Pirate Princes and Yankee Jacks / Setting forth David Forsyth's Adventures in America's Battles on Sea and Desert with the Buccaneer Princes of Barbary, with an Account of a Search under the Sands of the Sahara Desert for the Treasure-filled Tomb of Ancient Kings

by Daniel Henderson

THE HORSE-WHIPPING

Before we arrived in Tunis, the agent there for the United States was a French merchant, named Joseph Etienne Famin. Upon our arrival the English consul at Tunis, Major Magre, warned Captain Eaton not to place confidence in Famin, stating that he was a dangerous man who would set snares for his successor. Captain Eaton soon learned that the Frenchman had protested to the Bey against the United States establishing a consul there "to keep the bread out of his mouth."

The captain, lonely among enemies, rewarded my faithfulness by taking me into his confidence. He told me that he had found that Famin had yielded to every outrageous demand made by the Bey against the United States, which Famin represented. Captain Eaton also told me that he suspected the Frenchman of reaping a profit from the presents sent by the United States to the ruler. Famin, we learned, had declared to the Bey that Eaton was nothing but a vice-consul, subject to Consul-General O'Brien at Algiers, and only placed at Tunis to spy upon the court.

At last, when the Frenchman told the court that "the Americans were a feeble sect of Christians" and that their independence from England "was the gift of France," Captain Eaton, giving him his jacket to hold, horse-whipped Famin at the marine gate of Tunis, before a crowd of amazed Moslems.

Famin went whining to the Bey and demanded that Eaton be punished.

"How dare you lift your hand against a subject of mine in my kingdom?" the Bey demanded of Captain Eaton, who took me with him to the palace.

"HOW DARE YOU LIFT YOUR HAND AGAINST A SUBJECT OF MINE?"
THE BEY OF TUNIS DEMANDED OF EATON.

The captain replied that Famin had tried to betray him, and had tried also to betray the Bey. He brought forth a paper, and prepared to read its contents.

"Hear him call your prime minister and your agents a set of thieves and robbers!" exclaimed Captain Eaton.

"Mercy! Forbearance!" cried Famin.

"Yes, thieves and robbers! This is the man of your confidence!" the consul went on. Then I heard him tell the Bey that Famin had blabbed all his secrets to a woman, who had repeated them to others, so that all the town knew that he was playing a double game with the Americans, and increasing the misunderstandings that had arisen between the American envoy and the court.

Famin trembled as if in a fit, and began an address in Arabic.

"Speak French!" said the Bey, frowning.

The ruler was at last convinced of the Frenchman's guilt. As we quitted the place we heard the Bey say to his court:

"The American consul has been heated, but truly he has had reason. I have found him a very plain, candid man; and his concern for his fellow-citizens is not a crime."

On one occasion, while Captain Eaton was in the palace, I paid a visit to the executioner, who occupied a lodge at the entrance to the palace. I went with an interpreter, a friend of the executioner, but even under the circumstances I felt timid when the official took down from its place on the wall a long curved scimitar and began to feel its edge as a reaper feels the blade of his scythe.

"It is a good blade—it has never failed me," he said, "even though I have had to slice off as many as twenty heads in a day."

If one is disposed to think that the ancient cruelty of these Turkish rulers has been decreased, let him think of these cruelties which we saw enacted in spite of our attempts to stop them.

Five corsairs from Tunis, manned by nine hundred and ninety men, sailed forth and landed upon the island of St. Peters, belonging to Sardinia. They captured and brought back with them as prisoners to Tunis two hundred and twenty men and seven hundred women and children. In the raid upon the island, old men and women, and mothers with infants were pulled from their beds, driven down stairs or hurled from windows, driven almost naked through the streets, crowded into the filthy holds of the cruisers, and then, when landed at Tunis, bound with thongs and driven through the streets to the auction square, where they were sold into slavery. The old, the infirm and the infants, being unfit to work, were left to shift for themselves. If it had not been for contributions made by Captain Eaton and European ambassadors, they would have died of starvation.

The sum of $640,000 was demanded by the Bey for the ransom of the slaves, but at last he agreed to accept $270,000 from the king of Sardinia for their redemption.