CHAPTER IX
THE STUART NAVY GOES FORTH AGAINST THE “PYRATS”
After the death of Queen Elizabeth and the respite from the Anglo-Spanish naval fighting there was little employment for those hundreds of our countrymen who had taken to the sea during the time of Drake. Fighting the Spaniards or lying in wait for treasure ships bound from the West Indies to Cadiz was just the life that appealed to them. But now that these hostilities had passed, they felt that their means of livelihood were gone. After the exciting sea life with Drake and others, after the prolonged Armada-fighting, it would be too tame for them to settle down to life ashore. Fishing was not very profitable, and there was not sufficient demand for all the men to ship on board merchant ships.
So numbers of these English seamen unfortunately took to piracy. Some of them, it would be more truthful to say, resumed piracy and found their occupation haunting the English Channel, the Scillies being a notorious nest for pirates. Notwithstanding the number of these robbers of the sea who were always on the look out, yet, says our friend Smith of Virginia, “it is incredible how many great and rich prizes the little barques of the West Country daily brought home, in regard of their small charge.”
But the strenuous measures which were being now taken in the narrow seas by the North European governments made piracy in this district less remunerative than hitherto. In the Mediterranean these unemployed seamen knew that piracy was a much better paid industry. They knew that the Moors would be glad to avail themselves of the services of such experienced seamen, so they betook themselves to Barbary. At first, be it remembered, these Englishmen had established themselves as North African pirates “on their own” without any connection with the Moors. Smith mentions that Ward, “a poore English sailor,” and Dansker, a Dutchman, here began some time before the Moors scarcely knew how to sail a ship. An Englishman named Easton made such a profit that he became, says Smith, a “Marquesse in Savoy,” and Ward “lived like a Bashaw in Barbary.” From these men the Moors learnt how to become good sea-fighters. Besides Englishmen there came also French and Dutch adventurers to join them, attracted by this mode of life, but very few Spaniards or Italians ever joined their throng. After a time, however, disagreements arose and the inevitable dissensions followed.
They then became so split up and disunited that the Moors and Turks began to obtain the upper hand over them and to compel them to be their slaves. Furthermore, they made these expert European sailors teach themselves how to become distinguished in the nautical arts. This “many an accursed runnagado, or Christian turned Turke, did, till they have made those Sally men, or Moores of Barbary, so powerfull as they be, to the terror of all the Straights.” Other English pirates hovered about off the Irish coasts, and three men, named respectively Gennings, Harris and Thompson, in addition to some others, were captured and hanged at Wapping. A number of others were captured and pardoned by James I.
A contemporary account of rowing in a Barbarian galley in the time of Elizabeth has been preserved to us, written by one Thomas Sanders. “I and sixe more of my fellowes,” he writes, “together with fourescore Italians and Spaniards were sent foorth in a Galeot to take a Greekish Carmosell, which came into Africa to steale Negroes, and went out of Tripolis unto that place, which was two hundred and fourtie leagues thence, but wee were chained three and three to an oare, and wee rowed naked above the girdle, and the Boteswaine of the Galley walked abaft the maste, and his Mate afore the maste ... and when their develish choller rose, they would strike the Christians for no cause. And they allowed us but halfe a pound of bread a man in a day without any other kinde of sustenance, water excepted ... we were then also cruelly manackled in such sort, that we could not put our hands the length of one foote asunder the one from the other, and every night they searched our chaines three times, to see if they were fast riveted.”
And the same man related the unhappy experience of a Venetian and seventeen captives who, after enduring slavery for some time at the hands of the Sultan of Tripoli, succeeded in getting a boat and got right away to sea. Away they sped to the northward, and at length they sighted Malta. Their hopes ran high: their confidence was now undoubted. On they came, nearer and nearer to the land, and now they were within only a mile of the shore. It was beautifully fine weather, and one of them remarked, “In dispetto de Dio adesso venio a pittiar terra”—“In the despite of God I shall now fetch the shoare.” But the man had spoken with an excess of confidence. For presently a violent storm sprang up, so that they were forced to up-helm and to run right before the gale, which was now blowing right on to the Tripolitan coast. Arrived off there they were heart-broken to find that they were compelled to row up and down the very coastline which they had imagined they had escaped from. For three weeks they held out as best they could, but the weather being absolutely against them, and their slender victuals being at length exhausted, they were compelled to come ashore, hoping to be able to steal some sheep. The Barbarian Moores, however, were on the watch and knew that these unlucky men would be bound to land for supplies. Therefore a band of sixty horsemen were dispatched who secreted themselves behind a sandhill near the sea. There they waited till the Christians had got well inland a good half mile. Then, by a smart movement, the horsemen cut off all retreat to the sea, whilst others pursued the starving voyagers and soon came back with them. They were brought back to the place whence they had so recently escaped. The Sultan ordered that the fugitives should, some of them, have their ears cut off, whilst others were most cruelly thrashed.
Blighted Hopes