a space of only few years but touches every part of the empire. The three year war is actual a series of battles and wars that span the globe pitting Portugal and British against several European adversaries as well as some regional opponents. It is a momentous tale and one will delve on for the next year. For it and the related sections are over 200 pages. Questions/Comments
Please return Sunday October 6 as we post the start of the Three-Years War (1780 -1784).
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