War and ransom were not the only agents of emancipation. Even if history were silent, it would be impossible to suppose that the slaves of African Barbary endured their lot without struggles for freedom.
Since the first moment they put on my chains,
I've thought on nothing but the weight of them,
And how to throw them off.
These are the words of a slave in the play;[63] but they express the natural inborn sentiments of all who have intelligence sufficient to appreciate the great boon of freedom. "Thanks be to God," says the captive in Don Quixote, "for the great mercies bestowed upon me; for, in my opinion, there is no happiness on earth equal to that of liberty regained."[64] And plain Thomas Phelps—once a slave at Machiness, in Morocco, whence, in 1685, he fortunately escaped—in the narrative of his adventures and sufferings, breaks forth in a 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."[65]
The history of Algiers abounds in well-authenticated examples of conspiracy against the government by Christian slaves. So strong was the passion for freedom! In 1531 and 1559, two separate plans were matured, which promised for a while entire success. The slaves were numerous; keys to open the prisons had been forged, and arms supplied; but, by the treason of one of their number, the plot was betrayed to the Dey, who sternly doomed the conspirators to the bastinado and the stake. Cervantes, during his captivity, nothing daunted by these disappointed efforts, and the terrible vengeance which awaited them, conceived the plan of a general insurrection of the Christian slaves, to secure their freedom by the overthrow of the Algerine power, and the surrender of the city to the Spanish crown. This was in the spirit of that sentiment, to which he gives 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."[66] As late as 1763, there was a similar insurrection or conspiracy. "Last month," says a journal of high authority,[67] "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."
But the struggles for freedom could not always assume the shape of conspiracies against the government. They were often efforts to escape, sometimes in numbers, and sometimes singly. The captivity of Cervantes was filled with such, in which, though constantly balked, he persevered with determined courage and skill. On one occasion, he attempted to escape by land to Oran, a Spanish settlement on the coast, but was deserted by his guide, and compelled to return.[68] Another endeavor was favored by a number of his own countrymen, hovering on the coast in a vessel from Majorca, who did not think it wrong to aid in the liberation of slaves! Another was promoted by Christian merchants at Algiers, through whose agency a vessel was actually purchased for this purpose.[69] And still another was supposed to be aided by a Spanish ecclesiastic, Father Olivar, who, being at Algiers to procure the legal emancipation of slaves, could not resist the temptation to lend a generous assistance to the struggles of his fellow-Christians in bonds. If he were sufficiently courageous and devoted to do this, he paid the bitter penalty which similar services to freedom have found elsewhere, and in another age. He was seized by the Dey, and thrown into chains; for it was regarded by the Algerine government as a high offence to further in any way the escape of a slave.[70]
Endeavors for freedom are animating; nor can any honest nature hear of them without a throb of sympathy. As we dwell on the painful narrative of the unequal contest between tyrannical power and the crushed captive or slave, we resolutely enter the lists on the side of freedom; and as we behold the contest waged by a few individuals, or, perhaps, by one alone, our sympathy is given to his weakness as well as to his cause. To him we send the unfaltering succor of our good wishes. For him we invoke vigor of arm to defend, and fleetness of foot to escape. The enactments of human laws are vain to restrain the warm tides of the heart. We pause with rapture on those historic scenes, in which freedom has been attempted or preserved through the magnanimous self-sacrifice of friendship or Christian aid. With palpitating bosom we follow the midnight flight of Mary of Scotland from the custody of her stern jailers; we accompany the escape of Grotius from prison in Holland, so adroitly promoted by his wife; we join with the flight of Lavalette in France, aided also by his wife; and we offer our admiration and gratitude to Huger and Bollman, who, unawed by the arbitrary ordinances of Austria, strove heroically, though vainly, to rescue Lafayette from the dungeons of Olmutz. The laws of Algiers—which sanctioned a cruel slavery, and doomed to condign penalties all endeavors for freedom, and all countenance of such endeavors—can no longer prevent our homage to Cervantes, not less gallant than renowned, who strove so constantly and earnestly to escape his chains; nor our homage to those Christians also who did not fear to aid him, and to the good ecclesiastic who suffered in his cause.
The story of the efforts to escape from slavery in the Barbary States, so far as they can be traced, are full of interest. The following is in the exact words of an early writer:—
"One John Fox, an expert mariner, and a good, approved, and sufficient gunner, was (in the raigne of Queene Elizabeth) taken by the Turkes, and kept eighteen yeeres in most miserable bondage and slavery; at the end of which time, he espied his opportunity (and God assisting him withall) that hee slew his keeper, and fled to the sea's side, where he found a gally with one hundred and fifty captive Christians, which hee speedily waying their anchor, set saile, and fell to work like men, and safely arrived in Spaone; by which meanes he freed himselfe and a number of poor soules from long and intolerable servitude; after which, the said John Fox came into England, and the Queene (being rightly informed of his brave exploit) did graciously entertaine him for her servant, and allowed him a yeerly pension."[71]
