CONSPIRACIES FOR FREEDOM.
War and ransom were not the only agents. Even if history were silent, it is impossible to suppose that slaves of African Barbary endured their lot without struggles for freedom.
"Since the first moment they put on my chains,
I've thought of nothing but the weight of 'em,
And how to throw 'em off."[72]
These are words of the slave in a play; but they express the natural inborn sentiments of all with intelligence to appreciate the precious boon of freedom. "Thanks be to God for so great mercies!" says the Captive in Don Quixote; "for in my opinion there is no happiness on earth equal to that of recovering lost liberty."[73] And plain Thomas Phelps,—once a slave at Mequinez in Morocco, whence, in 1685, he fortunately escaped,—narrating his adventures and sufferings, breaks forth in similar strain. "Since my escape," he says, "from captivity, and worse than Egyptian bondage, I have, methinks, enjoyed a happiness with which my former life was never acquainted; now that, after a storm and terrible tempest, I have, by miracle, put into a safe and quiet harbor, after a most miserable slavery to the most unreasonable and barbarous of men, now that I enjoy the immunities and freedom of my native country and the privileges of a subject of England, although my circumstances otherwise are but indifferent, yet I find I am affected with extraordinary emotions and singular transports of joy; now I know what liberty is, and can put a value and make a just estimate of that happiness which before I never well understood.... Health can be but slightly esteemed by him who never was acquainted with pain or sickness; and liberty and freedom are the happiness only valuable by a reflection on captivity and slavery."[74] Thus from every quarter gathers the cloud of witnesses.
The history of Algiers abounds in well-authenticated examples of conspiracy against Government by Christian slaves: so strong was the passion for escape. In 1531 and 1559 two separate schemes were matured, promising for a while entire success. The slaves were numerous; keys to open the prisons had been forged, and arms supplied; but the treachery of one of their number betrayed the plot to the Dey, who sternly doomed the conspirators to the bastinado and the stake. Cervantes, during his captivity, nothing daunted by disappointed efforts, and the terrible vengeance which attended them, conceived the plan of a general slave insurrection, with the overthrow of the Algerine power, and the surrender of the city to the Spanish crown. This was in accord with that sentiment to which he gives such famous utterance in his writings, that "for liberty we ought to risk life itself, slavery being the greatest evil that can fall to the lot of man."[75] As late as 1763 there was a similar insurrection or conspiracy. "Last month," says a journal of high authority, "the Christian slaves at Algiers, to the number of four thousand, rose and killed their guards, and massacred all who came in their way; but after some hours' carnage, during which the streets ran with blood, peace was restored."[76] How truly is bloodshed the natural incident of slavery!