Lost ships and lonely seas

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

You shall have all the indulgence that our laws permit, which is this: examine the boy in my presence from day to day, for three successive days, and if you can within that time persuade him to return to the Christian religion, you may receive him back. Otherwise, as he has voluntarily come among us and gone through our ceremonies, we are in duty bound to retain him.

The apostate sea urchin of the Martin Hall was accordingly examined in Arabic, and declared that he loved his adopted father, that he had become a Mohammedan, and would never change from it. Asked the reason, he said he liked this religion much better, because all Christians were to be eternally damned while a Mohammedan should see God and be saved. He repeated the long prayer of Ramadan in Arabic without stumbling over a word, and was otherwise so proficient in the new faith that the governor’s verdict favored his plea. There was great rejoicing in Mogador over this conversion, and a procession of true believers escorted young Jack through the narrow streets.

Captain Judah Paddock waited in Mogador until the word came from the imperial palace in Fez that granted him the decree of liberty for himself and any of his men who should be detained elsewhere in Barbary. Soon after this an English brig stood into the harbor, but there was no room for passengers in her, and Captain Paddock lingered in tedious exile until a Portuguese schooner came in from Lisbon. Pat, the Irish cook, refused to leave Mogador, but the reasons had nothing to do with religion. He told his skipper that the mate and the men of the Oswego had sworn to kill him wherever they should cross his hawse, afloat or ashore, and if any of them were lucky enough to escape from Barbary, his life would not be worth a candle. He had discovered another Irishman in Mogador who was teaching him the cooper’s trade, and the Moorish girls were very fond of his songs and his jig-steps.

From Lisbon Captain Paddock sailed homeward bound in the good ship Perseverance of Baltimore, and set foot on his native soil in November, almost a year after his disaster on the coast of Barbary. By invitation he called to see the Secretary of State, John Marshall, and told his story, besides filing the documents in the case.

Four years later than this he was walking through Water Street in New York when he met John Hill, one of the sailors of the ill-fated crew of the Oswego. He was the sole survivor of the party of the mate and a dozen men who had been carried away from the wreck into the Barbary desert. He had been sold separately, and often resold by one owner and another, so that he had heard never a word of his companions, who had been scattered among the wandering tribes of the desert.

He had chanced to meet and talk with one other Christian slave, a sailor from an American schooner out of Norfolk who had swum ashore on a spar when the vessel stranded, and was the only man saved. Seaman John Hill of the Oswego and this poor derelict from Norfolk had comforted each other for a little spell, and then they were parted. Hill had finally disguised himself as an Arab, and after a series of wonderful escapes and adventures had managed to reach Agadir, where he was promptly sold to a Jew, who kept him at hard labor for twelve months before the American consul-general heard of his plight and obtained his release.

In concluding his narrative, Captain Judah Paddock ventured this opinion, which was, no doubt, the truth:

“All that I was able to learn while a slave in Barbary confirmed my belief that many unfortunate mariners have been wrecked on that shore and there perished, who were supposed by their relatives and friends to have foundered at sea.”

Another story, well known in its day, was that of Captain James Riley of the American brig Commerce which was lost on the Barbary coast in 1815. The torments of his crew while in the hands of their Arab captors are really too dreadful to describe in detail. Captain Riley, a herculean sailor weighing more than two hundred pounds, was a mere skeleton of ninety pounds when he gained his liberty at Tangier, but he recovered to command other ships and lived to a ripe old age. His soul wrung with the memories of the experience, he wrote:

“Not less than six American vessels are known to have been lost on this part of the coast since the year 1800, besides numbers of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc., which are also known to have been wrecked there, and no doubt many other vessels that never have been heard from,—but it is only Americans and Englishmen that are ever heard from after the first news of the shipwreck. The French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian governments, it is said, seldom ransom their unfortunate shipwrecked subjects, and they are thus doomed to perpetual slavery and misery,—no friendly hand is ever stretched forth to relieve their distresses and to heal their bleeding wounds, nor any voice of humanity to soothe their bitter pangs,—till worn out with sufferings indescribable they resign their souls to the God who gave them, and launch into the eternal world with pleasure, as death is the only relief from their miseries.”