Angora was the Sultan of Timor and refused to allow the British East India Company to station garrisons on Timor. Of course, when he turned them down they decided to take what they wanted by force. He was driven out of the whole of his island except the chief town, also called Angora.
Deciding to take revenge, he turned pirate and went to sea in command of a small fleet of five well-armed proas and several galleys. His first prize was a packet brig carrying dispatches from Calcutta to the English General before Angora. Captain Hastings, the commander, a near relation of Warren Hastings and a gallant officer, had thrown the dispatches overboard, for which he was hanged, while the crew were sent to prison at Angora and afterwards poisoned.
His next prize was an East Indian ship, the Edward. Captain Harford and his crew were also poisoned.
Cruising off Bombay he defeated a vessel sent out by the Government to attack him.
After taking other English vessels, Angora met with a richly laden ship from Burma, a country whose sovereign he was on friendly terms with. The Sultan-pirate decided to plunder this ship too and drowned every soul on board except one woman who, owing to her great beauty, he kept for himself.
His next victim was a well-armed Malay praam, which he captured after a severe fight. The crew he shackled and threw overboard, while he burnt the vessel.
Paying another visit to Bombay, he caught the garrison unprepared, blew up the fort, and sailed off with some sheep, cows, and pigs.
A few days later the pirate seized an English packet, St. George, and after he had tortured to death its Captain, the terrified crew joined his service.
Returning to Timor with his plunder, he was surprised by the arrival off the port of H.M.S. Victorious, seventy-four guns strong, which had been sent to take him. Slipping out of harbor unobserved in the night in his fastest sailing proa, he escaped to Trincomalee in Ceylon, where the East India Company decided to allow him to remain undisturbed.
Props to P. Goss, yarrr.