Newfoundland Cod and English Piracy in the Early Seventeenth Century

Newfoundland’s cod fisheries were a vital resource in the development and sustenance of Europe’s early modern maritime economies. As the fisheries preyed on cod, they in turn were preyed upon by a new threat in the form of pirates. The pattern of piracy in Newfoundland in the first decades of the seventeenth century provides an insightful foil to English activity in the region as a whole, exposing patterns of European rivalry, national collaboration, and resource extraction. This article uses Newfoundland’s relationship with piracy as a focus to explore those issues, weaving together the histories of pirates, fishermen, and cod in an environmental approach that appreciates their interacting roles in the political ecology of Jacobean England, as well as the wider environment of the North Atlantic world.

The history of early modern maritime expansion is a history of resource extraction.Cod was the resource du jour, a commodity and foodstuff that propelled Atlantic Europe outwards through the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.As cheap nutrition, it was remarkable for its longevity; properly preserved, cod would outlast alternatives like herring. 5 Unrest loomed over Europe; with meat prices high and militaries expanding, many regions were 'desperately short' of inexpensive, durable protein sources, and the growing populations of enslaved Africans in the Caribbean plantations also needed a cheap source of food. 6Cod was the silver-bullet solution, and Newfoundland had cod in abundance.
But, as this article argues, a second (and just as vital) resource was available in Newfoundland in the form of fishermen.The fishery was a source of labour as well as food, a key 'nursery' capable of providing up to 1,500 newly skilled seafarers per year, 'the raw material of naval power'. 7By 1615 250 English ships were making the annual spring voyage across to Newfoundland, bringing home 250,000 hundredweight of preserved fish in the autumn. 8This number would rise to 300 vessels by 1620, employing over 6,000 seafarers. 9In 1610 the newly incorporated Newfoundland Company was chartered to establish a permanent colony on the optimistically named 'Avalon' peninsula. 10The charter recognized a political truth, that the 'increase of navigation and trade' offered by north Atlantic cod fisheries was of paramount importance and opportunity to Jacobean England. 11ut England's politicians were not alone in recognizing the value of Newfoundland's fishermen as a labour pool.William Brancham, making his way quietly across the chill waters of Conception Bay, was about to get a taste of his own medicine when he found himself surrounded by heavily armed English pirates.Typical of their profession, the pirates made off with all the valuable resources at hand, and this included not only the ton of cod, but also William Brancham.The fisherman had become part of the catch.
This article uses stories like Brancham's, where criminal acts cut sharply into everyday maritime activity, to place the developing Newfoundland fishery within the history of maritime England as a whole.It does so through the framework of 'political ecology', where political action is 'defined by its relations to nature'. 12It begins by introducing the fishery in a European maritime context, before describing early seventeenth-century piracy as a reflexive function of broader commercial, political and social changes.Piracy acts as a historical bellwether; it is a disruptive activity, but it is also inherently symptomatic of such larger phenomena.Historians of the seventeenth century maritime may be familiar with its political and social changes; I aim to emphasize that such changes also fundamentally relate to engagement with the environment and natural resources.

The Mariner's Mirror
In this fisheye lens, William Brancham and his boatload of cod become a momentary, yet illustrative, juncture in a greater web of political ecology.I advocate for treating cod, fishermen and pirates alike as component parts of a greater ecological network of relationships that both formed and shaped England's early modern maritime world. 13To understand the maritime, we must appreciate the environmental angle.

English seafaring in the North Atlantic context
At the time of Brancham's capture in 1618 English piracy was on the decline.Admittedly, this was after a truly momentous peak; England's maritime economy, which had increasingly incorporated modes of depredation (both legal and illegal) under Elizabeth I, initially carried those practices forwards under the new monarch despite budding peace with Spain.Newfoundland was not the only 'nursery' for seamen by 1603; piracy was another.14A royal proclamation against piracy in 1603 had little effect, as many English seafarers accustomed to making a living through violent private ventures simply sought new justifications. 15With English letters of reprisal revoked, many sailed under Dutch commissions instead. 16When a 1604 proclamation prevented seafarers from sailing under foreign commissions, many either turned to outright piracy or moved to pastures new, taking up with the corsairing Islamic polities of the Maghreb. 17Led by the notorious John Ward, these renegade Englishmen coalesced into a well-organized community of Mediterranean pirates around several key captains. 18By 1608, when Ward's reputation soured amongst his countryfolk, a splinter group of captains under 'admiral' Richard Bishop set up their own pirate confederacy in the north Atlantic. 19The sheer scale of their operation, involving over 1,000 seafarers during its peak, quickly drew international attention. 20eography and environment were vital factors; operating out of havens in southwest Ireland and western Morocco, the confederacy preyed seasonally on the convergence of Atlantic (and greater Mediterranean) shipping routes around the west coast of Spain. 21Their operational scale was vast, but they were careful: they avoided attacking English shipping, preferring Spanish, French and Flemish targets. 22his was sensible; maintaining camaraderie with English communities enabled Newfoundland Cod and English Piracy in the Early Seventeenth Century 213 reliable operational havens and, eventually, pardons and re-integration. 23Although short, this wave of piracy was impactful, 'More Englishmen sailed on pirate ships in James' reign than in the famous golden age of piracy a century later'. 24The pirate boom hit its zenith in 1611.At this point Bishop, ever the savvy operator, jumped ship with a well-termed pardon. 25The confederacy fragmented; starved of direction and resources, its pirates began to prey on English shipping with increased frequency.The Newfoundland fisheries would become a favoured target.
Maritime violence was not new to Newfoundland.Although fishermen from different communities had preferential fishing grounds in the area, the best locations for fishing (and for 'fishing rooms', processing catch ashore) were hotly contested. 26There were huge profits to be made; by 1550, cod accounted for 60 per cent of European fish consumption. 27At this time, Newfoundland's cod trade was dominated by the French, but this would not last.Elizabethan policymakers like William Cecil recognized a causality between fishing and the country's maritime acuity. 28England's growth needed maritime trade, and maritime trade needed skilled seafarers; Newfoundland offered both.This resulted in the 'first comprehensive statutory regulation and protection of the English fishing industry' in 1563 with an 'Acte towching certayne politique constitutions made for the maintenance of the navye', instituting Wednesdays as a fish day. 29For Cecil, growing England's fisheries was more than just a practical solution to the realm's economic and military shortcomings; it was a territorial 'point of honour'. 30The policy was designed to enlarge English access to maritime resources while minimizing that of the country's rivals.
Cecil's fish days were not popular, and Tudor and Stuart England never developed a large domestic appetite for fish. 31However, Elizabethan policies were still successful in growing the fishing industry and England's maritime capabilities by boosting the export trade. 32Until 1563 English fish exports had been heavily restricted; lifting these restrictions established fishing within England's rapidly growing mercantile sector.By 1603 English ascendancy 'depended on a vibrant private shipping industry' and an increasingly complex network of mercantile connections. 33This network was reliant on the Atlantic cod as a source of income, food and seamanship.
Clawing their way to an equal footing with more established maritime nations, English fishermen quickly 'acquired a reputation for aggressive competitiveness'. 34oth the nation and its localized fishing communities developed an increasingly The Mariner's Mirror territorial approach during the seventeenth century, perhaps best encapsulated by the idea of a mare clausum (closed sea) contested with the Dutch in the North Sea. 35 paper trail in the records of Trinity House and the High Court of Admiralty emphasizes attempts to profit from (and avoid) such protectionist licencing and export conditions, which laboured English-caught fish in English-owned ships for both Newfoundland and domestic British fisheries.36 While the sheer density of traffic in the North Sea led to competition over resources, the sparsely colonized coasts of north America presented new conflicts as well as new opportunities.When England's cod fishers were pushed out of Iceland, they applied that same commercial aggression in turn to the dominant French presence in Newfoundland.37 Early English ambitions for exclusive access to Newfoundland's resources culminated in a co-ordinated naval strike against French and Spanish cod fleets in 1585 under Bernard Drake.38 Pushed by political expediency and pulled by the lure of bountiful resources, English seafarers, traders and politicians saw an opportunity to seize Newfoundland's cod from the jaws of their rivals and augment their maritime sector in the process.

English violence in the Newfoundland fisheries
It is against this backdrop of competition and violence that we meet our first pirate, though he is not yet a pirate, at least not to English eyes.We first spy Peter Eston at the very end of Elizabeth's reign, holding a royal commission to enact maritime violence in protection of English interests in Newfoundland. 39By this time, English fishermen were slowly but surely driving their competitors away from Newfoundland's Avalon peninsula. 40Aggressive English fishing strategies had secured them a foothold; now aggressive, private naval warfare would secure it.Commissions like Eston's allowed the Elizabethan regime to outsource this process, protecting English fisheries and diminishing its rivals at minimal cost.Eston's experiences in Newfoundland gave him a taste for maritime violence and its profits; when James VI & I's 1603 proclamations revoked his commission he soon turned to piracy, throwing in his lot with 'admiral' Richard Bishop and eventually setting his sights on the very same trade he had previously protected. 4135 Thornton, 'John Selden's  Initially, there was no need for English pirates to make the long transatlantic voyage to Newfoundland to reap its rewards.Like the fishermen themselves, they simply picked their ideal hunting grounds and waited for their prey to stray into the trap.For example, John Pottle, a merchant hailing from Totnes, Devon, describes a fraught encounter with Eston in 1609. 42Pottle was returning from Newfoundland, sailing for Spain, one of the largest markets for cod in the continent. 43Every autumn, Newfoundland's fishing fleets decamped the island's shores en masse to catch the favourable westerlies that would take them homewards. 44These elliptical Atlantic patterns governed the passage of trade across the ocean. 45They were also responsible for the presence of Gadus morhua in the first place; on Newfoundland's great banks, these weather patterns also see the conjuncture of the cold Labrador current and the warm Gulf Stream, stirring up the nitrate-rich seabed and supporting a dense ecosystem. 46Processed by phytoplankton, these nitrates kickstart a vibrant foodchain; Gadus morhua, eating crustaceans, molluscs, pelagic fish species and even other cod, hoovers up the results.These feeding habits, in turn, were what made cod such a desirable food source; its white, protein-rich flesh is a result of their sluggish, bottom-feeding lives as large demersal fish.Fresh cod averages around 18 per cent protein content; after salting and drying, this concentration can rise up to 80 per cent. 47As European fishing fleets harvested and processed cod, they redistributed Newfoundland's nutrients across the Atlantic world.
Pottle's case gives us an interesting insight into how Newfoundland cod connected to a broader network of resource distribution within the north Atlantic.The voyage from Britain to Newfoundland took about three weeks, and many northern cod fishers were likely to emulate Cabot's more northern route instead of following the trade winds west from the Canaries. 48Afterwards, the westerlies could take a ship straight back home.However, merchants like Pottle could take advantage of favourable markets in France and Iberia by steering a 'triangular' route further south, arriving between Spain's 'Northern Cape' (Finisterre) and 'Southern Cape' (Santa Maria). 49Here, they might run afoul of a different kind of food-chain.Any pirate worth their salted cod knew how to maximize profit and minimize risk by playing The Mariner's Mirror the seasonal trade patterns, lying in wait for valuable transatlantic cargoes returning on the trade winds. 50The trick was to work the key choke points of western Europe's maritime trade network, so it was little surprise that, in late 1609, John Pottle ran into Peter Eston some 200 kilometres out from Gibraltar.
As piratical encounters go, Pottle got off lightly, suspiciously lightly.Upon boarding, Eston simply 'demanded some water'.Pottle claims to have insisted that they had none spare; 'the pirates answered that they woulde have some water from them & woulde give them some monie in lieu of it', and 'forced' Pottle to comply.Or so he claimed; uncoincidentally, the 'Proclamation to represse all piracies and depredations upon the sea' of 1603 had also targeted anybody 'ayding or receiving' pirates.Victualling, 'contracting, buying, selling or exchanging [with]' any individual found guilty of piracy were thus also capital offences. 51An English seafarer was unlikely to volunteer evidence of willing trade with pirates.Pottle was pointedly mortified to find that his crew had also sold some spare canvas to the pirates, and keen to stress that the transaction had occurred without his knowledge.
In general, early modern seafarers seemed inclined to help other vessels when they were safe and able to do so.A few days prior to their encounter with Eston, Pottle and his crew met a ship from La Rochelle, one of the key ports in France's own cod trade. 52After customarily hailing each other, the two ships exchanged pleasantries and supplies.Pottle bought a hogshead of cider from the French, who added a gammon and a dozen cakes of biscuit to the bargain.They sailed together for a day and into the night, before drifting apart in the darkness.The trade routes facilitated by Newfoundland's fisheries resulted in myriad exchanges like these; competition in Newfoundland did not necessarily equate to unfriendliness away from the Banks.
Indeed, with Eston around, safety in numbers may have been sensible.Even his fellow pirates were surprised by his appetite for plunder.Thomas Coward, who plied the Spanish hunting grounds with Eston in 1608 and gained his own ship thanks to the latter's patronage, drew on Eston's poor reputation to his own advantage when he was brought before the High Court of Admiralty in 1610. 53When asked if he had taken any goods from the Grace Bonaventure of Bristol, Coward said that while he had detained the vessel off the Irish coast with that aim in mind, he 'tooke nothinge from her for shee had nothinge lefte'; Eston had already 'robbed her of all that ever shee had'. 54In fact, she was in such a sorry state and 'much distressed for wante of victualles' that Coward took pity on her, giving the company 'a barrell of beveridge and a bagge of breade to carrie them home'.Seafarers were ever in need of resources, but Eston's scorched-earth tactics surprised even his comrades and, of course, Coward hoped that his comparative generosity might placate the Admiralty, even so far as gaining him a pardon. 55oward's deposition was part of a broader investigation into the confederacy's modus operandi.The Grace Bonaventure case was vital to this investigation because it directly implicated otherwise legitimate merchants, such as one Thomas Benson of Bristol, in receiving goods from 'eorum socios piratas Anglos super alto mari' (their allies, the English pirates upon the high seas). 56Benson was just one of many merchants who trafficked with pirates. 57Colonial ventures like Newfoundland had their own shady connections to piracy.Multiple High Court of Admiralty depositions implicate Humphrey Slany, a London merchant who contributed a large portion of the Newfoundland Company's capital, in trading with pirates -though always at a safe geographic and social distance, separated by various intermediaries and beyond English jurisdiction. 58s the Admiralty began to unpick the strands linking the pirate confederacy to England's maritime sector, we also glimpse that web of connections through the court's records.In turn, it is possible to better understand the role of the Gadus morhua within that network.The confederacy's habitual havens in southwest Ireland were an ideal destination for ships returning from Newfoundland, and many a pirated cod catch made landfall there.The pirates' trading networks then funnelled illicit goods into Bristol and Pembrokeshire. 59Otherwise, the pirates could take advantage of favourable prices and friendly reception in the Maghreb, favouring Mogador, Saphia and Fdala. 60A staple protein source across the north Atlantic, stolen cod could be diverted to any of these markets.
By 1609 English piracy was already making inroads into Newfoundland itself, albeit with mixed results.Demonstrating the pirates' knowledge of trading patterns, Tibalt Suxbridge, one of Eston's protegées, utilized the Atlantic ellipticals to their full extent in a hubristic 1609 voyage. 61From Plymouth, Suxbridge visited the confederacy's customary hunting grounds on Spain's west coast.Finding little success, he continued southwards to Mogador (Essaouira) to resupply before following the winds to the Caribbean, far off the pirate piste. 62This gamble did not pay off; upon arrival his crew were 'allmoste famished for wante of victualles', and an abortive shore expedition was betrayed to the Spanish with eight lives lost. 63uxbridge headed north to Newfoundland where, true to the traditions of cod rivalry (and the confederacy's habitual temperance towards its countryfolk), he set his sights on the French fishery, only to be killed in a bloody boarding attempt on a French vessel.Disheartened and diminished, with their captain slain and their ship 'leakie', The Mariner's Mirror these captures were purely for quick profit.Eston sold their cargoes of fish and salt upon arrival in Ireland, providing him with additional funds while he organized his future employment.If Eston had been interested in making profit from cod alone, he would have made his captures in the autumn as the fully laden fleets departed.These pirates placed themselves higher up the food-chain; their prey was man, not cod.
This adds another dimension to the dynamic exchanges propagated by Newfoundland's political ecology.Labour, too, was a desirable resource, skilled labour in particular.If the Newfoundland fishery was a 'commodity frontier', then its commodities were two-fold. 82Newfoundland's ecosystem produced cod, and those cod in turn produced seafarers.Piracy's shift from depredation to recruitment reflects its own decline; it was also an indicator of the English fishery's increased productivity and sophistication.Pirates preyed on fishermen out of necessity, not just opportunity.As other industries like the fisheries provided increased employment, established pirates had to adjust their recruitment tactics or go extinct.

Conclusion
The aim of this article has been to use the lens of piracy to explore a broader ecological network, examining resource extraction in Newfoundland.Piracy is necessarily a political act; it is defined by its exteriority to established political sovereignties.As such it necessarily exists within a 'political ecology'; the politics of piracy is also the politics of the environment within which they were embedded.Studying instances of piracy against the context of Newfoundland cod lays bare that political ecology and its myriad roots in the environment of the north Atlantic.Environmental forces, namely the great winds and currents of the Atlantic and the sheer volume of nutrients traversing Newfoundland's ecosystem, shaped human activity across the ocean's vast domain.The influence of such forces is visible here in the successes and failures of pirates.As participants in that ecosystem, we can also use their interactions to examine the developing confidence of English seafaring in the early seventeenth century.
A political ecology is a grand tapestry, but it is also made up of innumerable interactions.My aim in applying such a framework to history has been to view that macroscopic context, without losing track of the little things that truly matter; the exchanges that add life to the ecosystem.See, again, William Brancham.When William Douglas, master of the Gillieflower, appeared before the High Court of Admiralty, his deposition was short and formulaic; on Brancham's current whereabouts, Douglas simply remarked that he 'is still detained amongeste them'.We never hear more of Brancham afterwards, though anonymity was not uncommon for the ordinary seafarer.The deposition was designed to justify the sailor's involvement in piracy and enable his eventual return; in that regard it is deeply personal.But it is also part of something greater.In the grander scheme of the Atlantic political ecology, Brancham was just another fish caught in the net.
Newfoundland Cod and English Piracy in the Early Seventeenth Century 221 like to acknowledge the helpful expertise of Amanda Bevan, Daniel Gosling and Oliver Finnegan at The National Archives, and Richard Blakemore at the University of Reading.The author would also like to thank the anonymous referees for their input into the article.Graham Moore is a PhD candidate studying as part of an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership scheme between the University of Reading and The National Archives.His research focuses on the High Court of Admiralty in the early seventeenth century, with particular interest in piracy, legal procedure and maritime communities.