As pirate attacks continue to wreak havoc on one of the world’s major shipping routes, my researches into completely unrelated matters have turned up this fascinating nineteenth century account of piracy off the western coast of Africa, and how it was efficiently dealt with.
On the morning of the 14th of September 1828, a 500 ton copper clad East Indiaman, armed with six carriage guns, slipped out of Portsmouth harbour, bound for Bombay. The vessel, the Sesostris, was a regular trader between Britain, Cape Town and the East Indies, carrying freight and passengers.
Two of the passengers were a young couple by the name of John and Margaret Wilson. John a newly ordained Church of Scotland Minister, was bound for what would become a lifetime of work in India as a respected missionary. His wife, Margaret, was to become a devoted teacher, establishing among others “the Bombay school for destitute girls”. As the Sesostris neared the equatorial region, Margaret, in typically understated fashion wrote in her diary:
We were once or twice alarmed by the appearance of piratical vessels. The captain ordered the large guns to be loaded, while muskets, swords, and pistols, were all in readiness for an attack. I do not doubt that one of these vessels was what we took her for; but we looked so formidable, that she kept at a distance.*
To disgracefully mangle an Ambrose Bierce quotation: “There is nothing new under the sun, but a lot of old things we have apparently forgotten!”
*From “A Memoir of Margaret Wilson” by John Wilson (1844)
Margaret died of fever in Bombay , in 1834.
The Rivendale Review 
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