Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean: The grand period of the Moslem corsairs

by E. Hamilton Currey

The Italian captain, Pantero Pantera, of the Santa Lucia galley, in his work on “L’Armata Navale” published in 1614, gives it as his opinion that although soldiers and sailors could be obtained for service in the galleys if good pay were given, still no money could tempt any free man to adventure himself as a rower for any length of time owing to the intolerable sufferings which the “gallerian” was called upon to endure. As, however, in the opinion of the captain it was most necessary that the galleys should be manned, he thought that all judges should in future send criminals aboard; those who had committed murder as “lifers,” those who had committed lesser crimes pro rata. Those who by the nobility of their birth or their physical incompetence were unable to handle the oar should be called upon to pay for substitutes to act for them; these were called “Buone-Voglie.”

There was not much difference after all between the methods used by the seventeenth-century Italian to those actually in force in England at a much later date when the Press Gang swept the honest and the dishonest into its net in its midnight raids.

“The galley slaves,” observes Pantera, “cherish repose and sincerely wish to avoid fatigue; in order to incite them to do their duty it is necessary to use the whip as well as the whistle; by using it with severity the officers will find that they are better obeyed, and it will in consequence be good for the service, for fear of the whip is the principal cause of good behaviour among the gallerians.” Further on he observes that it is well not to flog them too severely and without reason, “for this irritates the gallerians, as I have frequently observed: this may cause them to despair and to wish for death as the only sure way out of their troubles.” The excellent Pantera a little later on even says that he cannot agree that the attempt to cure a sick gallerian “is all nonsense, as is maintained by some persons,” as sick men are a source of danger on board. He apparently was not prepared to throw them overboard alive, but urges that the best way to avoid such pestilences among them as killed forty thousand Venetians at the port of Zara in 1570 is to embark sound and good victuals.

It is interesting to have a contemporary view of the correct treatment of the galley slave from those who had to do with him. In the case of the corsairs and their adversaries the gallerians were as a rule prisoners of war, but as time went on and wars became less frequent than they were throughout the sixteenth century, another source of supply was tapped by sending to the galleys the criminals of any country which desired to fill up the rowers’ benches. In consequence there was always one thing which was feared above all others on board a galley, and that was a rising of the slaves.

If they were not your enemies officially, they were a set of desperate criminals ripe for any mischief should they get loose, and chained, starved, beaten, frozen with the cold, baked by the summer heats, tortured, murdered, they had nothing earthly for which to hope except escape. If in the heat of battle there should occur a rising of the slaves, then their masters knew that victory would declare itself surely on the side of the enemy. Therefore that they should be securely chained was the first and most important thing to which the boatswain of a galley and his mates had to see. If by a bold stroke they once freed themselves from their shackles it was a fight to the death for those who erstwhile had been in command, as the gallerians, outnumbering them and caring nought for their lives in comparison to their liberties, were far the most formidable foes that they could be called upon to encounter. When men are so treated that their daily life is one long martyrdom they become the most dangerous force in existence, and on the occasions which sometimes happened that the slaves got the upper hand, there were none left of the fighting men of the galley to tell the tale of their discomfiture.

In time of battle the gallerians were of course equally exposed to death and wounds from the projectiles of the enemy as were the orthodox fighting men; but to them came no rejoicing at the sound of victory; rather they prayed for the defeat of their masters, as it frequently happened that those against whom they were arrayed were their own countrymen and friends by whom they hoped for release. Thus at Lepanto, the Christian slaves, seeing the right wing of the Turkish fleet thrown into disorder by the galleys of the Allies, broke out into furious mutiny, succeeded in shattering their fetters and chains, attacked their masters the Turks in the rear with incredible energy with any weapons upon which they could lay their hands, and thus contributed in no small measure to the ultimate triumph of the Christian arms.

The Captain Pantero Pantera and Barras de la Peine have written exhaustively on the galley, her crew, her armament, her manner of provisioning, her masts, sails, rigging, etc., and Admiral Jurien de la Gravière has given a most painstaking exposition concerning the technicalities of these craft. But to enter into too much detail would be to weary the reader unnecessarily, who, it is apprehended, merely desires that a general idea should be given of the way in which these vessels were handled and fought.

It would appear that during the whole time that oar-propelled vessels were used as warships their form did not differ to any material extent, as certain limitations of size were obviously imposed on them by the mere fact that they had to be moved by so finite and feeble a force as human muscles, hearts, and lungs. No cruelty, however ghastly, could extract from the gallerians more than a certain amount of work, and the Captain Pantero Pantera, as we have seen, even advocates that a certain minimum of consideration should be shown to them in order that better work might be obtained. It was probable, however, that in the case of the Christian slaves captured by the corsairs even this minimum was to seek, as the numbers swept off by them were so enormous that they could be used up and replaced without inconveniencing these rovers of the sea, to whom compassion for suffering was absolutely unknown.

The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the Knights of Malta as they were also called, used the galley in their unceasing warfare with the Moslem. The General of the Galleys was a Grand Cross of the Order; the captains were knights, and the second officer, or first lieutenant, was known as the Patron. The crew of a galley of the knights had twenty-six rowing benches and carried two hundred and eighty rowers and two hundred and eighty combatants; the armament consisted of one bow cannon which discharged a forty-eight pound ball, four other small guns, eight pounders, and fourteen others which discharged stones.

“The Religion,” as the Knights were in the habit of describing themselves, had certain definite stations assigned to each knight, seaman, or officer during action. It is to be imagined, however, that these were merely for the preliminary stages of the fight, as it was seldom that time allowed for more than one discharge, or at the most two, of the artillery, before the opposing galleys met in a hand-to-hand conflict which must have immediately become an indiscriminate mêlée.