Two years later a squadron under Captain William Rainsborow was actually dispatched against Salee. This port was blockaded by four ships, which were reinforced by four more, and after destroying every Turkish ship which attempted to break the blockade, the squadron closed in to the city, and so battered its fortifications that the pirates were glad to make terms by giving up 400 English slaves. The success of Captain Rainsborow shows what might have been done had the same process been applied to other pirate cities on the African coast, but, strange to say, our forefathers were content merely to "scotch the snake", without making an end of it once and for all.
By 1640 the Turks were as bold and aggressive as ever. Three Turkish men-of-war attacked the Elizabeth off the Lizard and burned her, and shortly afterwards landed at Penzance and carried off sixty men, women, and children. The Deputy-Lieutenant of Cornwall reported that there were about sixty Turkish pirates off the coast at this time. In 1645 it is stated that they landed again at Fowey, and made slaves of 240 persons, including some ladies.
Occasionally some of our merchant-ships were able to put up a successful defence against the "Turks".
There were several instances of this in the Mediterranean, and here is a shipmaster's report of how he did the like in the Channel in 1638: "W. Nurry, of this town and county of Poole, Mariner and Master under God of the good ship called the Concord of Poole, burthen, 80 tons, with 6 guns, 12 men, and 2 boys, being about 6 or 7 leagues off Ushant, coming from Rochelle laden with salt, was set upon by a man-of-war of Algiers having 15 pieces of ordnance and full of men with the colour of Holland displayed . . . and then put out her Turkey colours and bade him 'amain'[28] for the King of Algiers, whereupon this examinant refusing to strike their sails at his command, the Turk boarded his ship in his quarter with great store of men, whereby they continued to fight board by board together by the space of 3 hours, and the Turk being weary of the battery took occasion to cut away this examinant's sprit-sail-yard to clear himself away, and then stood to the northward . . . that he killed a great many of the Turks and beat them out of his top into the sea with his muskets, and then surprised and brought into this harbour of Poole, one Turk and three Christians, viz.: a Dutchman, a Frenchman and a Biscayner." These three men made statements to the effect that the Turkish ship was of 240 tons displacement, carried 15 guns and 124 men, of whom 19 were Christians, 6 of them English, and 3 of them renegades, and that thirty men-of-war from Algiers were "on the war-path" against Spain, France, and England. The "Dutchman" was one Oliver Megy of Lübeck, who admitted that he had been acting as pilot. Dutchman was apparently then used indiscriminately for Dutch or German, as I believe is still to a great extent the case at sea.
Then Sir John Pennington, in his Journal on board H.M.S. Vauntguard, in 1633, reports falling in with a "fly-boat", which informed him that he had been "clapt aboard" by two Turks, one of eleven, the other of seven guns, "betwixt the Gulfe and the Land's End, and hurt 9 or 10 of his men very dangerously, but at last—God bee praysed—they got from them and slew 4 of the Turkes—that entered them—outright and drove the rest overboard". Again, when anchored in the Swiftsure, in Stokes Bay, Pennington notes on 24th September, 1635: "There came in a freebooter, and in his company a barke of Dartmouth laden with Poore John (dried fish) which he tooke in the Channel from a Turks man-of-warr". In 1652, just after the Republican form of government had been established in England, the Speaker frigate was dispatched to "Argier in Turkey" with £30,000 to ransom English captives from slavery. But when the strong hand of the Protector Cromwell had seized the helm of state there was no more question of ransoms or presents to the barbarians of Algiers. He dispatched the celebrated Admiral Blake with a dozen men-of-war to deal with the Turks in the only effective way. Blake stood into the harbour of Tunis, burned all the shipping there, and knocked their fortifications to pieces, with the loss of only twenty-five killed and forty wounded. He then appeared before Algiers, whither the story of his victory at Tunis had preceded him, and had no difficulty in arranging for the release of the whole of the British captives. More than this, the "Turks" gave British waters a wide berth, and there were no more complaints of their performances in the Narrow Seas during the Protectorate.
But with the re-appearance of the Stuart kings at the Restoration the old story of outrage and piracy began all over again. The Turks led off with the sensational capture of Lord Inchiquin, the British Ambassador to Portugal, who with his whole suite was captured off the Tagus and publicly sold by auction in the market-place of Algiers. They would never have dared to act in this manner in the days of Cromwell and Blake; but they knew well enough that there was mighty little patriotism about the "Merry Monarch" and his Court and Government. But even Charles could not stomach the degrading arrangement which was made by the Earl of Winchelsea, the British Ambassador to Turkey, who had been ordered to call at Algiers on his way out to negotiate a new treaty with the Dey. This nobleman actually granted the pirates liberty to search British vessels and remove all foreigners and their goods. The Earl of Sandwich and Sir John Lawson were sent with a fleet to Algiers to enforce the removal of the obnoxious clause from the treaty. They bombarded the town, but apparently not very effectively. The point was conceded by the Dey, but as the Algerines, like the modern Huns, regarded all treaties as "scraps of paper", to be torn up when opportunity offered, the expedition was practically fruitless.
The Earl of Inchiquin and his son were eventually ransomed for £1500, and Charles showed his weakness by indulging in the unfortunately widespread habit of trying to conciliate the "Turks" by presents of arms and ammunition, which everyone knew would be used against our own ships and men.
From about this time forward the Turkish pirates seem to have generally kept farther out in the Atlantic. They were especially on the look-out for our Newfoundland ships. In 1677 six corsairs destroyed seventeen of these, but one of the Turks was terribly mauled by a small English frigate, and only escaped by the aid of a dark and stormy night. Our watch-dogs were settling down to their work at last. The Concord merchantman bound for America had a stiff fight with a Turkish squadron in 1678, 120 leagues from the Land's End. One night they fell in with "The Admiral of Algiers, a new Frigate of 48 guns, called the Rose, and commanded by Canary, a Spanish renegade; the other two Virginiamen, the one of Plymouth, the one of Dartmouth", evidently captured ships. There was also a "barque of Ireland". "The Algerian hailed us in English," says Thomas Grantham, master of the Concord, "'From whence?' We answered, 'From London.' He told us he was the Rupert, frigate, and commanded our boat on board, which our Captain refused, knowing it could not be the Rupert. The Turk kept company with us all night, which gave us some time to fit our ship, and get our boats out: when it was light he put abroad his bloody flag[29] at main-topmast head, fires a gun, and commands us to strike to the King of Algiers and to Admiral Canary.
THE FIGHT BETWEEN A MERCHANTMAN AND A TURKISH PIRATE
Drawn by C. M. Padday
"His sails, masts, and shrouds were all in a blaze. Then we cut loose, and his mast went by the board."