The intricate channels and hidden harbors of the Ægean Sea long remained a hiding-place of sea-robbers, and are still haunted by them, though every few years, from Cæsar’s time till now, the kings of the surrounding countries have sent expeditions to break them up. In the sixteenth century piracy in that region was especially prevalent. The crews then were chiefly Turkish, but the great leaders were two renegade Greeks, the brothers Aruck and Hayradin Barbarossa (“Redbeard”).
WALKING THE PLANK.
It happened that Spain, having conquered the Moors of Granada in 1492 and pursued her victories across the straits, had gained control of Algeria (at that time a collection of small Mohammedan states), and held it until the death of King Ferdinand in 1516. Then the Algerians sent an embassy to Aruck (sometimes spelled Horuk, or Ouradjh) Barbarossa, requesting him to aid them in driving out the Spaniards, and promising him a share in the spoils. He eagerly accepted this proposition, seeing a great deal more in it than the Algerians saw; and the moment the Spaniards had been beaten and expelled he murdered the prince he had come there to help, seized upon the city and port for himself, and made it the headquarters of that system of desperate piracy which became the dread of all Europe. These robbers of the sea called themselves corsairs, from an Italian word signifying “a race”; and they generally won, because they had the best and swiftest vessels of that time, such as feluccas, xebecs, and the like. The black flag which they flew was not blacker than their reputations, so that even yet to call a man as bad as a Barbary pirate is to mean that he could not be much worse if he tried. The Spanish colonies in America, a few years later, began sending home immense treasures dug in the silver-and gold-mines of Peru and Mexico, and extorted from the natives or stolen from the temples of those unhappy countries. A quantity of ingots and gold and silver ornaments equal in value to fifteen million dollars of our modern money was taken at one time by Pizarro, in Peru, as the ransom of the Inca Atahualpa, and booty amounting to a similar sum was gained in the sacking of various cities. This great inpouring of wealth caused a general giving up of manufactures and trade in Spain, and was one of the reasons of her final decline in power, and it had the immediate bad effect of making piracy more attractive than ever. The treasure-ships, though convoyed by war-ships, were often attacked and captured by the corsairs. Barbarossa’s fleets were more like armadas of a powerful nation than mere pirate craft; and whenever it happened that his commanders were defeated, they would land upon the nearest unprotected coast of Spain, France, or Italy, and pillage and burn some town in revenge. How galling this was to all merchants and travelers we can hardly understand in these days; but so strong were the corsairs that the fleets and armies of various governments, and even of the Pope, which were sent against them, could not gain their stronghold nor suppress their cruisers, at least for more than a short time. Charles V of Spain tried greatly to conquer them; but although his forces, attacking Aruck Barbarossa from the province of Oran, near Algiers, defeated and killed him, Hayradin (more properly spelled Khair-ed-din) Barbarossa succeeded his brother, and, placing himself under the protection of Turkey, continued to build up the power of the pirates. His first care was to fortify the city of Algiers, and he expended a great deal of money and labor on the perfection of the harbor, compelling all his prisoners and thousands of citizens to work as slaves on the defenses. Next he conquered Tunis, and was selected by the sultan as the only fit man to sail against Andrea Doria, the great Genoese naval commander of the Christians in their wars against the Turks early in the sixteenth century. Mediterranean commerce became so unsafe that watch-towers were built all along the coasts, and guards were kept afoot to give alarm at the approach of the corsairs. Charles V gathered together a powerful armament, and sailed to the rescue of Tunis, recapturing it for its rightful sovereign in 1535; but he was never able to capture Hayradin Barbarossa, who lived out his life in Algiers as “a friend to the sea and an enemy to all who sailed upon it.” After his time the power of the pirates continued under other leaders; and not Algeria alone, but Tripoli, Morocco, and even Tunis, harbored piratical vessels in every port, and the rulers shared their spoils; piracy, indeed, was the source of their national revenues, and was encouraged by the Sultan of Turkey inasmuch as all these states were his vassals.
Every few years some European power—Spain, France, Venice, or England—would lose patience, send a fleet, and open a campaign that would be successful in destroying certain strongholds, releasing a crowd of prisoners, and burning or sinking many ships. The city of Algiers was bombarded almost into ruins in 1682, and the job completed a year later, after the Algerians had tossed the French consul out to the fleet, with their compliments, from the mouth of a mortar. They were fond of such jokes. Nevertheless, the city speedily recovered, and piracy, complicated by Moslem fanaticism and Turkish politics, harassed commerce during all the next century, partly because Europe was so busy in its own wars that it had no time for outside matters, and partly because it was for the advantage of certain nations (particularly of Great Britain, which, in possession of Gibraltar and Port Mahon, might have suppressed this villainy) to let the corsairs prey upon its foes—especially France. The actual result was that most or all of the European powers fell into the custom of paying to Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and other rulers of the Barbary (or Berber) States large sums of money as annual tribute to restrain them from official depredations upon their coasts and commerce, besides other large payments for the ransom of such Christian prisoners as each sultan’s lively subjects continued to take in spite of treaties.
In this shameful condition of affairs the newly independent United States was obliged to join during the first years of its existence, to secure immunity for our commerce in the Mediterranean, because we had not yet had time to create a navy. By the end of the century, however, the United States was able to defend itself at sea, and in 1801 answered the insults of Tripoli by bombarding its capital seaport until the dey sued for mercy and promised to behave himself. Nevertheless, he needed another lesson, and in 1803 a second American fleet was sent to the Mediterranean, commanded by Preble, in the Constitution, with such subordinate officers as Bainbridge, Decatur, Somers, Hull, Stewart, Lawrence, and others that later became famous. One incident of this campaign, which began by frightening the Sultan of Morocco at Tangier into abject submission, but was especially directed against Tripoli, is well worth remembering.
THE “ARGUS” CAPTURING A TRIPOLITAN PIRATE FELUCCA.
Captain Bainbridge, going alone in the fine frigate Philadelphia into the harbor of the city of Tripoli, had unfortunately run aground, and there, overpowered by the number of his enemies afloat and ashore, had been compelled to give up his ship, and find himself and all his crew taken prisoners. He managed to get word of his misfortune to Commodore Preble at Malta, and that officer at once took his fleet to Tripoli—Decatur, in the Argus, gallantly capturing on the way one of the great lateen-sailed piratical crafts of the enemy, which later proved a useful instrument in the contest. The fleet blockaded Tripoli for a while, and shelled the fortifications somewhat, just to give the bashaw a hint, and to encourage the poor prisoners; but none of the big vessels was able to enter the narrow, tortuous, and ill-charted harbor in the face of the many batteries, under whose guns the Philadelphia could be seen at anchor with the Tripolitan flag at her main, so they sailed away to Syracuse to make preparations for reducing this nest of barbarians. Gunboats of light draft and mortar-vessels had to be fitted out; but the first thing was to try to carry out a plan that Decatur and all his friends had been maturing ever since they had arrived—the destruction of the Philadelphia, not only because she had been refitted into a powerful weapon in the hands of the enemy, but because it was galling to national as well as naval pride to see her flying a foreign flag. The plan was this:
Decatur was to take a picked crew of seventy officers and men on the captured felucca (renamed Intrepid), and attempt at night to penetrate to the inner harbor of Tripoli in the disguise of a trader, supported as well as possible by the gun-brig Siren, also disguised as a merchantman. As his pilot was an Italian and a competent linguist, it was hoped the ketch could get near enough to set fire to the ship, whirl a shotted deck-gun into position to send a shell down the main hatch and through her bottom, fire it, and escape before the surprise was over. The chances of failure were enough to daunt the bravest, yet every man in the fleet wanted to go.