One of the saddest aspects of this Turkish piracy is the not infrequent mention of men who either from fear or from love of adventure had denied their religion and nationality to become renegades. It is easy enough to criticise those who were made so to act by compulsion and heartrending tortures, such as placing a man flat on the ground and then piling weights on to the top of his body till life’s breath was almost crushed out of him: or thrashing him without mercy till he would consent to become a Moslem. The ideal man, of course, will in every instance prefer martyrdom to saving his life by the sacrifice of principles. But when the matter is pressed home to us as individuals we may well begin to wonder whether we should have played the man, as some of our ancestors did, or whether we should, after much torturing, have succumbed to the temptation of clinging to life at the critical moment. Of those renegades some were undoubtedly thorough-paced rascals, who were no credit to any community, but mere worthless men without a spark of honour. Such as these would as soon become Moslems as Christians, provided it suited their mode of life. But it was the knowledge of the sufferings of the other English prisoners which, with the loss of ships and merchandise, caused the Government repeatedly to send out those punitive expeditions. One would have thought that the only effective remedy would have been to have left a permanent Mediterranean squadron to patrol the North African coast and to chase the corsairs throughout at least the entire summer season. But there were many reasons which prevented this. The ships could not be spared; there were the long-drawn-out Anglo-Dutch wars, and it was not English ships and seamen exclusively that were the objects of these attacks. But, if by any means some continuous arrangement between the Christian powers had been possible whereby the North African coast could have been systematically patrolled, there is little doubt but that endless effort, time, money, lives, ships, commerce and human suffering might have been saved. To-day, for instance, if piracy along that shore were ever to break out again in a serious manner with ships such as might harass the great European liners trading to the Mediterranean, the matter would speedily be settled, if not by the British Mediterranean squadron, at least by some international naval force, as the Boxer troubles in China were dealt with.
Nine English slaves and one Frenchman worked away refitting the Exchange, and in this they were assisted by two of Rawlins’ own seamen, named respectively Roe and Davies. The former hailed from Plymouth, the latter from Foy (or, as we spell it nowadays, Fowey). Now both Rammetham Rise (alias Chandler), the captain, and Goodale, the master, were both west-country men, so they were naturally somewhat favourably disposed to Roe and Davies, and promised them “good usage” if they did their duty efficiently. For these men were to go in the Exchange as soon as she was ready for sea-roving. Let us remind the reader that the position of the captain in those days was not quite analogous to what we are accustomed to-day. Rather he was the supreme authority aboard for keeping discipline. He was a soldier rather than a sailor, and usually was ignorant of seamanship and navigation. He told the master where he wished the ship to go, and the latter saw that the sailors did their work in trimming sheets, steering the ship and so on. But the navigator was known as the pilot. So, too, the master gunner was responsible for all the guns, shot, powder, matches and the like.
Rammetham Rise (the captain) and Goodale (the master), now busying themselves getting together a crew for this square-rigged Exchange, had to find the right kind of men to handle her. What they needed most was a good pilot or navigator who was also an expert seaman, for neither Rammetham Rise nor Goodale were fit to be entrusted with such a task as soon as the ship should get beyond the Straits of Gibraltar and out of sight of land. They therefore asked Davies if he knew among these hundreds of prisoners of any Englishman who could be purchased to serve in the capacity of pilot. Davies naturally thought of his former skipper, and after searching for him some time found him, and informed his two new taskmasters that he understood that Villa Rise would be glad to sell Rawlins, “and for all he had a lame hand,” continued Davies, “yet had he a sound heart and noble courage for any attempt or adventure.” So at last Rawlins was bought for the sum of £10, and he was sent to supervise the fitting out of the Exchange, especially to look after the sails.
By the 7th of January 1622, the Exchange, with her twelve good cannon, her munitions and provisions, was ready for sea, and the same day she was hauled out of the Mole. In her went a full ship’s company, consisting of sixty-three Turks and Moors as soldiers, nine English slaves, one Frenchman, four Hollanders and two English soldiers as gunners, as well as one English and one Dutch renegado. The good ship, with this miscellaneous crew, put to sea. It was better than slaving away ashore, but it was galling to John Rawlins, a fine specimen of an English sailor, to have to serve under these dogs. Rawlins, you must understand, was one of those hot-tempered, blunt and daring seamen such as had made England what she was in the time of Elizabeth. Forceful, direct, a man of simple piety, of great national pride, he was also a sailor possessing considerable powers of resource and organisation, as we shall presently see.
The Exchange was as fine and handsome a ship as England had built during the Elizabethan or early Stuart period. As she began to curtsey to the swell of the Mediterranean Sea, the slaves were at work looking after the guns and so on. Rawlins, in his brusque, fierce manner which is so typical of Drake and many another sailor of the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century, was working and raging at the same time. While he was busying himself among his fellow-countrymen, pulling ropes and looking after the cannon, he complained in no measured terms of the indignity of having to work merely to keep these Moslem brutes in a life of wickedness. He broke out into a torrent of complaint, as the other slaves besought him to be quiet “least they should all fare the worse for his distemperature.” However, he had firmly resolved to effect an escape from all this, and after mentioning the matter cautiously to his fellow-slaves he found they were similarly minded.
From now onwards there follows one of the best yarns in the history of piracy, and the story is as true as it is exciting. On the 15th of January the morning tide had brought the Exchange near to Cape de Gatte, and they were joined by a small Moslem ship which had followed them out of Algiers the day after. This craft now gave information that she had sighted seven small vessels in the distance, six of them being sattees. (A sattee was a very fast, decked species of galley, with a long, sharp prow and two or three masts, each setting a lateen sail.) The seventh craft was a polacca, a three-masted type of Mediterranean ship which usually carried square sails on her mainmast, but lateen sails on her fore and mizzen, though some of these vessels had square sails on all three masts.
Before long the Exchange also sighted these seven and made towards them. But when she had separated the polacca from the rest, this craft, rather than surrender to the infidels, ran herself ashore and split herself on the rocks, and her crew made their way inland. As near as she dare go the Exchange followed in-shore and let go anchor when in the shallows. Both she and the other Moslem ship sent out boats with many musketeers and some English and Dutch renegades who, rowing off to the stranded polacca, boarded her without opposition. Seven guns were found on board, but after these had been hurled into the sea the polacca was so lightened that she was floated safely off. She was found to have a good cargo of hides and logwood, the latter to be used for dyeing purposes.
In the pillaging of this craft there arose a certain amount of dissension among the pirates, and eventually it was decided to send her and the Moslem ship which had joined them back to Algiers. Nine Turks and one English slave were accordingly taken out of the Exchange and six out of the Moslem craft to man the polacca till she reached Algiers. The Exchange, now alone, with a fair wind proceeded through the Straits into the Atlantic, which the Turks were wont to speak of as the “Marr Granada.” Notwithstanding anything which has been said in this book so far, it must be borne in mind that the Turk was essentially not a seaman: he had no bias that way. He was certainly a most expert fighter, however. It was not till the renegade English, Dutch and other sailors settled among them—notably those Barbarossas and other Levantine sailors—that the Moslems learnt how to use the sea. Had it not been for these teachers they would have continued like the Ottomans, strong as land-fighters but disappointing afloat. These Algerine corsairs in the Exchange had no sea-sense and they did not relish going beyond the Gibraltar Straits. So long as they were within sight of land and in their oared galleys they were—given such able seamanlike leaders as the Barbarossas—able to acquit themselves well in any fighting. But to embark in an ocean-going, full-rigged ship, such as the Exchange, and to voyage therein beyond their familiar landmarks was to place them in a state of grave concern.
These Moslems never went to sea without their Hoshea or wizard, and this person would, by his charlatanism, persuade these incapable mariners what to do and how to act. Every second or third night, after arriving at the open sea, this wizard would go through various ceremonies, consult his book of wizardry, and from this he would advise the captain as to what sails ought to be taken in, or what sail to be set. The whole idea was thoroughly ludicrous to the rude, common-sense Devonshire seamen, who marvelled that these infidels could be so foolish.
The Exchange was wallowing on her way when there suddenly went up the cry, “A sail! A sail!” Presently, however, it was found only to be another of these Moslem corsairs making towards the Exchange. After speaking each other the ships parted, the Exchange now going north, past Cape St. Vincent, on the look out for the well-laden ships which passed between the English Channel and the Straits of Gibraltar. All this time the English slaves were being subjected to the usual insults and maltreatment. The desire to capture the Exchange positively obsessed John Rawlins, and his active brain was busy devising some practical scheme. He resolved to provide ropes with “broad specks of iron” so that he might be able to close up the hatchways, gratings and cabins. Roughly his plan was to shut up the captain and his colleagues and then, on a signal being given, the Englishmen, being masters of the “gunner-room” with the cannon and powder, would blow up the ship or kill their taskmasters one by one if they should open their cabins.