Capture of the Grand Mughal Fleet: The Untold Story of Maritime Power, Treasure, and Betrayal in the Indian Ocean (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798198113435)

In September 1695, a former mutineer named Henry Every committed the most audacious act of piracy in recorded history - and then simply vanished.

His target: the Ganj-i-Sawai, a towering 1,600-ton merchant ship owned by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb himself, returning from Mecca laden with pilgrims, jewels, and a fortune in gold and silver worth hundreds of millions in today's money. His crew: a few hundred desperate men who had sailed halfway around the world for a shot at a prize they could barely imagine. His escape: complete.

But the consequences of those two days at sea rippled outward for decades. Aurangzeb's fury nearly destroyed the English East India Company. Diplomatic crises stretched from Surat to London. Six men hanged at Wapping as the most wanted pirate in the world walked free. And the episode quietly accelerated the very forces that would transform a merchant trading house into the engine of British imperial conquest.

This is popular history at its most propulsive - a story about greed, sovereignty, and the most profitable piracy in history, the most powerful empire in the world and one man who got away from both.

Author: Tudor Finneran
ISBN-13: 9798198113435
Publisher: Independently Published
Language: English
Published: 05/22/2026
Pages: 94
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.28lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.24d