James Macrae

James Macrae fought off the pirate Edward England, was given his own damaged ship back by him, and went on to be governor of Madras. He was born poor in Ayrshire, went to sea, and rose through the East India Company's marine service to command the Cassandra. In August 1720 off Johanna in the Comoros he was attacked by England and John Taylor with two ships; the action lasted several hours, cost the pirates around ninety men, and ended with the Cassandra aground and Macrae escaping ashore with the survivors. He spent ten days hiding, wounded, and then walked into the pirates' camp to negotiate - a decision that could have gone either way. England, against the wishes of a crew that wanted him killed, gave him the pirates' own battered vessel and let him sail for Bombay, which took forty-eight days. His crew deposed and marooned England for it. Macrae's account is the reason the engagement is documented in detail. The Company promoted him rapidly, and he was governor of Madras from 1725 to 1730, where he ran an administration widely regarded as unusually honest by the standards of the settlement and made a very large private fortune all the same. He went home to Scotland, bought estates in Ayrshire, and paid for the equestrian statue of William III that stands in Glasgow. He left most of his money to the family of a fiddler who had been kind to his mother. John Taylor took the Portuguese carrack Nossa Senhora do Cabo two years later, one of the richest prizes ever taken at sea. Macrae had no legitimate children and left his estates to relatives and to the fiddler s daughter. The Glasgow statue was moved from Trongate to Cathedral Square in 1894.

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