Marius Ferrodumond

Marius Ferrodumond (1660-1732) was the younger of the two Ferrodumond brothers, born in 1660.

## Early Life

His father was an Antargentine trader who had married a Liotainian woman, conducting business in Sventoji.  As a child, Marius was sickly and was not expected to survive to adulthood; and so unlike his more active brother, he spent much of his time studying trade and business.  In 1681, having survived childhood without dying, Marius went to sea as a supercargo aboard a ship belonging to a family acquaintance.  The ship's first voyage was to Denishu, but the vessel was seized by Fusan pirates on the return voyage, sometime in April of 1683.  As Marius spoke a small amount of Fusan as well as Firoccan, Antargentine, and Astyrian, the pirates pressed him into service aboard their own vessel as a translator.  He remained aboard unwillingly until May of the following year, when a storm drove the pirate ship ashore in northern Astyria, in the region of Yongbao.

## Shipwrecked in Astyria

Although shipwrecked, Marius made the most of his situation, and "went native" in Astyria.  Due to his education, he made a positive impression among Astyrian officials and traders, who employed him, as before, as a translator with foreign (predominantly Firoccan) traders and officials.  In 1685, he took (or possibly was given) an Astyrian wife named Shu Wei, with whom he had a total of seven children.  While working for an Astyrian governor, Marius participated in an Astyrian punitive expedition against Fusan pirates.  He took command of one of the Astyrian ships after its commander fell ill, although he depended on the ship's hired sailing-master.

Marius returned to Liotain several times between 1685 and 1700.  In 1697, he was named a de facto assistant to the Liotainian consul Kasparas Mazeika, who had just arrived at his post.

## Privateering Career

In January 1701, with the start of war between Firocco and Liotain, Marius bought a share in the eighteen-gun polacre *Mistika*, a privateering ship he co-owned with his brother Ansaldo.  The brothers received a letter-of-marque from Mazeika, who was not technically empowered to offer letters-of-marque.  As a result, the Ferrodumond brothers (and a number of other captains) were branded as pirates by the Firoccan Navy.

The Ferrodumond brothers quickly gained a reputation as some of the most successful - and daring - of the Liotainian privateers operating on the Astyrian coast.  The Ferrodumonds captured the twelve-gun Firoccan naval xebec *Doris* in November 1701, with Marius purchasing it as a supporting vessel for the *Mistika*.  In February of 1702, in cooperation with two other privateering ships, *Doris* and *Mistika* captured the twenty-gun naval xebec *Soraia*.  Once again, Marius and Ansaldo added the ship to their fleet, with Marius taking command of the *Soraia*.

After all of his years working and living in Astyria, Marius had acquired numerous connections within both the civil government and the local traders.  As a result of these connections, the Astyrian government always looked very favorably on the Liotainian privateers, and provided them neutral or surreptitious bases for their operations.  Although the Astyrians never weighed in on the naval war, their subtle influence would be felt in the continued operation of the Liotainian privateers, who caused severe economic damage to the Firoccan merchant fleet.

In June 1702, the Firoccans sent the powerful twenty-eight gun frigate *Valquiria* to hunt the Ferrodumonds and several other privateers, who operated in a loose coalition called the Black Cross Fleet (due to their use of the "Black Cross" banderole used by Breizhoned mariners).  Some of Marius's connections tipped him to *Valquiria'*s arrival, and informed him that the ship lay at anchor in Shenhu Bay.  Marius and several of his men covertly scouted the anchorage in a local fishing craft, and even went aboard *Valquiria* to sell fish to the ship's crew, all the while judging its readiness against a surprise attack.  The Ferrodumonds returned after nightfall with a fleet of small boats, covertly boarding the frigate, seizing it intact, and adding it to their fleet.

The Black Cross Fleet undertook their largest and most daring joint raid in June of the following year, when the Ferrodumonds led a fleet of twelve ships to raid the Firoccan island of Balefornia.  Ansaldo led the seizure of the main port of Abadon, while Marius took three ships to seize the smaller ports of Salga and Povoacao.  The raid went off with very few difficulties, and the Liotainians received ransom money for all three towns, captured large supplies of naval stores and valuable cargo in the warehouses, and took thirteen ships as prizes.  Marius's niece Grazina, in command of her own crew, even made the short overland journey to the local count's estates, which were pillaged and burned.

The raid netted major profits for all twelve of the ship's companies involved, totaling some fifteen million Liotainian florins - a monumental sum.  Marius reinvested a large portion of his share in the commissioning of a new ship, a thirty-four gun frigate built by Astyrian shipbuilders to a modern design.  This vessel, *Fėja*, would serve as Marius's personal warship through the remainder of the war.

By mid-1703, the Ferrodumonds were among the most important members of the Black Flag Fleet, which had a well-established operational pattern.  The *Valquiria* and *Fėja* often outgunned all but the largest Firoccan convoy escorts.  The Ferrodumond brothers would thus engage the escorts, while their smaller vessels such as *Mistika* and *Soraia* captured the vessels in the convoy.  Other privateers benefited from this assistance as well, sharing profits from the ships they captured.

Although the raid on Balefornia represented the most profitable attack by either the Ferrodumonds or the Black Flag Fleet, the brothers achieved their greatest string of successes in 1705.  Over the course of six months cruising off Denishu, the brothers intercepted and captured seven ships of the Firocco-Dengfeng Trading Company's homeward-bound Oriental fleet.  Five ships carried, among other things, sugar, cotton, porcelain, and spices from Denishu and Dengfeng.

## Founder of Northern Bight

Ansaldo Ferrodumond (brother)

Grazina Ferrodumond-Quemener (niece)