“The misery of a Pirate (although many are as sufficient Seamen as any) yet in regard of his superfluity,” wrote the founder of Virginia, “you shall finde it such, that any wise man would rather live amongst wilde beasts than them: therefore let all unadvised persons take heed, how they entertaine that quality: and I could wish Merchants, Gentlemen, and all setters forth of ships, not to bee sparing of a competent pay, nor true payment, for neither Souldiers nor Seamen can live without meanes, but necessity will force them to steale: and when they are once entered into that trade, they are hardly reclaimed.”
Poverty as well as the love of adventure and the lust for gain had certainly to be reckoned among the incentives to this life. So steadily had the evil grown that on 7th August 1579, Yorke complained to Lord Burghley that the sea had never been so full of pirates, and a Plymouth ship which had set out from St. Malo bound for Dartmouth had been robbed and chased on to the rocks. None the less, the “persons of credit” who had been appointed in every haven, creek or other landing-place round the coast, in order to deal with the evil, were doing their best, and three notable pirates had some time before been arrested and placed in York Castle together with other pirates.
But the practice of piracy, as we have seen, was the peculiar failing of no country exclusively, though in certain parts of the world and in certain centuries pirates were more prevalent than elsewhere. The very men who in the English Channel might have attained disgrace and wealth as sea-robbers might, also, when he went into the Mediterranean, be himself pillaged by those Barbarian corsairs of whom we spoke just now. Many an exciting brush did the mariners of England encounter with these men, and many were the sad tales which reached England of the cruelties of these Moslem tyrants. An interesting account of such an adventure is related by Master Roger Bodenham. The incident really happened seven years before Elizabeth came to the throne, but it may not be out of place here to deal with it.
After having set forth from Gravesend in the “great barke Aucher” bound for the islands of Candia and Chio in the Levant, the ship arrived at Messina in Sicily. But it was made known that a good many Moslem galleys were in the Levant and the rest of the voyage would be more than risky. The Aucher’s crew got to know of this, so that Bodenham was not likely to get farther on his way and deliver his cargo at Chio. “Then,” he writes, “I had no small businesse to cause my mariners to venture with the ship in such a manifest danger. Neverthelesse I wan them to goe with me, except three which I set on land.” But these presently begged to come aboard again and were taken, and the ship got under way. A Greek pilot was taken on board, and when off Chio three Turkish pirates were suddenly espied. These were giving chase to a number of small boats which were sailing rigged with a lateen-sail. It happened that in one of the latter was the son of the pilot, and at this Greek’s request Bodenham steered towards the Turks and caused the Aucher’s gunner to fire a demi-culverin at the chaser that was just about to board one of the boats. This was such a good shot that the Turk dropped astern. Presently all the little boats came and begged that they might be allowed to hang on to the Aucher’s stern till daylight. After clearing from Chio, Bodenham took his ship to Candia and Messina. But whilst on the way thither and in the very waters where the battle of Lepanto was presently to be fought, he found some of the Turkish galleots pirating some Venetian ships laden with muscatels, and, good Samaritan that he was, Bodenham succeeded in driving off the Moslem aggressors and rescuing the merchantmen. “I rescued them,” he writes briefly, “and had but a barrell of wine for my powder and shot.”
CHAPTER VIII
ELIZABETHAN SEAMEN AND TURKISH PIRATES
But a much more adventurous voyage was that of a ship called The Three Half Moones, which, with a crew of thirty-eight men and well found in arms—“the better to encounter their enemies withall”—set out from Portsmouth in the year 1563.
In some ways the story reads like mere romance, but it has been so thoroughly well-vouched for that there is not a particle of suspicion connected with it. Having set forth bound for the south of Spain they arrived near the Straits of Gibraltar, when they found themselves surrounded by eight Turkish galleys. (It should be mentioned that the Elizabethans used the word Turk somewhat loosely to mean Moslems.) It was rapidly made clear that only two alternatives were possible. Flight was out of the question, and either the Aucher must fight to a finish or she must be sunk. But being English and a gallant crew, they decided to fight. Now, amongst those on board were the owner, the master, the master’s mate, the boatswain, the purser and the gunner as officers.
When their desperate situation was realised, the owner exhorted his men to behave valiantly, to be brave, and to bear a reverse with resignation. Then, falling on their knees, they all commended themselves to God and prepared for the fight. “Then stood up one Grove, the master, being a comely man, with his sword and target, holding them up in defiance against his enemies. So likewise stood up the Owner, the Master’s mate, Boatswaine, Purser, and every man well appointed. Nowe likewise sounded up the drums, trumpets and flutes, which would have encouraged any man, had he never so litle heart or courage in him.” But next let us introduce to the reader John Foxe, the ship’s gunner, a man of marvellous resource, as we will see presently. Foxe saw that the guns were arranged to the best effect and that the Turks were receiving a hot fire. But three times as fast as the English shot came the infidel’s fire, and the fight raged furiously with eight galleys to one big ship. The Turks advanced, and then came the time for the English bowmen to let fly their arrows, which fell thickly among the rowers. Simultaneously the English poured out from their guns a hotter fire than ever, and the Turks fell like ninepins. But meanwhile the Aucher was receiving serious damage below her waterline, and this the Turks seeing, the infidels endeavoured now to board the ship. As they leapt on board many of them fell never again to rise, the others engaging in a tremendous conflict on the Aucher’s deck. “For the Englishmen,” writes the narrator in fine, robustous Elizabethan language, “shewed themselves men in deed, in working manfully with their browne bills and halbardes: where the owner, master, boateswaine, and their company stoode to it lustily, that the Turkes were halfe dismaied. But chiefly the boateswaine shewed himself valiant above the rest: for he fared amongst the Turkes like a wood Lion: for there was none of them that either could or durst stand in his face, till at the last there came a shot from the Turkes, which brake his whistle asunder, and smote him on the brest, so that he fell downe, bidding them farewell, and to be of good comfort, encouraging them likewise to winne praise by death, rather than to live captives in misery and shame.”
