So at 2.45 p.m. the enemy opened fire at the Queen Charlotte. Before the sound of the firing reached his ears, and while the first smoke was visible, Lord Exmouth gave the order to fire, and then three broadsides were fired in about six minutes, the rest of the fleet following the example. This caused terrible devastation ashore, as many as 500 people being killed or wounded. Then the attack began in deadly earnest. It was a repetition of the history of the sixteenth century. On the one hand, the Christian forces of Europe: on the other, the infidel corsairs and enemies of the human race. Both sides fought with the same fierceness which had marked their contests in many a previous generation. In the hot, overpowering sun, with the last vestige of breeze vanished away, the gunners blazed away in fine style. Algerine vessels in close proximity to the English fleet burst forth into flames and for a time endangered the wooden walls of England. On both sides frightful slaughter was taking place. The Dey had 500 guns mounted and doing their work to our great loss, but our own men and guns were hurling death into the nest of pirates in a manner that surprised the Algerines. There was in the breasts of the invaders, not merely the hatred of the Algerines as infidels and pirates, but the fact that these men had been responsible for the capture of so many Christian ships and the cruelties to so many European seamen, sufficed to increase the determination and enthusiasm with which the destruction was being dealt out to these poisonous wasps.
But if the enemy was clearly suffering heavy losses, the attackers were not without heavy casualties. About sunset Rear-Admiral Milne made a signal to Lord Exmouth announcing the losses on the Impregnable alone as 150 killed and wounded, and requesting that if possible a frigate might be sent to take off some of the enemy’s fire. The Glasgow was therefore ordered to go, and actually got up her anchor, but the wind was so scant that she was obliged again to let go, though in a rather more favourable position. But meanwhile on shore flames were bursting out and making an end to matters. One of the enemy’s frigates had been gallantly boarded and set on fire, but now all the Algerine ships in the port were in flames, and thence the fire spread with all-devouring force to the arsenal and storehouse, causing a marvellous sight against the background of darkness. Our shells had been splendidly aimed, and although in some cases they had to be fired right across our own men-of-war, yet never an accident occurred to our ships as they went to find their billet in the home of the Algerine pirates. And then, as if to bring about the climax of this hot battle, the attacking fleet had brought near to the battery of the enemy the special ship which had been specially charged with explosives. And as she blew up there was another wealth of damage done to the cause of the defenders. And so by midnight the enemy’s batteries had been silenced, and in the morning the Dey was compelled to surrender.
The net result of Lord Exmouth’s fine attack was as follows. Twelve hundred Christians were released from their terrible slavery, all the demands were complied with, the British Consul had been indemnified for his losses, and the Dey, in the presence of all his officers, made an apology for the insults offered. Even though, a few years later, the French had further trouble with these Algerines, yet Exmouth’s expedition had the effect of giving the death-blow to a monster that had worried Europe for about three centuries. The scourge of the tideless Mediterranean had been obliterated: the murders and enslavery of so many thousands and thousands of European Christians of past centuries had been avenged, and a universal enemy which neither Charles V., nor Andrea Doria, nor many another had been able to exterminate was now laid low. The combined squadrons of those two historic maritime nations—Great Britain and Holland—had shown that even a race so long accustomed to the sea as the Algerine pirates could not resist for all time. In the history of the world few nations have ever done so much for the development of ships and sea-power as these two northern peoples, and the chance which enabled them to combine forces against a common evil of such antiquity was singularly happy.
CHAPTER XX
PIRATES OF THE PERSIAN GULF
We have seen throughout this volume that there have always been certain geographical areas which have been favoured by pirates as their suitable sphere for roving. Madagascar, Malabar, the north coast of Africa, the West Indies—these and others have been the scene, not of one piratical incident, but of scores.
The Persian Gulf is to this day not quite the peaceful corner of the globe that undoubtedly some day it will become. It is still patrolled by the Royal Navy for various reasons, including the prevention of gun-running. Just how long the Persian Gulf has been navigated it would be impossible to say: but there is every reason to suppose that if the first kind of boat which ever floated was seen on the Tigris or Euphrates, the first sea-going craft was observed in the Persian Gulf. At any rate it is certain that the Arabians who occupy that peninsula which separates the Red Sea from the Persian Gulf were in the early stages of history the greatest navigators and seamen anywhere. Even right down to the Middle Ages, for scientific navigation, with the aid of those nautical instruments which were the forerunners of our modern sextant, there were no mariners who could find their way across the trackless seas so skilfully as these inhabitants of Arabia.
From time immemorial there have dwelt on the west side of the Persian Gulf an Arabian tribe named the Joassamees, engaged in maritime pursuits either in trading, or pearl-fishing, or as pilots to strange ships entering the Gulf, or else acting as pirates. For it was obvious to them that this last mentioned occupation held out much that was tempting. So the Joassamees began in a small way, pillaging the coasting vessels of the Gulf, and as they found their efforts in this respect were so successful they aspired to bigger things. We are speaking now of that fascinating period of the sailing ship which belongs to the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries.
The reader will instantly call to mind those fine ships of the East India Company, so smart and similar to the ships of the Royal Navy in appearance, and so similar in discipline and actual build. Shortly before the close of the eighteenth century the Viper, a 10-gun East Indiaman, was lying at anchor in the Bushire Roads. (Bushire is a port on the east or Persian side of the Gulf.) In the same harbour there were at anchor also a few dhows. Up till now these pirates had never molested an English ship: they had confined their attentions to native craft, so no efforts had been made to deal with them.