The nations of Europe by persistent effort could have wiped out piracy along the entire Barbary coast, but instead they continued to allow their shipping to be preyed upon, paid ransoms meekly, and sent bribes in the form of presents to the greedy and insolent rulers. France incited the pirates to prey upon the shipping of Spain; Great Britain and Holland urged the corsairs to destroy the sea commerce of France—each great power sought the pirates as an aid to bar their rivals from the trade of the Mediterranean.
The consuls sent from Europe to these provinces were often seized as hostages by the pashas, deys and beys to whom they toadied, and if the fleets of their countries in a spasm of rage at some fresh indignity attacked the Barbary ports, the consuls were tortured. For instance, when the French shelled Algiers in 1683, the Vicar Apostolic Jean de Vacher, acting as consul, was blown to pieces from a cannon's mouth.
DAUNTLESS MASTER NICHOLS
While we who were interested in the captives lamented that the nations of the world, our country included, were so slow to wipe out these pirates, my thoughts ran back to the story of an adventure that had been passed on to me through some family chronicles, of one of our ancestors who fought against this same race of corsairs. This Forsyth was an English sailor. He shipped in the Dolphin, of London, along with thirty-six men and two boys, under Master Nichols, a skilful and experienced skipper.
While in sight of the island of Sardinia, in the Mediterranean Sea they caught sight of a sail making towards them from the shore. Master Nichols sent my forbear into the maintop, where he sighted five ships following the one that had already been discovered. By their appearance they were taken to be Turkish corsairs.
The Dolphin was armed with nineteen guns and nine carronades, the latter pieces being used to fire bullets for the purpose of sweeping the decks when the ship was boarded by enemies. These guns were made ready to resist an attack, the men were armed with muskets, pistols and cutlasses, and the assault was awaited with courage. Master Nichols, upon the poop, waved his sword as confidently as if the battle was already won. His example did much to hearten the crew for the ordeal confronting them.
When the foremost ship came within range, Master Nichols ordered his trumpeter to sound and his gunner to aim and fire. The leading ship, which had gotten the wind of the Dolphin, returned the fire as fiercely. This ship, which was under the command of a renegade Englishman named Walshingham who acted as admiral of the Moslem fleet, came alongside of the Dolphin. She had twice as many pieces of ordnance as the Dolphin, and had two hundred and fifty men to match against the forty men on the English ship's decks. These boarded the Dolphin on the larboard quarter, and came towards the poop with pikes and hatchets upraised to slaughter.
However, the Dolphin's crew had a carronade in the captain's cabin, or round house, and with bullets from this they drove the infidels back, while their own gunners continued to pour shot into the corsair. At last the Turkish ship was shot through and through and was in danger of sinking. Walshingham therefore withdrew his men from the Dolphin's deck and sailed his ship ahead of the English vessel, receiving a final broadside as he passed.
Following Walshingham's ship, two other large Turkish vessels came to attack, one on the starboard quarter, and the other on the port. Each of them had twenty-five cannon and about two hundred and fifty men. With scimiters, hatchets, pikes and other weapons, they poured on to the Dolphin's deck where the others had left off. One of the most daring of the Turks climbed into the maintop of the Dolphin to haul down the flag, but the steward of the ship, espying him, took aim with his musket. The Turk dropped dead into the sea, and the flag still floated.
These boarders were repelled in the same fashion. The Dolphin's crew fired their small battery with great effect into both ships. They too, torn and battered, passed on at last to mend their leaks.