A Fierce Duel

After exchanging shots, when Teach (Blackbeard) was wounded they drew their swords and fiercely attacked each other. Maynard’s sword broke in his hand and had it not been for one of his own men, who wounded Blackbeard in the throat, the duel would have ended then.

DARING DEEDS
OF
FAMOUS PIRATES

TRUE STORIES OF THE STIRRING ADVENTURES,
BRAVERY AND RESOURCE OF PIRATES,
FILIBUSTERS & BUCCANEERS

BY
Lt.-Com. E. KEBLE CHATTERTON, R.N.V.R
B.A. (Oxon.),
AUTHOR OF “THE ROMANCE OF THE SHIP” “FORE AND AFT”
“SAILING SHIPS AND THEIR STORY”
&c. &c. &c.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOURS

LONDON
SEELEY, SERVICE & CO. LIMITED
196 Shaftesbury Avenue
MDCCCCXXIX

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

NOTE

The contents of this book have been taken from Lieutenant Keble Chatterton’s larger and more expensive volume entitled The Romance of Piracy.

THE ROMANCE OF PIRACY

CHAPTER I
THE EARLIEST PIRATES

I suppose there are few words in use which at once suggest so much romantic adventure as the words pirate and piracy. You instantly conjure up in your mind a wealth of excitement, a clashing of lawless wills, and there pass before your eyes a number of desperate dare-devils whose life and occupation are inseparably connected with the sea.

The very meaning of the word, as you will find on referring to a Greek dictionary, indicates one who attempts to rob. In classical times there was a species of Mediterranean craft which was a light, swift vessel called a myoparo because it was chiefly used by pirates. Since the Greek verb peirao means literally “to attempt,” so it had the secondary meaning of “to try one’s fortune in thieving on sea.” Hence a peirates (in Greek) and pirata (in Latin) signified afloat the counterpart of a brigand or highwayman on land. To many minds piracy conjures up visions that go back no further than the seventeenth century: but though it is true that during that period piracy attained unheard-of heights in certain seas, yet the avocation of sea-robbery dates back very much further.

Robbery by sea is certainly one of the oldest professions in the world. I use the word profession advisedly, for the reason that in the earliest days to be a pirate was not the equivalent of being a pariah and an outcast. It was deemed just as honourable then to belong to a company of pirates as it is to-day to belong to the navy of any recognised power. It is an amusing fact that if in those days two strange ships met on the high seas, and one of them, hailing the other, inquired if she were a pirate or a trader, the inquiry was neither intended nor accepted as an insult, but a correct answer would follow. It is a little difficult in these modern days of regular steamship routes and powerful liners which have little to fear beyond fog and exceptionally heavy weather, to realise that every merchant ship sailed the seas with fear and trepidation. When she set forth from her port of lading there was little certainty that even if the ship herself reached the port of destination, her cargo would ever be delivered to the rightful receivers. The ship might be jogging along comfortably, heading well up towards her destined port, when out from the distance came a much faster and lighter vessel of smaller displacement and finer lines. In a few hours the latter would have overhauled the former, the scanty crew of the merchantman would have been thrown into the sea or pressed into the pirate’s service, or else taken ashore to the pirate’s haunt and sold as slaves. The rich cargo of merchandise could be sold or bartered when the land was reached, and the merchant ship sunk or left to wallow in the Mediterranean swell.

It is obvious that because the freight ship had to be big-bellied to carry the maximum cargo she was in most instances unable to run away from the swift-moving pirate except in heavy weather. But in order to possess some means of defence it was not unusual for these peaceful craft to be provided with turrets of great height, from which heavy missiles could be dropped on to the attacking pirate. In the bows, in the stern and amidships these erections could easily be placed and as quickly removed. And as a further aid oars would be got out in an endeavour to accelerate the ship’s speed. For whilst the pirate relied primarily on oars, the trader relied principally on sail power. Therefore in fine settled weather, with a smooth sea, the low-lying piratical craft was at its best. It could be manœuvred quickly, it could dart in and out of little bays, it could shelter close in to the shore under the lee of a friendly reef, and it was, because of its low freeboard, not easy to discern at any great distance, unless the sea was literally smooth. But all through history this type of vessel has been shown to be at a disadvantage as soon as it comes on to blow and the unruffled surface gives way to high crest and deep furrows.

It is as impossible to explain the growth of piracy as it is to define precisely the call of the sea. A man is born with a bias in favour of the sea or he is not: there is no possibility of putting that instinct into him if already he has not been endowed with that attitude. So also we know from our own personal experience, every one of us, that whilst some of our own friends fret and waste in sedentary pursuits, yet from the time they take to the sea or become explorers or colonisers they find their true métier. The call of the sea is the call of adventure in a specialised form. It has been said, with no little truth, that many of the yachtsmen of to-day, if they had been living in other ages, would have gone afloat as pirates or privateers. And so, if we want to find an explanation for the amazing historical fact that for century after century, in spite of all the efforts which many a nation made to suppress piracy, it revived and prospered, we can only answer that, quite apart from the lust of wealth, there was at the back of it all that love of adventure, that desire for exciting incident, that hatred of monotonous security which one finds in so many natures. A distinguished British admiral remarked the other day that it was his experience that the best naval officers were usually those who as boys were most frequently getting into disfavour for their adventurous escapades. It is, at any rate, still true that unless the man or boy has in him the real spirit of adventure, the sea, whether as a sport or profession, can have but little fascination for him.

International law and the growth of navies have practically put an end to the profession of piracy, though privateering would doubtless reassert itself in the next great naval war. But if you look through history you will find that, certainly up to the nineteenth century, wherever there was a seafaring nation there too had flourished a band of pirates. Piracy went on for decade after decade in the Mediterranean till at length it became unbearable, and Rome had to take the most serious steps and use the most drastic measures to stamp out the nests of hornets. A little later you find another generation of sea-robbers growing up and acting precisely as their forefathers. Still further on in history you find the Barbarian corsairs and their descendants being an irrepressible menace to Mediterranean shipping. For four or five hundred years galleys waylaid ships of the great European nations, attacked them, murdered their crews and plundered the Levantine cargoes. Time after time were these corsairs punished: time after time they rose again. In vain did the fleets of southern Christian Europe or the ships of Elizabeth or the Jacobean navy go forth to quell them. Algiers and Tunis were veritable plague-spots in regard to piracy. Right on through time the northern coast of Africa was the hotbed of pirates. Not till Admiral Lord Exmouth, in the year 1816, was sent to quell Algiers did Mediterranean piracy receive its death-blow, though it lingered on for some little time later.

But piracy is not confined to any particular nation nor to any particular sea, any more than the spirit of adventure is the exclusive endowment of any particular race. There have been notorious pirates in the North Sea as in the Mediterranean, there have been European pirates in the Orient just as there have been Moorish pirates in the English Channel. There have been British pirates on the waters of the West Indies as there have been of Madagascar. There have flourished pirates in the North, in the South, in the East and the West—in China, Japan, off the coast of Malabar, Borneo, America and so on. The species of ships are often different, the racial characteristics of the sea-rovers are equally distinct, yet there is still the same determined clashing of wills, the same desperate nature of the contests, the same exciting adventure; and in the following pages it will be manifest that in spite of differences of time and place the romance of piratical incident lives on for the reason that human nature, at its basis, is very much alike the whole world over.

But we must make a distinction between isolated and collected pirates. There is a great dissimilarity, for instance, between a pickpocket and a band of brigands. The latter work on a grander, bolder system. So it has always been with the robbers of the sea. Some have been brigands, some have been mere pickpockets. The “grand” pirates set to work on a big scale. It was not enough to lie in wait for single merchant ships: they swooped down on to seaside towns and villages, carried off by sheer force the inhabitants and sold them into slavery. Whatever else of value might attract their fancy they also took away. If any important force were sent against them, the contest resolved itself not so much into a punitive expedition as a piratical war. There was nothing petty in piracy on these lines. It had its proper rules, its own grades of officers and drill. Lestarches was the Greek name for the captain of a band of pirates, and it was their splendid organisation, their consummate skill as fighters, that made them so difficult to quell.

I have said that piracy was regarded as an honourable profession. In the earliest times this is true. The occupation of a pirate was deemed no less worthy than a man who gained his living by fishing on the sea or hunting on land. Just as in the Elizabethan age we find the sons of some of the best English families going to sea on a roving expedition to capture Spanish treasure ships, so in classical times the Mediterranean pirates attracted to their ships adventurous spirits from all classes of society, from the most patrician to the most plebeian: the summons of the sea was as irresistible then as later on. But there were definite arrangements made for the purpose of sharing in any piratical success, so there was an incentive other than that of mere adventure which prompted men to become pirates.

To-day, if the navies of the great nations were to be withdrawn, and the policing of the seas to cease, it is pretty certain that those so disposed would presently revive piracy. Nothing is so inimical to piracy as settled peace and good government. But nothing is so encouraging to piracy as prolonged unsettlement in international affairs and weak administration. So it was that the incessant Mediterranean wars acted as a keen incentive to piracy. War breeds war, and the spirit of unrest on sea affected the pirate no less than the regular fighting man. Sea-brigandage was rampant. These daring robbers went roving over the sea wherever they wished, they waxed strong, they defied opposition.

And there were special territories which these pirates preferred to others. The Liparian Isles—from about 580 B.C. to the time of the Roman Conquest—were practically a republic of Greek corsairs. Similarly the Ionians and the Lycians were notorious for piratical activities. After the period of Thucydides, Corinth endeavoured to put down piracy, but in vain. The irregularity went on until the conquest of Asia by the Romans, in spite of all the precautions that were taken. The Ægean Sea, the Pontus, the Adriatic were the happy cruising-grounds for the corsairs. The pirate-admiral or, as he was designated, archipeirates, with his organised fleet of assorted craft, was a deadly foe to encounter. Under his command were the myoparones, already mentioned—light and swift they darted across the sea; then there were, too, the hemiolia, which were so called because they were rowed with one and a half banks of oars; next came the two-banked biremes and the three-banked triremes, and with these four classes of ships the admiral was ready for any craft that might cross his wake. Merchantmen fled before him, warships by him were sent to the bottom: wherever he coasted there spread panic through the sea-girt towns. Even Athens itself felt the thrill of fear.

Notorious, too, were the Cretan pirates, and for a long time the Etruscan corsairs were a great worry to the Greeks of Sicily. The inhabitants of the Balearic Islands were especially famous for their piratical depredations and for their skilful methods of fighting. Wherever a fleet was sent to attack them they were able to inflict great slaughter by hurling vast quantities of stones with their slings. It was only when they came to close quarters with their aggressors the Romans, and the latter’s sharp javelins began to take effect, that these islanders met their match and were compelled to flee in haste to the shelter of their coves. At the period which preceded the subversion of the Roman commonwealth by Julius Cæsar, there was an exceedingly strong community of pirates at the extreme eastern end of the Mediterranean. They hailed from that territory which is just in the bend of Asia Minor and designated Cilicia. Here lived—when ashore—one of the most dangerous body of sea-rovers recorded in the pages of history. It is amazing to find how powerful these Cilicians became, and as they prospered in piracy so their numbers were increased by fellow-corsairs from their neighbours the Syrians and Pamphylians, as well as by many who came down from the shores of the Black Sea and from Cyprus. So powerful indeed became these rovers that they controlled practically the whole of the Mediterranean from east to west. They made it impossible for peaceful trading craft to venture forth, and they even defeated several Roman officers who had been sent with ships against them.

And so it went on until Rome realised that piracy had long since ceased to be anything else but a most serious evil that needed firm and instant suppression. It was the ruin of overseas trade and a terrible menace to her own territory. But the matter was at last taken in hand. M. Antonius, proprætor, was sent with a powerful fleet against these Cilician pirates; they were crushed thoroughly, and the importance of this may be gathered from the fact that on his return to Rome the conqueror was given an ovation.

In the wars between Rome and Mithradates the Cilician pirates rendered the latter excellent service. The long continuance of these wars and the civil war between Marius and Sylla afforded the Cilicians a fine opportunity to increase both in numbers and strength. To give some idea of their power it is only necessary to state that not only did they take and rob all the Roman ships which they encountered, but they also voyaged among the islands and maritime provinces and plundered no fewer than 400 cities. They carried their depredations even to the mouth of the Tiber and actually took away from thence several vessels laden with corn. Bear in mind, too, that the Cilician piratical fleet was no scratch squadron of a few antique ships. It consisted of a thousand vessels, which were of great speed and very light. They were well manned by most able seamen, and fought by trained soldiers, and commanded by expert officers. They carried an abundance of arms, and neither men nor officers were lacking in daring and prowess. When again it became expedient that these Cilicians should be dealt with, it took no less a person than Pompey, assisted by fifteen admirals, to tackle them; but finally, after a few months, he was able to have the sea once more cleared of these rovers.

We can well sympathise with the merchant seamen of those days. The perils of wind and wave were as nothing compared with the fear of falling into the hands of powerful desperadoes, who not merely were all-powerful afloat but in their strong fortresses on shore were most difficult to deal with. With the Balearic Islanders in the west, the Cilicians in the east, the Carthaginians in the south, the Illyrians along the Adriatic in their low, handy liburnian galleys, there were pirates ready to encircle the whole of the Mediterranean Sea. It is worth noting—for he who reads naval history must often be struck with the fact that an existing navy prevents war, but the absence of a navy brings war about—that as long as Rome maintained a strong navy piracy died down: but so soon as she neglected her sea-service piracy grew up again, commerce was interrupted both east and west, numerous illustrious Romans were captured and either ransomed or put to death, though some others were pressed into the service of the pirates themselves. By means of prisoners to work at the oars, by the addition of piratical neighbours and by mercenaries as well, a huge piratical community with a strong military and political organisation continued to prevent the development of overseas trade. This piracy was only thwarted by keeping permanent Roman squadrons always ready.

Of course there were pirates in these early times in waters other than the Mediterranean. On the west coast of Gaul the Veneti had become very powerful pirates, and you will recollect how severely they tried Cæsar, giving him more trouble than all the rest of Gaul put together. They owned such stalwart ships and were such able seamen that they proved most able enemies. During the time of the Roman Empire piracy continued also on the Black Sea and North Sea, though the Mediterranean was now for the most part safe for merchant ships. But when the power of Rome declined, so proportionately did the pirates reappear in their new strength. There was no fearful navy to oppose them, and so once more they were able to do pretty much as they liked. But we must not forget that long before this they had ceased to be regarded as the equivalent of hunters and fishermen. They were, by common agreement, what Cicero had designated “enemies of the human race”: and so they continued till the nineteenth century, with only temporary intervals of inactivity.

The thousand ships which the Cilician pirates employed were disposed in separate squadrons. In different places they had their own naval magazines located, and during that period already mentioned, when they were driven off the sea, they resisted capture by retreating ashore to their mountain fastnesses until such time as it was safe for them to renew their ventures afloat. When Pompey defeated them he had under him a fleet of 270 ships. As the inscription, carried in the celebration of his triumph on his return to Rome, narrated, he cleared the maritime coasts of pirates and restored the dominion of the sea to the Roman people. But the pirates could always boast of having captured two Roman prætors, and Julius Cæsar, when a youth on his way to Rhodes to pursue his studies, also fell into their hands. However, he was more lucky than many another Roman who, when captured, was hung up to the yard-arm, and the pirate ship went proudly on her way.

In the declining years of the Roman Empire the Goths came down from the north to the Mediterranean, where they got together fleets, became very powerful and crossed to Africa, made piratical raids on the coast and carried on long wars with the Romans. Presently the Saxons in the northern waters of Europe made piratical descents on to the coasts of France, Flanders and Britain. Meanwhile, in the south, the Saracens descended upon Cyprus and Rhodes, which they took, seized many islands in the Archipelago, and thence proceeded to Sicily to capture Syracuse, and finally overran the whole of Barbary from Egypt in the east to the Straits of Gibraltar in the west. From there they crossed to Spain and reduced the greater part thereof, until under Ferdinand and Isabella these Moors were driven out of Spain and compelled to settle once more on the north coast of Africa. They established themselves notably at Algiers, took to the sea, built themselves galleys and, after living a civilised life in Spain for seven hundred years, became for the next three centuries a scourge of the Mediterranean, a terror to ships and men, inflicted all the cruelties which the fanaticism of the Moslem race is capable of, and cast thousands of Christians into the bonds of slavery. In many ways these terrifying Moorish pirates—of which to this day some still go afloat in their craft off the north coast of Africa—became the successors of those Cilician and other corsairs of the classical age. In due course we shall return to note the kind of piratical warfare which these expatriated Moors waged for most of three hundred years. But before we come to that period let us examine into an epoch that preceded this.

CHAPTER II
THE NORTH SEA PIRATES

I am anxious to emphasise the fact that piracy is nearly as old as the ship herself. It is extremely improbable that the Egyptians were ever pirates, for the reason that, excepting the expedition to Punt, they confined their navigation practically to the Nile only. But as soon as men built sea-going vessels, then the instinct to rob and pillage on sea became as irresistible as on land. Might was right, and the weakest went to the bottom.

Bearing this in mind, and remembering that there was always a good deal of trade from the Continent up the Thames to London, especially in corn, and that there was considerable traffic between Gaul and Britain across the English Channel, it was but natural that the sea-rovers of the north should exist no less than in the south. After Rome had occupied Britain she established a navy which she called the “Classis Britannica,” and it cannot have failed to be effective in policing the narrow seas and protecting commerce from wandering corsairs. We know very well that after Rome had evacuated Britain, and there was no navy to protect our shores, came the Angles and Saxons and Jutes. We may permissibly regard these Northmen, who pillaged and plundered till the time of William the Conqueror and after, as pirates. In the sense that a pirate is one who not merely commits robbery on the high seas but also makes descents on the coast for the purpose of pillage, we may call the Viking seamen pirates. But, strictly speaking, they were a great deal more than this, and the object of this book is concerned rather with the incidents of the sea than the incursions into the land. Although the Vikings did certainly commit piracy both in their own waters and off the coasts of Britain, yet their depredations in this respect, even if we could obtain adequate information thereof, would sink into insignificance before their greater conquests. For a race of men who first swoop down on to a strange coast, vanquish the inhabitants and then settle down to live among them, are rather different from a body of men who lie in wait to capture ships as they proceed on their voyages.

The growth of piracy in English waters certainly owed much to the Cinque Ports. In these havens dwelt a privileged class of seamen, who certainly for centuries were a very much favoured community. It was their privilege to do that which in the Mediterranean Cicero had regarded with so much disfavour. These men of the Cinque Ports, according to Matthew of Paris, were commissioned to plunder as they pleased all the merchant ships as they passed up and down the English Channel. This was to be without any regard to nationality, with the exception that English ships were not to be molested. But French, Genoese, Venetian, Spanish or any others could be attacked at the will of the Cinque Port seamen. Some persons might call this sort of thing by the title of privateering, yet it was really piracy and nothing else. You can readily imagine that with this impetus thus given to a class of men who were not particularly prone to lawfulness, the practice of piracy on the waters that wash Great Britain grew at a great rate. Thus in the thirteenth century the French, the Scotch, Irish and Welsh fitted out ships, hung about the narrow seas till they were able to capture a well-laden merchantman as their fat reward. So, before long, the English Channel was swarming with pirates, and during the reign of Henry III. their numbers grew to an alarming extent. The net result was that it was a grave risk for commodities to be brought across the Channel, and so, therefore, the price of these goods rose. The only means of remedy was to increase the English fleet, and this at length was done in order to cope with the evil.

But matters were scarcely better in the North Sea, and English merchant ships sailed in perpetual fear of capture. During the Middle Ages pirates were always hovering about for any likely ship, and the wool trade especially was interfered with. Matters became somewhat complicated when, as happened in the reign of Edward II., peaceable English ships were arrested by Norway for having been suspected—erroneously—of slaughtering a Norwegian knight, whereas the latter had been actually put to death by pirates. “We marvell not a little,” wrote Edward II. in complaint to Haquinus, King of Norway, “and are much disquieted in our cogitations, considering the greevances and oppressions, which (as wee have beene informed by pitifull complaints) are at this present, more than in times past, without any reasonable cause inflicted upon our subjects, which doe usually resort unto your kingdome for traffiques sake.” For the fact was that one nation was as bad as the other, but that whenever the one had suffered then the other would lay violent hands on a ship that was merely suspected of having acted piratically. Angered at the loss to their own countrymen they were prompted by revenge on alien seamen found in their own waters and even lying quietly in their own havens with their cargoes of herrings.

As an attempt to make the North Sea more possible for the innocent trading ships, the kings of England at different dates came to treaties with those in authority on the other side. Richard II., for example, made an agreement with the King of Prussia. In 1403 “full restitution and recompense” were demanded by the Chancellor of England from the Master-General of Prussia for the “sundry piracies and molestations offered of late upon the sea.” Henry IV., writing to the Prussian Master-General, admitted that “as well our as your marchants ... have, by occasion of pirates, roving up and downe the sea” sustained grievous loss. Finally it was agreed that all English merchant ships should be allowed liberty to enter Prussian ports without molestation. But it was further decided that if in the future any Prussian cargoes should be captured on the North Sea by English pirates, and this merchandise taken into an English port, then the harbour-master or “governour” was, if he suspected piracy, to have these goods promptly taken out of the English ship and placed in safe keeping. Between Henry IV. and the Hanseatic towns a similar agreement was also made which bound the cities of Lubec, Bremen, Hamburg, Sund and Gripeswold “that convenient, just and reasonable satisfaction and recompense” might be made “unto the injured and endamaged parties” “for all injuries, damages, grievances, and drownings or manslaughters done and committed” by the pirates in the narrow seas.

It would be futile to weary the reader with a complete list of all these piratical attacks, but a few of them may here be instanced. About Easter-time in the year 1394 a Hanseatic ship was hovering about the North Sea when she fell in with an English merchantman from Newcastle-on-Tyne. The latter’s name was the Godezere and belonged to a quartette of owners. She was, for those days, quite a big craft, having a burden of 200 tons. Her value, together with that of her sails and tackle, amounted to the sum of £400. She was loaded with a cargo of woollen cloth and red wine, being bound for Prussia. The value of this cargo, plus some gold and certain sums of money found aboard, aggregated 200 marks. The Hanseatic ship was able to overpower the Godezere, slew two of her crew, captured ship and contents and imprisoned the rest of the crew for the space of three whole years.

A Hull craft belonging to one Richard Horuse, and named the Shipper Berline of Prussia, was in the same year also attacked and robbed by Hanseatic pirates, goods to the value of 160 nobles being taken away. The following year a ship named the John Tutteburie was attacked by Hanseatics when off the coast of Norway, and goods consisting of wax and other commodities to the value of 476 nobles were captured. A year later and pirates of the same federation captured a ship belonging to William Terry of Hull called the Cogge, with thirty woollen broad cloths and a thousand narrow cloths, to the value of £200. In 1398 the Trinity of Hull, laden with wax, oil and other goods, was captured by the same class of men off Norway. Dutch ships, merchant craft from the port of London, fishing vessels, Prussian traders, Zealand, Yarmouth and other ships were constantly being attacked, pillaged and captured.

In the month of September, of the year 1398, a number of Hanseatic pirates waylaid a Prussian ship whose skipper was named Rorebek. She carried a valuable cargo of woollen cloth which was the property of various merchants in Colchester. This the pirates took away with them, together with five Englishmen, whom they found on board. The latter they thrust into prison as soon as they got them ashore, and of these two were ransomed subsequently for the sum of 20 English nobles, while another became blind owing to the rigours of his imprisonment. In 1394 another Prussian ship, containing a number of merchants from Yarmouth and Norwich, was also captured off the Norwegian coast with a cargo of woollen goods and taken off by the Hanseatic pirates. The merchants were cast into prison and not allowed their liberty until the sum of 100 marks had been paid for their ransom. Another vessel, laden with the hides of oxen and sheep, with butter, masts and spars and other commodities to the value of 100 marks, was taken in Longsound, Norway.

In June 1395 another English ship, laden with salt fish, was taken off the coast of Denmark, the value of her hull, inventory and cargo amounting to £170. The crew consisted of a master and twenty-five mariners, whom the pirates slew. There was also a lad found on board, and him they carried into Wismar with them. The most notorious of these Hanseatic pirates were two men, named respectively Godekins and Stertebeker, whose efforts were as untiring as they were successful. There is scarcely an instance of North Sea piracy at this time in which these two men or their accomplices do not figure. And it was these same men who attacked a ship named the Dogger. The latter was skippered by a man named Gervase Cat, and she was lying at anchor while her crew were engaged fishing. The Hanseatic pirates, however, swept down on them, took away with them a valuable cargo of fish, beat and wounded the master and crew of the Dogger and caused the latter to lose their fishing for that year, “being endamaged thereby to the summe of 200 nobles.”

In the year 1402 other Hanseatic corsairs, while cruising about near Plymouth, captured a Yarmouth barge named the Michael, the master of which was one Robert Rigweys. She had a cargo of salt and a thousand canvas cloths. The ship and goods being captured, the owner, a man named Hugh ap Fen, complained that he was the loser to the extent of 800 nobles: and the master and mariners assessed the loss of wages, canvas and “armour” at 200 nobles. But there was no end to the daring of these corsairs of the North. In the spring of 1394 they proceeded with a large fleet of ships to the town of Norbern in Norway, and having taken the place by assault, they captured all the merchants therein, together with their “goods and cattels,” burnt their houses and put their persons up to ransom. Twenty-one houses, to the value of 440 nobles, were destroyed, and goods to the value of £1815 were taken from the merchants. With all this lawlessness on the sea and the consequent injury to overseas commerce, it was none too soon that Henry IV. took steps to put down a most serious evil.

We cannot but feel sorry for the long-suffering North Sea fishermen, who, in addition to having to ride out bad weather in clumsy leaky craft, and having to work very hard for their living, were liable at any time to see a pirate ship approaching them over the top of the waves. You remember the famous Dogger Bank incident a few years ago when one night the North Sea trawlers found themselves being shelled by the Russian Baltic fleet. Well, in much the same way were the mediæval ancestors of these hardy fishermen surprised by pirates when least expecting them and when most busily occupied in pursuing their legitimate calling. The fisherman was like a magnet to the pirates, because his catch of fish had only to be taken to the nearest port and sold. That was the reason why, in 1295, Edward had been induced to send three ships of Yarmouth across the North Sea to protect the herring-ships of Holland and Zealand.

The following incident well illustrates the statement that, in spite of all the efforts which were made to repress piracy, yet it was almost impossible to attain such an object. The month is July, and the year 1327, the scene being the English Channel. Picture to your mind a beamy, big-bellied, clumsy ship with one mast and one great square sail. She has come from Waterford in Ireland, where she has taken on board a rich cargo, consisting of wool, hides and general merchandise. She has safely crossed the turbulent Irish Sea, she has wallowed her way through the Atlantic swell round Land’s End and found herself making good headway up the English Channel in the summer breeze. Her port of destination is Bruges, but she will never get there. For from the eastward have come the famous pirates of the Cinque Ports, and off the Isle of Wight they fall in with the merchant ship. The rovers soon sight her, come up alongside, board her and relieve her of forty-two sacks of wool, twelve dickers of hides, three pipes of salmon, two pipes of cheese, one bale of cloth, to say nothing of such valuable articles as silver plate, mazer cups, jewels, sparrow-hawks and other goods of the total value of £600. Presently the pirates bring their spoil into the Downs below Sandwich and dispose of it as they prefer.

CHAPTER III
PIRACY IN THE EARLY TUDOR TIMES

The kind of man who devotes his life to robbery at sea is not the species of humanity who readily subjects himself to laws and ordinances. You may threaten him with terrible punishments, but it is not by these means that you will break his spirit. He is like the gipsy or the vagrant: he has in him an overwhelming longing for wandering and adventure. It is not so much the greed for gain which prompts the pirate, any more than the land tramp finds his long marches inspired by wealth. But some impelling blind force is at work within, and so not all the treaties and agreements, not all the menaces of death could avail to keep these men from pursuing the occupation which their fathers and grandfathers had for many years been employed in.

Therefore piracy was quite as bad in the sixteenth century as it had been in the Middle Ages. The dwellers on either side of the English Channel were ever ready to pillage each other’s ships and property. About the first and second decade of the sixteenth century the Scots rose to some importance in the art of sea-robbery, and some were promptly taken and executed. In vain did Henry VIII. write to Francis I. saying that complaints had been made by English merchants that their ships had been pirated by Frenchmen pretending to be Scots, for which redress could not be obtained in France. In 1531 matters had become so bad, and piracy was so prevalent, that commissioners were appointed to make inquisitions concerning this illegal warfare round our coasts. Viscount Lisle, Vice-Admiral of England, and others were appointed to see to the problem. So cunning had these rovers become that it was no easy affair to capture them. But in this same year a notorious pirate named Kellwanton was taken in the Isle of Man; while another, De Melton by name, who was one of his accomplices, fled with the rest of the crew in the ship to Grimsby.

Sometimes the very ships which had been sent by the king against the pirates actually engaged in pillage themselves. There was at least one instance about this time of some royal ships being unable to resist the temptation to plunder the richly laden Flemish ships. But after complaint was made the royal reply came that the Flemings should be compensated and the plunderers punished. It was all very well to set a thief to catch a thief, but there were few English seamen of any experience who had not done some piracy at some time of their career, and when they at last formed the crews of preventive ships and got wearied of waiting for pirate craft to come along, it was too much to expect them to remain idle on the seas when a rich merchantman went sailing past.

Sometimes the pirates would waylay a whole merchant fleet, and if the latter were sailing light, would relieve the fleet of their victuals, their clothes, their anchors and cables and sails. But it was not merely to the North Sea nor to the English Channel that the English pirates confined themselves. In October 1533 they captured a Biscayan ship off the coast of Ireland. And during the reign of Henry VIII. there was an interesting incident connected with a ship named the Santa Maria Desaie. This craft belonged to one Peter Alves, a Portingale, who hired a mariner, William Phelipp, to pilot his ship from Tenby to Bastabill Haven. But whilst off the Welsh coast a piratical bark named the Furtuskewys, containing thirty-five desperate corsairs, attacked the Santa Maria and completely overpowered her. Alves they promptly got rid of by putting him ashore somewhere on the Welsh coast, and they then proceeded to sail the ship to Cork, where they sold her to the mayor and others, the value of the captured craft and goods being 1524 crowns. Alves did not take this assault with any resignation, but naturally used his best endeavours to have the matter set right. From the King’s Council he obtained a command to the Mayor of Cork for restitution, but such was the lawlessness of the time that this was of no avail. The mayor, whose name was Richard Gowllys, protested that the pirates told him they had captured the ship from the Scots and not from the Portingale, and he added that he would spend £100 rather than make restitution.

But stricter vigilance caused the arrest of some of these pirates. Six of them were sentenced to death in the Admiralty Court at Boulogne, eleven others were condemned to death in the Guildhall, London: and in 1537 a ship was lying at Winchelsea “in gage to Bell the mayor” for £35 for the piracies committed in her, for she had been captured after having robbed a Gascon merchantman of a cargo of wines.

The finest of the French sailors for many a century until even the present day have ever been the Bretons. And just as in the eighteenth century the most expert sailormen on our coasts were the greatest smugglers, so in Tudor times the pick of all seamen were sea-rovers. About the time of Lent, 1537, a couple of Breton pirate ships caused a great deal of anxiety to our west-country men. One of the two had robbed an English ship off the Cornish coast and pillaged his cargo of wine. From Easter-time till August these rovers hung about the Welsh coast, sometimes coming ashore for provisions and most probably also to sell their ill-gotten cargoes, but for the most part remaining at sea. It would seem from the historical records that originally there had been only one Breton ship that had sailed from St. Malo; but having the good fortune to capture a fishing craft belonging to Milford Haven, the crew had been split up into two. Presently the numbers of these French pirates increased till there was quite a fleet of them cruising about the Welsh coast. A merchant ship that had loaded a fine cargo at Bristol, bound across the Bay of Biscay, had been boarded before the voyage had been little more than begun. For week after week these men robbed every ship that came past them. But especially were they biding their time waiting for the English, Irish and Welsh ships who were wont about this period of the year to come to St. James’s Fair at Bristol.

However, in the meanwhile, the men of the west were becoming much more alert, and were ready for any chance that might occur. And a Bristol man named Bowen, after fourteen Breton pirates had come ashore near Tenby to obtain victuals, acted with such smartness that he was able to have the whole lot captured and put into prison. And John Wynter, another Bristolian, knowing that the pirates were hovering about for those ships bound for the fair, promptly manned a ship, embarked fifty soldiers, as well as the able seamen, and cruised about ready to swoop down on the first pirate ship which showed up on the horizon. The full details of these men and what they did would make interesting reading if they were obtainable; but we know that of the above-mentioned fourteen, one, John du Laerquerac, was captain of the Breton craft. On being arrested he stoutly denied that he had ever “spoiled” English ships. That was most certainly a bare-faced lie, and presently Peter Dromyowe, one of his own mariners, confessed that he himself had robbed one Englishman; whereupon Laerquerac made a confession that, as a matter of fact, he had taken ships’ ropes, sailors’ wearing apparel, five pieces of wine, a quantity of fish, a gold crown in money and eleven silver halfpence or pence, as well as four daggers and a “couverture”!

It was because the English merchants complained that they lost so much of their imports and exports by depredations from the ships of war belonging to Biscay, Spain, the Low Countries, Normandy, Brittany and elsewhere, that Henry VIII. had been prevailed upon to send Sir John Dudley, his Vice-Admiral, to sea with a small fleet of good ships. Dudley’s orders were to cruise between the Downs on the east and St. Michael’s Mount on the west—in other words, the whole length of the English Channel—according as the wind should serve. In addition, he was to stand off and on between Ushant and Scilly and so guard the entrance to the Channel. Furthermore, he was to look in at the Isle of Lundy in the Bristol Channel—for both Lundy and the Scillies were famous pirate haunts—and after having so done he was to return and keep the narrow seas. Dudley was especially admonished to be on the look out to succour any English merchant ships, and should he meet with any foreign merchant craft which, under the pretence of trading, were actually robbing the King’s subjects, he was to have these foreigners treated as absolute pirates and punished accordingly.

For the state of piracy had become so bad that the King “can no longer suffer it.” So also Sir Thomas Dudley, as well as Sir John, was busily employed in the same preventive work. On the 10th of August of that same year, 1537, he wrote to Cromwell that he had at Harwich arrested a couple of Frenchmen who two years previously had robbed a poor English skipper’s craft off the coast of Normandy, and this Englishman had in vain sued in France for a remedy, since the pirates could never be captured. But there were so many of these corsairs being now taken that it was a grave problem as to how they should be dealt with. “If they were all committed to ward,” wrote Sir Thomas, “as your letters direct, they would fill the gaol.” Then he adds: “They would fain go and leave the ship behind them, which only contains ordnance, and no goods or victuals to find themselves with. If they go to gaol, they are like to perish of hunger, for Englishmen will do no charity to them. They are as proud naves as I have talked with.”

Eleven days later came the report from Sir John Dudley of his experiences in the Channel. He stated that while on his way home he encountered a couple of Breton ships in the vicinity of St. Helen’s, Isle of Wight, where he believed they were lying in wait for two Cornish ships “that were within Porchemouthe haven, laden with tin to the value of £3000.” Portsmouth is, of course, just opposite St. Helen’s, and on more than one occasion in naval history was the latter found a convenient anchorage by hostile ships waiting for English craft to issue forth from the mainland. But when these Breton pirates espied Dudley’s ships coming along under sail, they “made in with Porchemouthe,” where Dudley’s men promptly boarded them and placed them under arrest, with the intention of bringing them presently to the Thames. Dudley had no doubt whatever that these were pirates, but at a later date the French ambassador endeavoured to show that there was no foundation for such a suspicion. These two French crafts, he sought to persuade, were genuine merchantmen who had discharged their cargo at “St. Wallerie’s” (that is to say, St. Valery-sur-Somme), but had been driven to the Isle of Wight by bad weather, adding, doubtless as a subtle hint, that they had actually rescued an Englishman chased by a Spaniard. It is possible that the Frenchmen were telling the truth, though unless the wind had come southerly and so made it impossible for these bluff-bowed craft to beat into their port, it is difficult to believe that they could not have run into one of their own havens. At any rate, it was a yarn which Dudley’s sailors found not easy to accept.

This was no isolated instance of the capture of Breton craft. In the year 1532 a Breton ship named the Mychell, whose owner was one Hayman Gillard, her master being Nicholas Barbe of St. Malo, was encountered by a crew of English seamen who entertained no doubts whatsoever as to her being anything else than a pirate. Their suspicions were made doubly sure when they found her company to consist of nine Bretons and five Scots. They arrested her at sea, and when examined she was found well laden with wool, cloth and salt hides. Some French pirate ships even went so far as to wear the English flag of St. George, with the red cross on a white ground. This not unnaturally infuriated English seamen, especially when it was discovered that the Bretons had also carried Englishmen as their pilots and chief mariners, and were training them to become experts in piracy.

But there were times when English seamen and merchants were able to “get their own back” with interest, as the following incident will show. At the beginning of June, in the year 1538, an English merchant, Henry Davy, freighted a London ship named the Clement, which was owned by one Grenebury, who lived in Thames Street, and dispatched her with orders to proceed to the “Bay in Breteyne.” She set forth under the command of a man named Lyllyk, the ship’s purser being William Scarlet, a London clothworker. Seven men formed her crew, but when off Margate they took on board nine more. They then proceeded down Channel and took on board another four from the shore, but espying a Flemish ship of war they deemed it prudent to get hold of the coast of Normandy as soon as possible. In the “mayne” sea—by which I understand the English Channel near the mainland of the Continent—they descried coming over the waves three ships, and these were found to be Breton merchantmen.

This caused some discussion on board the Clement, and Davy, the charterer, who had come with the ship, remarked to the skipper Lyllyk that they had lost as much as £60 in goods, which had been captured by Breton pirates at an earlier date, and had never been able to obtain compensation in France in spite of all their endeavours. Any one who has any imagination and a knowledge of seafaring human nature, can easily picture Lyllyk and his crew cordially agreeing with Davy’s point of view, and showing more than a mere passive sympathy. The upshot of the discussion was that they resolved to take the law into their own hands and capture one of these three ships.

The resolution was put into effect, so that before long they had become possessed of the craft. The Breton crew were rowed ashore in a boat and left there, and after collecting the goods left behind, the Englishmen stowed them in the hold of the Clement. A prize crew, consisting of a man whose name was Comelys, and four seamen, were placed in charge of the captured ship, which now got under way. The Clement, too, resumed her voyage, and made for Peryn in Cornwall, where she was able to sell, at a good price, the goods taken out of the Breton. The gross amount obtained was divided up among the captors, and though the figures may not seem very large, yet the sum represented the equivalent of what would be to-day about ten times that amount of money. Henry Davy, being the charterer, received £17; the master, the mate, the quarter-master and the purser received each thirty shillings, while the mariners got twenty shillings apiece. Lyllyk and nine of the crew then departed, while Davy, Scarlet, Leveret the carpenter and two others got the ship under way, sailed up Channel and brought the Clement back to the Thames, where they delivered her to the wife of the owner.

But Englishmen were not always so fortunate, and the North Sea pirates were still active, in spite of the efforts which had been made by English kings in previous centuries. In 1538 the cargo ship George Modye put to sea with goods belonging to a company of English merchant adventurers, consisting of Sir Ralph Waryn, “good Mr. Lock and Rowland Hyll” and others. She never reached her port of destination, however, for the Norwegian pirates pillaged her and caused a loss to the adventurers of £10,000, whereupon, after complaint had been made, Cromwell was invoked to obtain letters from Henry VIII. to the kings of Denmark, France and Scotland that search might be duly made. There was, in fact, a good deal of luck, even yet, as to whether a ship would ever get to the harbour whither she was sent. In September 1538 we find Walter Herbart complaining that twice since Candlemas he had been robbed by Breton pirates. But, a week later, it is recorded that some pirates, who had robbed peaceable ships bound from Iceland, had been chased by John Chaderton and others of Portsmouth and captured about this time.

And it was not always that Englishmen dealt with these foreigners in any merciful manner, regardless of right or wrong. I have already emphasised the fact that, as regards the question of legality, there was little to choose between the seamen of any maritime nation. Rather it was a question of opportunity, and the very men who to-day complained bitterly of the robbery of their ships and cargoes might to-morrow be found performing piracy themselves. A kind of sea-vendetta went on, and in the minds of the mariners the only sin was that of being found out. So we notice that, in the spring of 1539, an instance of a Breton ship being captured by English corsairs who, according to the recognised custom of the sea, forthwith threw overboard the French sailors. These were all drowned except one who, “as if by a miracle, swam six miles to shore.” So says the ancient record, though it is difficult to believe that even a strong swimmer could last out so long after being badly knocked about. The Bretons had their revenge this time, for complaint was made to the chief justices, who within fifteen days had the culprits arrested and condemned, and six of them were executed on the 19th of May. Before the end of the month Francis I. wrote to thank the English king for so promptly dealing with the culprits.

Bearing in mind the interest which Henry VIII. took in nautical matters and in the welfare of his country generally; recollecting, too, the determination with which he pursued any project to the end when once his mind had been made up, we need not be surprised to find that a few months later in that year this resolute monarch again sent ships—this time a couple of barks of 120 and 90 tons respectively—“well manned and ordnanced” to scour the seas for these pirate pests that inflicted so many serious losses on the Tudor merchants.

A little earlier in that year Vaughan had written to Cromwell that he had spoken with one who lately had been a “common passenger” in hoys between London and Antwerp and knew of certain pirates who intended to capture the merchant ships plying between those two ports. Valuable warning was given concerning one of these roving craft. She belonged to Hans van Meghlyn, who had fitted out a ship of the “portage” of 20 lasts and 45 tons burthen. She was manned by a crew of thirty, her hull was painted black with pitch, she had no “foresprit,” and her foremast leaned forward like a “lodeman’s” boat. (“Lodeman” was the olden word for pilot—the man who hove the lead.) Cromwell was advised that this craft would proceed first to Orfordness (the natural landfall for a vessel to make when bound across the North Sea from the Schelde), and thence she would proceed south and lie in wait for ships at the mouth of the Thames. In order to be ready to pillage either the inward or outward bound craft which traded with London, this pirate would hover about off White Staple (Whitstable). Vaughan’s informant thought that sometimes, however, she would change her locality to the Melton shore in order to avoid suspicion, and he advised that it would be best to capture her by means of three or four well-manned oyster boats. There was also another “Easterling” (that is, one from the east of Germany or the Baltic) pirate who had received his commission from the Grave of Odenburg. This rover was named Francis Beme and was now at Canfyre with his ship, waiting for the Grave of Odenburg’s return from Brussels with money. But the warning news came in time, and in order to prevent the English merchant ships from falling into the sea-rovers’ hands, the former were ordered by proclamation to remain in Antwerp from Ash Wednesday till Easter.

CHAPTER IV
THE CORSAIRS OF THE SOUTH

When, in the year 1516, Hadrian, Cardinal St. Chryogon, wrote to Wolsey bitterly lamenting that from Taracina right away to Pisa pirates, consisting of Turks and African Moors, were swarming the sea, he was scarcely guilty of any exaggeration. Multifarious and murderous though the pirates of Northern Europe had long since shown themselves, yet it is the Mediterranean which, throughout history, and more especially during the sixteenth century, has earned the distinction of being the favourite and most eventful sphere of robbery by sea.

You may ask how this came about. It was no longer the case of the old Cilicians or the Balearic Islanders coming into activity once more. On the contrary, the last-mentioned people, far from being pirates in the sixteenth century, were actually pillaged than pillagers. A new element had now been introduced, and we enter upon a totally different sphere of the piratical history. Before we seek to inquire into the origin and development of this new force which comes across the pages of history, let us bear in mind the change which had come over the Mediterranean. During the classical times piracy was indeed bad enough, because, among other things, it interfered so seriously with the corn ships which carried the means of sustenance. But in those days the number of freight ships of any kind was infinitesimal compared with the enormous number of fighting craft that were built by the Mediterranean nations. And however much Greece and Rome laboured to develop the warlike galley, yet the evolution of the merchant ship was sadly neglected, partly, no doubt, because of the risks which a merchant ship ran and partly because the centuries of fighting evoked little encouragement for a ship of commerce.

During the centuries which followed the downfall of the Roman Empire it must not be supposed that the sea was bereft of pirates. As we have already seen, the decay of Rome was commensurate with the revival of piracy. But with the gradual spread of southern civilisation the importance of and the demand for commercial ships, as differentiated from fighting craft, increased to an unheard-of extent. No one requires to be reminded of the rise to great power of Venice and Genoa and Spain. They became great overseas traders within limits, and this postulated the ships in which goods could be carried. So it came to this that crossing and recrossing the Mediterranean there were more big-bellied ships full of richer cargoes and traversing the sea with greater regularity than ever had been in the history of the world. And as there will always be robbers when given the opportunity, either by sea or by land, irrespective of race or time, so when this amount of wealth was now afloat the sea-robber had every incentive to get rich quickly by a means that appealed in the strongest terms to an adventurous temperament.

In Italy the purely warlike ship had become so obsolete that, in the opinion of some authorities, it was not till about the middle of the ninth century that these began to be built, at any rate as regards that great maritime power, Venice. She had been too concerned with the production and exchange of wealth to centre her attention on any species of ship other than those which would carry freights. But so many defeats had she endured at the hands of the Saracens and pirates that ships specially suitable for combat had, from the year 841, to be built. The Saracens hailed from Arabia, and it is notable that at that time the Arabian sailors who used to sail across the Indian Ocean were far and away the most scientific navigators in the whole world, many of their Arabic terms still surviving in nautical terminology to this day. Indeed, the modern mariner who relies so much on nautical instruments scarcely realises how much he owes to these early seamen. Just as the Cilicians and others had in olden times harassed the shores of the Mediterranean, so now the Saracens made frequent incursions into Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, as well as intercepting the ships of the Adriatic.

Let us remember that both in the north and south of Europe the sailing seasons for century after century were limited to that period which is roughly indicated between the months of April and the end of September. Therefore the pirate knew that if he confined his attentions to that period and within certain sea-areas, he would be able to encompass practically the whole of the world’s sea-borne trade. These sailing periods were no arbitrary arrangement: they were part of the maritime legislation, and only the most daring and, at the same time, most lawless merchant skippers ventured forth in the off-season.

Realising that the mariner had in any lengthy voyage to contend not merely with bad weather but probably with pirates, the merchant pilots were instructed to know how to avoid them. For instance, their main object should be to make the merchant ship as little conspicuous on the horizon as possible. Thus, after getting clear of the land, the white sail should be lowered and a black one hoisted instead. They were warned that it was especially risky to change sail at break of day when the rising sun might make this action easily observable. A man was to be sent aloft to scan the sea, looking for these rovers and keep a good look out. That black sail was called the “wolf,” because it had the colour and cunning of such an animal. At night, too, similar precautions were employed against any danger of piratical attack, strict silence being absolutely enforced, so that the boatswain was not even allowed to use his whistle, nor the ship’s bell to be sounded. Every one knows how easily a sound carries on the sea, especially by night, so the utmost care was to be exercised lest a pirate hovering about might have the rich merchant ship’s presence betrayed to her avaricious ears.

But the Saracens, whose origin I have just mentioned, must not be confused with the Barbarian corsairs. It is with the latter—the grand pirates of the South—that I pass on now to deal. So powerful did they become that it took the efforts of the great maritime powers of Europe till the first quarter of the nineteenth century before they could exterminate this scourge: and even to-day, in this highly civilised century, if you were to be becalmed off the coast of North Africa in a sailing yacht, you would soon find some of the descendants of these Barbarian corsairs coming out with their historic tendency to kill you and pillage your ship. If this statement should seem to any reader somewhat incredible, I would refer him to the captain of any modern steamship who habitually passes that coast: and I would beg also to call to his attention the incident a few years ago that occurred to the famous English racing yacht Ailsa, which was lying becalmed somewhere between Spain and Africa. But for a lucky breeze springing up, her would-be assailants might have captured a very fine prize.

I shall use the word Moslem to mean Mussulman, or Mohammedan, or Moor, and I shall ask the reader to carry his mind back to the time when Ferdinand and Isabella turned the Moors out from Spain, and sent them across the straits of Gibraltar back to Africa. For seven hundred years these Moors had lived in the Iberian peninsula. It must be admitted in fairness that these Moors were exceedingly gifted intellectually, and there are ample evidences in Spain to this day of their accomplishments. On the other hand, it is perfectly easy to appreciate the desire of a Christian Government to banish these Mohammedans from a Catholic country. Equally comprehensible is the bitter hatred which these Moors for ever after manifested against all Christians of any nation, but against the Spanish more especially.

What were these Spanish Moors, now expatriated, to do? They spread themselves along the North African coast, but it was not immediately that they took to the sea; when, however, they did so accustom themselves it was not as traders but as pirates of the worst and most cruel kind. The date of their expulsion from Granada was 1492, and within a few years of this they had set to work to become avenged. The type of craft which they favoured was of the galley species, a vessel that was of great length, in proportion to her extreme shallowness, and was manned by a considerable number of oarsmen. Sail power was employed but only as auxiliary rather than of main reliance. Such a craft was light, easily and quickly manœuvred, could float in creeks and bays close in to the shore, or could be drawn up the beach if necessary. In all essential respects she was the direct lineal descendant of the old fighting galleys of Greece and Rome. From about the beginning of the sixteenth century till the battle of Lepanto in 1571 the Moslem corsair was at his best as a sea-rover and a powerful racial force. And if he was still a pest to shipping after that date, yet his activities were more of a desultory nature. Along the Barbarian coast at different dates he made himself strong, though of these strongholds Algiers remained for the longest time the most notorious.

In considering these Moslem corsairs one must think of men who were as brutal as they were clever, who became the greatest galley-tacticians which the world has ever seen. Their greed and lust for power and property were commensurate with their ability to obtain these. Let it not be supposed for one moment that during the grand period these Moorish pirate leaders were a mere ignorant and uncultured number of men. On the contrary, they possessed all the instincts of a clever diplomatist, united to the ability of a great admiral and an autocratic monarch. Dominating their very existence was their bitter hatred of Christians either individually or as nations. And though a careful distinction must be made between these Barbarian corsairs and the Turks, who were often confused in the sixteenth-century accounts of these rovers, yet from a very early stage the Moorish pirates and the Turks assisted each other. You have only to remember that they were both Moslems; to remind yourself that the downfall of Constantinople in 1453 gave an even keener incentive to harass Christians; and to recollect that though the Turks were great fighters by land yet they were not seamen. They had an almost illimitable quantity of men to draw upon, and for this as well as other reasons it was to the Moors’ interests that there should be a close association with them.

During the fifteenth and especially the sixteenth centuries there was in general European use a particular word which instantly suggested a certain character that would stink in the nostrils of any Christian, be he under the domination of Elizabeth or Charles V. This word was “renegade,” which, of course, is derived from the Latin nego, I deny. “Renegade,” or, as the Elizabethan sailors often used it, “renegado” signifies an apostate from the faith—a deserter or turncoat. But it was applied in those days almost exclusively to the Christian who had so far betrayed his religion as to become a Moslem. In the fifteenth century a certain Balkan renegade was exiled from Constantinople by the Grand Turk. From there he proceeded to the south-west, took up his habitation in the island of Lesbos in the Ægean Sea, married a Christian widow and became the father of two sons, named respectively Uruj and Kheyr-ed-din. The renegade, being a seaman, it was but natural that the two sons should be brought up to the same avocation.

Having regard to the ancestry of these two men, and bearing in mind that Lesbos had long been notorious for its piratical inhabitants, the reader will in no wise be surprised to learn that these two sons resolved to become pirates too. They were presently to reach a state of notoriety which time can never expunge from the pages of historical criminals. For the present let us devote our attention to the elder brother, Uruj. We have little space to deal with the events of his full life, but this brief sketch may suffice. The connection of these two brothers with the banished Moors is that of organisers and leaders of a potential force of pirates. Uruj, having heard of the successes which the Moorish galleys were now attaining, of the wonderful prizes which they had carried off from the face of the sea, felt the impulse of ambition and responded to the call of the wild. So we come to the year 1504, and we find him in the Mediterranean longing for a suitable base whence he could operate; where, too, he could haul his galleys ashore during the winter and refit.

A Daring Attack

Uruj with his one craft attacked the two galleys of Pope Julius II laden with goods from Genoa. His officers remonstrated with Uruj on the desperate venture, but to enforce his commands and prevent any chance of flight he had the oars thrown overboard. He then attacked and overcame the galleys.

For a time Tunis seemed to be the most alluring spot in every way: and strategically it was ideal for the purpose of rushing out and intercepting the traffic passing between Italy and Africa. He came to terms with the Sultan of Tunis, and, in return for one-fifth of the booty obtained, Uruj was permitted to use this as his headquarters, and from here he began with great success to capture Italian galleys, bringing back to Tunis both booty and aristocratic prisoners for perpetual exile. The women were cast into the Sultan’s harem, the men were chained to the benches of the galleys.

One incident alone would well illustrate the daring of Uruj, who had now been joined by his brother. The story is told by Mr. Stanley Lane Poole in his history of the Barbarian corsairs, that one day, when off Elba, two galleys belonging to Pope Julius II. were coming along laden with goods from Genoa for Civita Vecchia. The disparity and the daring may be realised when we state that each of these galleys was twice the size of Uruj’s craft. The Papal galleys had become separated, and this made matters easier for the corsair. In spite of the difference in size, he was determined to attack. His Turkish crew, however, remonstrated and thought it madness, but Uruj answered this protestation by hurling most of the oars overboard, thus making escape impossible: they had to fight or die.

This was the first time that Turkish corsairs had been seen off Elba, and as the Papal galley came on and saw the turbaned heads, a spirit of consternation spread throughout the ship. The corsair galley came alongside, there was a volley of firing, the Turkish men leapt aboard, and before long the ship and the Christians were captured. The Christians were sent below, and the Papal ship was now manned by Turks who disguised themselves in the Christians’ clothes. And now they were off to pursue the second galley. As they came up to her the latter had no suspicion, but a shower of arrows and shot, followed by another short, sharp attack, made her also a captive. Into Tunis came the ships, and the capture amazed both Barbarian corsair and the whole of Christendom alike. The fame of Uruj spread, and along the whole coast of North Africa he was regarded with a wonder mingled with the utmost admiration. He became known by the name Barbarossa, owing to his own physical appearance, the Italian word rossa signifying red, and barba meaning a beard. He followed up this success by capturing next year a Spanish ship with 500 soldiers. And there were other successes, so that in five years he had eight vessels. But Tunis now became too small for him, so for a time he moved to the island of Jerba, on the east coast of Tunis, and from there he again harassed Italy.

Such was the fame of Barbarossa that he was invited to help the Moors. It chanced that the Moslem king of Bujeya had been driven out of his city by the Spaniards, and the exile appealed to Barbarossa to assist him in regaining his own. The reward offered to the Turk was that, in the event of victory, Barbarossa should henceforth be allowed the free use of Bujeya, the strategic advantage of this port being that it commanded the Spanish sea. The Turk accepted the invitation on these terms, and having now a dozen galleys, with ample armament, in addition to 1000 Turkish soldiers, as well as a number of renegades and Moors, he landed before the town in August of 1512. Here he found the King ready with his 3000 troops, and they proceeded to storm the bastion, in which an all too weak Spanish garrison had been left. Still, for eight days the Spaniards held out, and then when a breach was made and a fierce assault was being carried out, Barbarossa had the misfortune to have his left arm amputated, so, Bujeya being now left alone, Barbarossa and his brother put to sea again. They had not won the victory, but they had captured a rich Genoese galley full of merchandise. Barbarossa took her back with him to his headquarters, and while he recovered from his wounds his brother Kheyr-ed-din acted in his stead.

Not unnaturally the Genoese were angered at the loss of their fine galliot and sent forth Andrea Doria, the greatest Christian admiral, with a dozen galleys to punish the Turks. The Christians landed before Tunis, drove Kheyr-ed-din back into Tunis, and took away to Genoa one-half of Barbarossa’s ships. Kheyr-ed-din now proceeded to Jerba to build other ships as fast as possible, and as soon as his wounds allowed him, Barbarossa here joined him. Meanwhile the Moors were still chafing at their inability to get even with the Spaniards, and once more an attempt was made to take Bujeya, though unsuccessfully, and the corsair’s ships were burnt lest they might fall into the hands of the enemy.

At length the Barbarossas resolved to quit Tunis and Jerba, for they had now chosen to settle at Jijil, sixty miles to the east of Bujeya. Their fame had come before them; the inhabitants were proud to welcome the brother corsairs who had done many wonderful things by land and sea, and before long the elder Barbarossa was chosen as their Sultan. In 1516 died Ferdinand, and about this time the Algerine Moors declined any longer to pay tribute to Spain. To Barbarossa came an invitation to aid these inhabitants of Algiers in driving the Spanish garrison from their fort. The invitation was accepted, 6000 men and sixteen galliots were got together. Arrived before the fortress of Algiers, Barbarossa offered a safe conduct to the garrison if they would surrender, but the latter’s reply was merely to remind the corsair of Bujeya. Then for twenty days Barbarossa battered away at the fortress, but without making a breach, and meanwhile the Moors began to regret that they had asked the red beard to aid them. But it would be less easy to turn them out now that once these dare-devils had set foot on their territory. Barbarossa knew this and waxed insolent. The Algerines made common cause with the soldiers in the fortress, and a general rising against the red beard was planned. But they had reckoned without their guest. For Barbarossa had spies at work and became informed of this plot.

Whilst at prayers one Friday in the mosque, Barbarossa had the gates closed, the conspirators brought before him one by one, and then after twenty-two of them had been put to death there was an end to this plotting against the corsair of Lesbos. Barbarossa increased in power, in the number of his galleys, in the extent of his territory and in the number of his subjects, so that by now he had become Sultan of Middle Barbary. Practically the whole of that territory marked on our modern maps of Algeria was under his sway. Step by step, leaping from one success to another, ignoring his occasional reverses, he had risen from a mere common pirate to the rank of a powerful Sultan. So potent had he become, in fact, that he was able to make treaties with other Barbarian Sultans, and all the summer season his galleys were scouring the seas bringing back increased wealth and more unfortunate Christian prisoners. Richly laden merchant ships from Genoa, from Naples, from Venice, from Spain set forth from home, and neither the ships nor their contents were ever permitted to return or to reach their ports of destination.

However, the time came when the Christian States could no longer endure this terrible condition of affairs. And Charles V. was moved to send a strong force to deal with the evil. Ten thousand seasoned troops were sent in a large fleet of galleys to Northern Africa, and at last the wasp was killed. For Barbarossa, with his 1500 men, was defeated, and he himself was slain while fighting boldly. Unfortunately the matter ended there, and the troops, instead of pressing home their victory and wiping the Barbarian coast clean of this Moorish dirt, left Algiers severely alone and returned to their homes. Had they, instead, ruthlessly sought out this lawless piratical brood, the troublesome scourge of the next three centuries would probably never have caused so many European ships and so many English and foreign sailors and others to end their days under the lash of tyrannical monsters.

CHAPTER V
THE WASPS AT WORK

But if Barbarossa was dead, his sagacious brother Kheyr-ed-din was ready to take up his work, and he proceeded on more scientific principles. He began by sending an ambassador to Constantinople, and begged protection for the province of Algiers. This, having been granted, he was appointed officially, in 1519, Governor of Algiers. His next step was to reinforce his garrisons at different parts of the coast and so secure his territory from attacks by sea. And in order to make for safety on the southern or landward side, he entered into alliances with the leading Arabian tribes up-country.

He was thus about as secure as it was possible for human diplomacy and organisation to achieve. His ships could still go on their piratical cruises and return with little enough risk. In vain did the Spaniards send an Armada against him. The men indeed landed, but they were driven back, and a storm springing up did the rest. Gradually more and more seaports fell into the net of this corsair, so there were plenty of harbours to run for, plenty of safe shelters whither to bring the valuable prizes. It was not merely the middle or the eastern end of the Mediterranean which was now harassed, but the west end. Those were the days, you will remember, when Spain was developing the rich resources of the New World, so there was a great opportunity for the Barbarian pirates to go out some little distance into the Atlantic and capture the West Indiamen homeward bound for Cadiz with gold and other treasures. And in addition to these prizes, no less than the merchantmen of Italy, Kheyr-ed-din occasionally made raids on the Spanish coast or even carried off slaves from the Balearic Islands. From end to end these Algerine corsairs were thus masters of the Mediterranean. No commercial ship could pass on her voyages in any safety—even Spanish flagships found themselves being brought captive into Algiers.

True, the small Spanish garrison still remained in Algiers, and because it was immured within a very strong fortress it held out. The time now came for this to be attacked with great vigour. For a period of fifteen days it was bombarded, and at length, after a most stubborn resistance, it was overcome. The stronghold was then pulled down, and Christian prisoners who in the summer season had rowed chained to their seats in the corsair galleys, were in the off-season employed to build with these stones the great mole to protect the harbour of Algiers from the western side. It was a stupendous undertaking, and seven thousand of these unhappy creatures accomplished the work in most of two years.

Nothing succeeds like success, and the corsair prospered in power and possession to such an extent that he was pre-eminent. This naturally attracted to his dominion many thousands of other followers, and there was thus established not a mere small colony of pirates, but a grand corsair kingdom where the industry of sea-robbery was well organised with its foundries and dockyards, and with every assistance to agriculture, and a firm, hard government to keep the land in fit and proper cultivation.

And now yet another invitation came to Kheyr-ed-din. Andrea Doria had defeated the Turks at Patras and in the Dardanelles. Like the policy of the corsairs, after each victory the Christian admiral employed the infidel captives to work at the oars of his galleys. Thus it was that the Sultan of Turkey—Solyman the Magnificent—realising that the Christian admiral was draining the best Turkish seafaring men, determined to invite Kheyr-ed-din to help him against Andrea Doria. So one of the Sultan’s personal guard was dispatched to Algiers requesting Barbarossa to come to Constantinople and place himself at the head of the Ottoman navy. Barbarossa accepted this as he had accepted other invitations, seeing that it was to his own interest, and in August 1533 left Algiers with seven galleys and eleven other craft. On the way he was joined by sixteen more craft belonging to a pirate named Delizuff, but before they had got to the end of the voyage Delizuff was killed in an attack on a small island named Biba. There followed some friction between the men of the deceased pirate and those of Barbarossa, and finally one dark night the ships of Delizuff stole away from Barbarossa’s fleet.

Eventually this Sultan of Algiers, with his ships, arrived at Constantinople. The case stood thus. The Ottoman subject was an excellent man to fight battles by land, but not by sea. Barbarossa was a true fighting seaman: therefore let him do for us that which we ourselves cannot do. He was only three years short of becoming an octogenarian, yet this veteran corsair was as able as he was wicked, and so, after the Ottoman dockyards in the following year had provided him with additional ships, Barbarossa set forth from Constantinople and began by sacking Reggio, burning Christian ships and carrying off their crews. Thence he laid waste the coast until he came to Naples, and altogether made 11,000 Christians prisoners, and returned to the Bosphorus with an abundance of spoil and slaves. Sardinia, too, was depleted of wealth and humanity till it was almost bereft of both, and at last the fleet arrived before Tunis, to the amazement of the inhabitants. To condense a long story it may be said at once that, after some fighting, Tunis found itself now in submission to him who was also Sultan of Algiers and commander-in-chief of the Ottoman fleet. But trouble was brewing.

Again Christendom was moved to action. The successes of this all-conquering King of Corsairs were endangering the world, so the great Charles V. set on foot most elaborate preparations to cope with the evil. The preparations were indeed slow, but they were sure and they were extensive. But there was just one disappointing fact. When Francis the First, King of France, was invited to take his share in this great Christian expedition it is as true as it is regrettable to have to record the fact, that not only did he decline, but he actually betrayed the news of these impending activities to Barbarossa. This news was not welcome even to such a hardened old pirate, but he set to work in order to be ready for the foe, employed the Christian prisoners in repairing the fortifications of Tunis, summoned help to his standard from all sides, all united in the one desire to defeat and crush utterly any Christian force that might be sent against the followers of Mahomet. Spies kept him informed of the latest developments, and from Algiers came all the men that could possibly be spared. And finally, when all preparations had been made, there was on the one side the mightiest Christian expedition about to meet the greatest aggregation of Moslems. By the middle of June the invaders reached the African coast and found themselves before Tunis. It was to be a contest of Christian forces against infidels: it was to represent an attempt once and for all to settle with the greatest pirate even the Mediterranean had ever witnessed. It was, if possible, to set free the hordes of brother-Christians from the tyrannous cruelty of a despotic corsair. Of those who now came over the sea, many had lost wife, or sister, or father, or son, or brother at the hands of these heathens. For once, at last, this great Christian Armada had the sea to itself: the wasps had retreated into their nest.

So the attack began simultaneously from the land and from the sea. The men on shore and those in the galleys realised they were battling in no ordinary contest but in a veritable crusade. Twenty-five thousand infantry and six hundred lancers, with their horses, had been brought across the sea in sixty-two galleys, a hundred and fifty transports, as well as a large number of other craft.[1] The Moslems had received assistance from along the African coast and from the inland tribes. Twenty thousand horsemen, as well as a large quantity of infantry, were ready to meet the Christians. The Emperor Charles V. was himself present, and Andrea Doria, the greatest Christian admiral, was there opposed to the greatest admiral of the Moslems.

Needless to say the fight was fierce, but at last the Christians were able to make a breach in the walls not once but in several places, and the fortress had to be vacated. Tunis was destined to fall into Christian hands. Barbarossa realised this now full well. What hurt him most was that he was beaten at his own game: his own beloved galleys were to fall into the enemies’ hands. Presently the corsairs were routed utterly, and Barbarossa with only about three thousand of his followers escaped by land. Now inside Tunis were no fewer than 20,000 Christian prisoners. These now succeeded in freeing themselves of their fetters, opened the gates to the victorious army, and the latter, unable to be controlled, massacred the people they had been sent against right and left. The 20,000 Christians were rescued, the victory had been won, the corsair had been put to flight, and Muley Hassan, a mere puppet, was restored to his kingdom of Tunis by Charles V. on conditions, amongst which it was stipulated that Muley Hassan should liberate all Christian captives who might be in his realm, give them a free passage to their homes, and no corsair should be allowed again to use his ports for any purpose whatsoever.

This was the biggest blow which Barbarossa had ever received. But brute though he was, cruel tyrant that he had shown himself, enemy of the human race though he undoubtedly must be reckoned, yet his was a great mind, his was a spirit which was only impelled and not depressed by disasters. At the end of a pitiful flight, he arrived farther along the African coast at the port of Bona, where there remained just fifteen galleys which he had kept in reserve. All else that was his had gone—ships, arsenal, men. But the sea being his natural element, and piracy his natural profession, he began at once to embark. But just then there arrived fifteen of the Christian galleys, so Barbarossa, not caring for conflict, drew up his galleys under the fort of Bona, and the enemy deemed it prudent to let the corsair alone, and withdrew. Soon after Barbarossa put to sea and disappeared, when Andrea Doria with forty galleys arrived on the scene too late.

Just as on an earlier occasion already narrated, the Christian expedition made the mistake of not pressing home their victory and so settling matters with the pirates for good and all. Algiers had been drained so thoroughly of men that it was really too weak to resist an attack. But no; the Christians left that alone, although they took Bona. About the middle of August Charles re-embarked his men and, satisfied with the thrashing he had given these pirates, returned home. But Barbarossa proceeded to Algiers, where he got together a number of galleys and waited till his former followers—or as many as had survived battle and the African desert—returned to him. If Moslem piracy had been severely crushed, it was not unable to revive, and, before long, Barbarossa with his veterans was afloat again, looting ships at sea, and carrying off more prisoners to Algiers. For this piracy was like a highly infectious disease. You might think for a time that it was stamped out, that the world had been cleansed of it, but in a short time it would be manifest that the evil was as prevalent as ever.

Once more he was summoned to visit Soliman the Magnificent; once more the arch-corsair sped to Constantinople to receive instructions to deal with the conquering Christians. Andrea Doria was at sea, burning Turkish ships, and only this Sultan of Algiers could deal with him. So away Barbarossa went in his customary fashion, raiding the Adriatic towns, sweeping the islands of the Archipelago, and soon he returned to Constantinople with 18,000 slaves, to say nothing of material prizes. Money was obtained as easily as human lives, and the world marvelled that this corsair admiral, this scourge of the sea, this enemy of the Christian race, should, after a crushing defeat, be able to go about his dastardly work, terrifying towns and ships as though the expedition of Charles V. had never been sent forth.

But matters were again working up to a crisis. If the corsair admiral was still afloat, so was Andrea Doria, the great Christian admiral. At the extreme south-west corner of the Epirus, on the Balkan side of the Adriatic, and almost opposite the heel of Italy, lies Prevesa. Hither in 1569 came the fleets of the Cross and the Crescent respectively. The Christian ships had been gathered together at the Island of Corfu, which is thirty or forty miles to the north-west of Prevesa. Barbarossa came, assisted by all the great pirate captains of the day, and among them must be mentioned Dragut, about whom we shall have more to say later.

But Prevesa, from a spectacular standpoint, was disappointing. It was too scientific, too clearly marked by strategy and too little distinguished by fighting. If the reader has ever been present at any athletic contest where there has been more skill than sport, he will know just what I mean. It is the spirit of the crowd at a cricket match when the batsman is all on the defensive and no runs are being scored. It is manifested in the spectators’ indignation at a boxing match when neither party gets in a good blow, when there is an excess of science, when both contestants, fairly matched and perhaps overtrained and nervous of the other’s prowess, hesitate to go in for hard-hitting, so that in the end the match ends in a draw.

It was exactly on this wise at Prevesa. Andrea Doria and Barbarossa were the two great champions of the ring. Neither was young; both had been trained by years of long fighting. They were as fairly matched as it was possible to find a couple of great admirals. Each realised the other’s value; both knew that for spectators they had the whole of Europe—both Christian and Moslem. Victory to the one would mean downfall to the other, and unless a lucky escape intervened, one of the two great admirals would spend the rest of his life rowing his heart out as a galley-slave. Certainly it was enough to make the boxers nervous and hesitating. They were a long time getting to blows, and there was but little actually accomplished. There was an unlucky calm on the sea, and the Galleon of Venice was the centre of the fighting which took place. It was the splendid discipline on board this big craft, it was the excellence of her commander and the unique character of her great guns which made such an impression on Barbarossa’s fleet that although the Galleon was severely damaged, yet at the critical time when the corsairs might have rushed on board and stormed her as night was approaching, for once in his life the great nerve of the corsair king deserted him. No one was more surprised than the Venetians when they found the pirate not pressing home his attack. True, the latter had captured a few of the Christian ships, but these were a mere handful and out of all proportion to the importance of the battle. He had been sent forth to crush Andrea Doria and the Christian fleet; he had failed so to do.

Next day, with a fair wind, Andrea Doria made away. The honour of the battle belonged to the Galleon of Venice, but for Barbarossa it was a triumph because, with an inferior force, he had put the Christian admiral to flight. Doria’s ship had not been so much as touched, and yet Barbarossa had not been taken prisoner. That was the last great event in the career of Kheyr-ed-din, and he died in 1548 at Constantinople as one of the wickedest and cruellest murderers of history, the greatest pirate that has ever lived, and one of the cleverest tacticians and strategists the Mediterranean ever bore on its waters. There has rarely lived a human being so bereft of the quality of mercy, and his death was received by Christian Europe with a sigh of the greatest relief.

In the whole history of piracy there figure some remarkably clever and consummate seamen. Like many another criminal they had such tremendous natural endowments that one cannot but regret that they began badly and continued. The bitterest critic of this Moslem monster cannot but admire his abnormal courage, resource; his powers of organisation and his untameable determination. The pity of it all is that all this should have been wasted in bringing misery to tens of thousands, in dealing death and robbery and pillage.

CHAPTER VI
GALLEYS AND GALLANTRY

But there was a third great Barbarian corsair to complete this terrible trio. Uruj and Kheyr-ed-din we have known. There is yet to be mentioned Dragut, who succeeded to the latter. He too was a Moslem who had been born in a coast village of Asia Minor, opposite the island of Rhodes. His early life is that of most pirates. He went to sea when quite young, was devoted to his profession, was filled with ambition, became an expert pilot and later became a skipper of his own craft. Then, feeling the call of the wild, he devoted himself to piracy and rose to notoriety.

But the turning-point in his career came when he joined himself to the service of Kheyr-ed-din, who appointed Dragut to the entire command of a dozen of the corsair king’s galleys. Henceforward his life was that of his master, ravaging the Italian coasts, pillaging Mediterranean ships and dragging thousands of lives away into slavery. Two years after the battle of Prevesa, Dragut was in fame second only to Kheyr-ed-din, and another Doria—the nephew of Andrea—was sent forth to capture this new wasp of the sea. Doria succeeded in throwing his net so well that off the Corsican coast he was able to bring back Dragut as prisoner, and for the next four years the ex-corsair was condemned to row as a slave in a Christian galley, until on a day his late master Kheyr-ed-din came sailing into Genoa. During his active, pillaging life he had obtained plenty of riches, so it was nothing for him to pay 3000 ducats and thus redeem from slavery a man who had been particularly useful to his own schemes.

And from this day until Dragut fell fighting in 1565, he followed in the footsteps of the man who brought him his release. When Kheyr-ed-din died, the Turkish Sultan appointed Dragut as admiral of the Ottoman fleet. Like Barbarossa, Dragut’s first object was to obtain a base in Northern Africa, and eventually he was able to capture the town of “Africa” or Mehedia, to the east of Tunis. His next proceeding was to fortify this place. The news came to the ears of Charles V. that this had happened. The two Barbarossas were dead, but there was another almost as pernicious. Was this pestilence of piracy never to cease? Andrea Doria was an old man now, but he was bidden by Charles to go after Dragut, and he went. Nor was he sorry for an opportunity of wiping out his own undistinguished action at Prevesa. Dragut was away harrying the coasts of Spain, and his nephew Aisa was left in charge of “Africa.” Meanwhile Doria searched for him along the African coast, came to “Africa,” but after losing some men and with great damage to his own ship, Doria, as the season was getting late, returned home.

But the following June, Doria with his fleet arrived off Mehedia, besieged the city, and, after an expenditure of great effort, took it, capturing Aisa.

Mehedia was lost, but Dragut was still at large. He repaired to Constantinople and thence to Jerbah, the island off the east coast of Tunis. Hither also came Andrea Doria and hemmed the corsair in. At last the pirate was in a trap, but like many another clever rascal he found a way out with consummate cleverness. What he did may briefly be summed up as follows: Outside were the waiting Christian fleet, which was merely amused by the sight of a new fort becoming daily greater. But these earthworks were just so much bluff. For Dragut, by means of these, was able to conceal what was being done on the other side. With marvellous ingenuity he had caused a road to be made across the island to the sea on the other side; he had laid down a surface of well-greased planks, and under the further cover of darkness had made his men drag his galleys across till they were launched into the sea on the opposite coast. The rest was easy, and the corsair fleet once more escaped, having fooled Dorea in a manner that amazed him. To add impudence to insult, Dragut at once captured a Sicilian galley on its way to Dorea, containing Muley Hassan, Sultan of Tunis. The latter was promptly sent as a present to the Sultan of Turkey, who allowed him to end his days in prison.

Of the rest of the acts of this corsair we have but little space to speak. It is sufficient if we say that he well bore the mantle which had fallen to him from the shoulders of Barbarossa. He continued his scourging of the seas, he fought gallantly, he laid waste and he captured prisoners for slavery. Power and dominion came to him as to his predecessors, and before long he was the ruler of Tripoli and more than ever the enemy of the Christian race. Finally he died at the siege of Malta, but he in turn was succeeded by Ali Basha of Algiers, who conquered the kingdom of Tunis, captured Maltese galleys, and showed that the old corsair spirit was still alive.

But the day of reckoning was at hand, and there was to be settled in one of the most momentous events of history a debt that had long been owing to the Christians. Of all the decisive battles of the world few stand out more conspicuously than the battle of Lepanto. In spite of all the great maritime expeditions which had been sent to put down piracy in the Mediterranean, the evil had recurred again and again. There were two reasons why Christian Europe was determined to beat these corsairs: firstly, the latter were natural enemies because they were Moslems; but, secondly, they were the worst type of pirates. All the losses of Christian lives, goods and ships merely increased the natural hatred of these Mohammedans. And in Lepanto we see the last great contest in which these truculent corsairs fought as a mighty force. Thereafter there were repeated piratical attacks by these men, but they of a more individualistic nature than proceeding from an enormous organisation.

Lepanto was fought sixteen years before the Elizabethans defeated the Armada. Before we say anything of the contest itself it is necessary to remind the reader that whereas in the contest which took place in the waters that wash England, the bulk of the ships were sail-propelled and had high freeboard (with some exceptions), yet at Lepanto it was the reverse. The fighting ship of the Mediterranean from the very earliest times had always been of the galley type, even though it contained variations of species. And never was this characteristic more clearly manifested than at the battle of which we are now to speak. There were galleys and galleasses, but though the former were certainly somewhat big craft, yet the latter were practically only big editions of the galley.

The value of Lepanto is twofold. It proved to the world that the great Ottoman Empire was not invincible on sea. It showed also that in spite of all that the cleverest corsair seamen could do, there were sufficient unity and seamanlike ability in Christian Europe to defeat the combined efforts of organised piracy and Mohammedanism. No one can deny that Ali Basha distinguished himself as a fine admiral at this battle, yet he was not on the side of victory. When he found himself defeated there fell simultaneously the greatest blow which organised piracy had received since it established itself along the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Lepanto was no mere isolated event; it was the logical outcome of the conflict between Christianity on the one hand and Mohammedanism with piracy on the other. It is as unfair to omit the consideration of Moslemism from the cause of this battle as it were to leave out the fact of piracy.

The solidarity of the Christian expedition was formed by what was called the Holy League, embracing the ships of the Papal States, Spain and Venice. The unity of the opposing side was ensured by the fidelity of the Barbarian corsairs to the Sultan of Turkey. In supreme command of the former was Don John of Austria, son of that Charles V. who had done so much to oust these corsair wasps. The Christian fleet numbered about three hundred, of which two-thirds were galleys, and they collected at Messina. The scene where the battle was to take place was already historic. It was practically identical with that of Prevesa, of which we have already spoken, and with that of the classical Actium in 31 B.C., though exactly it was a little to the south of where Prevesa had been fought. Just as in the latter Kheyr-ed-din had fought against Andrea Doria, so now Dragut was to fight against John Andrea Doria. The Moslem strength may be gauged from the statement that it contained 250 galleys plus a number of smaller ships. But just as Prevesa had been marked by little fighting but much manœuvring, so Lepanto was distinguished by an absence of strategy and a prevalence of desperate, hard hitting. Whatever strategy was displayed belonged to Ali Basha. The galleasses of the Christian side dealt wholesale death into the Moslems, though Andrea’s own flagship suffered severely in the fight. Spanish, Venetian and Maltese galleys fought most gallantly, but Ali Basha, after capturing the chief of the Maltese craft, was obliged to relinquish towing her, and himself compelled to escape from the battle. At least 5000 Christians perished at Lepanto, but six times that amount were slaughtered of the Moslems, together with 200 of the latter’s ships. The corsairs had rendered the finest assistance, but they had failed with distinction.

Christian craft had won the great day, and never since that autumn day in 1571 have the pirates of Barbary attained to their previous dominion and organised power. Ali returned to Constantinople, and even the next year was again anxious to fight his late enemies, though no actual fighting took place. Still another year later Tunis was taken from the Turks by Don John of Austria. For nine years after the event of Lepanto, Ali Basha lived on, and, like his predecessors, spent much of his time harrying the Christian coastline of southern Italy. There were many pirates for long years after his death, but with the decease of Ali Basha closed the grand period of the Moslem corsairs. It had been a century marked by the most amazing impudence on the part of self-made kings and tyrants. But if it showed nothing else, it made perfectly clear what enormous possibilities the sea offered to any man who had enough daring and self-confidence in addition to that essential quality of sea-sense. From mere common sailormen these four great corsairs—the two Barbarossas, Dragut and Ali Basha—rose to the position of autocrats and admirals. Mere robbers and bandits though they were, yet the very mention of their names sent a shudder through Christendom. And it was only the repeated and supreme efforts of the great European powers which could reduce these pirate kings into such a condition that honest ships could pursue their voyages with any hope of reaching their destined ports. Surely, in the whole history of lawlessness, there never were malefactors that prospered for so long and to such an extent!

We have spoken in this chapter of galleys and galleasses. Before we close, let us add a few words of explanation to facilitate the reader’s vision. Bearing in mind the interesting survival of the galley type throughout Mediterranean warfare, it must not be forgotten that in detail this type of craft varied in subsequent centuries. There remained, however, the prevailing fact that she relied primarily on oars, and that she drew comparatively little water and had but little freeboard in proportion to the caravels, caracks and ocean-going ships of war and commerce. The great virtue of the galley consisted in her mobility. Her greatest defect lay in her lack of sea-keeping qualities. For the galley’s work was concerned with operations within a limited sphere with the land not far away; in other words, she was suited for conditions the exact opposite of that kind of craft which could sail to the West Indies or go round Cape Horn.

Galley Slaves

The life of a galley slave was one of dreadful hardship. They were chained five or six to an oar, fed on the scantiest of food, and a boatswain walked up and down a gangway in the centre wielding his terrible lash on those who incurred his anger.

The amazing feature of these galleys was the large number of oarsmen required; but this was an age when human life was regarded more cheaply than to-day. Slaves could be had by raiding towns or capturing ships. The work of pulling at the oar was healthy if terribly hard. A minimum of food and the stern lash of the boatswain as he walked up and down the gangway that ran fore-and-aft down the centre of the ship kept the men at their duty, and their shackles prevented them from deserting. But when their poor, wearied bodies became weak, they were thrown overboard before their last breath had left them. The prints, which are still in existence, show that the number of oarsmen in a sixteenth-century galley ran into hundreds—two or three hundred of these galley-slaves would be no rare occurrence in one craft. They retained the beak and the arrangement of the yards from the time of the Romans. At the stern sat the commander with his officers. When these craft carried cannon the armament was placed in the bows. By the sixteenth, or at any rate the seventeenth, century, the galley had reached her climax, and it was not thought remarkable that her length should be about 170 feet and her breadth only about 20 feet. She may be easily studied by the reader on referring to an accompanying illustration. Whether used by Christian or corsair, by Maltese knights or Moslem Turks, they were not very different from the picture which is here presented. With five men to each heavy oar, with seamen to handle the sails when employed, with soldiers to fight the ship, she was practically a curious kind of raft or floating platform. Irrespective of religion or race, it was customary for the sixteenth-century nations to condemn their prisoners to row chained to these benches. Thus, for example, when the Spaniards captured Elizabethan seamen, the latter were thus employed, just as Venetian prisoners were made to row in Moslem galleys. Convicted criminals were also punished by this means.

The difference between the old and new was never better seen than in the late sixteenth century, when the big-bellied man-of-war with sails and guns were beginning to discard the old boarding tactics. It was the gun and not the sword on which they were now relying. But the galley was dependent less on her gunnery than on boarding. It was her aim to fight not at a distance but at close quarters—to get right close alongside and then pour her soldiers on to the other ship and obtain possession. The galeass of the Mediterranean, although the word was somewhat largely used, signified an attempt to combine the sea-qualities of the big-bellied ship with the mobility of the galley. Compromises are, however, but rarely successful, and though the galleass was a much more potent fighting unit, yet she was less mobile, if a better sea craft. She began by being practically a big galley with forecastle and sterncastle and another deck; she ended in being little less clumsy than the contemporary ship of the line which relied on sails and guns. Anyone who cares to examine the contemporary pictures of the Spanish galleasses used by the Armada against England in the reign of Elizabeth can see this for himself. It is true that even as far north as Amsterdam in the seventeenth century the galley was employed, and there are many instances when she fought English ships in the Channel, off Portsmouth and elsewhere. For a time some lingered on in the British Navy, but they were totally unsuited for the waters of the North Sea and English Channel, and gave way to the sail-propelled ships of larger displacement.

CHAPTER VII
PIRACY IN ELIZABETHAN TIMES

But although the Mediterranean was the sphere of the Barbarian corsairs, yet this sea lawlessness was not confided to that area. The Narrow Seas were just about as bad as they had been in the Middle Ages. And Elizabeth, with the determination for which she was famous, took the matter in hand.

As early as the year 1564 she commanded Sir Peter Carew to fit out an expedition to clear the seas of any pirates and rovers that haunted the coasts of Devonshire and Cornwall; yet it was an almost impossible task. For the men of these parts especially had gotten the sea-fever. Fishing was less profitable than it might be, but to capture ships instead of fish was a very paying industry and had just that amount of adventure which appealed to the Elizabethans. And bear in mind that, as in the case of the later smugglers, these men had at their backs for financial support the rich land-owners, who found the investment tempting.

It was because the colonies in the New World were yielding such wondrous treasure that the English pirates found the Spanish ships so well worth waiting for and pillaging. Again and again did Philip make demands to Elizabeth that this nuisance should be stopped, insisting that in no case should a convicted English pirate be pardoned. He requested that Her Majesty’s officers in the west of England ports should cease from allowing these marauders to take stores aboard or even frequent these harbours. Rewards, he begged, should even be offered for their capture, and all persons on shore who aided these miscreants should be punished severely.

It was because of Philip’s complaint, no less than of the complaint of her own merchants, that the Queen was compelled to adopt severe measures. She despatched more ships to police the seas, but with what advantage? Up came a ship bound from Flanders to Spain with a cargo of tapestry, clocks and various other articles for Philip. The English pirates could not let such a prize go past, so they stopped the ship and plundered her. The Queen’s next effort was to cause strict inquiries to be made along the coast in order to discover the haunts of these Northern corsairs. Harbour commissioners were appointed, says Lindsay, to inquire and report on all vessels leaving or entering port, and all landed proprietors who had encouraged the pirates were threatened with penalties. But it was an impossible task, as I will explain. First of all, consider the fact that after centuries of this free sea-roving, no government, no amount of threats, could possibly transform the character of the English seaman. If, for instance, to-morrow, Parliament were to make it law forbidding the North Sea fishermen to proceed in their industry, nothing but shells from men-of-war would prevent the men putting to sea. Years of occupation would be too strong to resist.

So it was with the seamen in the Elizabethan age. It began by that hatred of their French neighbours; it was encouraged by the privileges which the Cinque Ports enjoyed, though it was in the blood of the English seamen quite apart from any royal permission. But there was in the time of Elizabeth still a further difficulty. Those privateers whom the law had permitted to go forth sea-roving had become too strong to be suppressed. Privateering strictly consists of a private ship or ships having a commission to seize or plunder the ships of an enemy; in effect it amounts to legalised piracy, and any one can realise that in a none too law-abiding age, such as the sixteenth century, the dividing line between piracy and privateering was so very fine that it was almost impossible to say which pillaging was legal and which was unjustifiable. That alone was sufficient reason for the frequent releases of alleged pirates at this time.

True, the Crown allowed privateering, though the commissions were limited only to the attacks on our acknowledged enemies, yet it was futile to expect that these rude Devonshire seamen would have any respect to legal finesse. To control these men adequately was too much to expect. French and Spanish and Flemish merchantmen, regardless of nationality, were alike liable to fall into the English pirates’ hands. Some of the backers were making quite a handsome income, and who shall say that some of those fine Elizabethan mansions in our country were not built out of such illegal proceeds? The Mayor of Dover, for instance, with some of the leading inhabitants of that port, had captured over 600 prizes from the French, to say nothing of the number of neutrals which he had pillaged. This was in the year 1563, and already he had plundered sixty-one Spanish ships. And there was the valuable trade passing to and from Antwerp and London, which was a steady source of revenue for the pirates of this time. You cannot be surprised, then, at that important incident in 1564, that did so much to enrage the English seamen and help matters forward to the climax in the form of the Spanish Armada; for what happened? Philip, seeing how little Elizabeth was doing to put down this series of attacks on his treasure ships, had, in the year mentioned, suddenly issued an order arresting every English ship and all the English crews that happened to be found within his own harbours. It was a drastic measure, but we can quite understand the impetuous and furious Spaniard acting on this wise.

During Elizabeth’s reign there were of course some pirates who had the bad fortune to be arrested. One little batch suspected included a Captain Heidon, Richard Deigle and a man named Corbet. Included in the same gang were Robert Hitchins, Philip Readhead, Roger Shaster and others. The first three mentioned succeeded in fleeing away beyond capture, but the remainder admitted their guilt. Hitchins was a man about fifty years old and a native of Devonshire, but both he and his companions protested that they had been deceived by Heidon and Deigle; they had undertaken a voyage to Rochelle presumably in a merchant ship, whereas the trip turned out to be nothing else than a piratical expedition.

Their version of the incident was that in June 1564 they captured a Flemish ship, and to her were transferred thirteen Scots who were forming part of this supposedly merchant ship. The Flemish ship with the Scots on board now sailed away, as there was some disagreement with the rest of the party. They proceeded to Ireland, where their skipper joined them, and they also committed robberies on the coast of Spain. Having captured a ship with a cargo of wine they proceeded to that extreme south-west corner of Ireland which, even in this twentieth century, is still a wild, lonely spot and rarely visited by any craft excepting the British Navy, an occasional cable-laying ship and sometimes a coaster or two. Berehaven is a mighty fjord which goes out of Bantry Bay. On the one side rise high, rocky hills; on the other lies the island of Bere. It is a safe, clear anchorage and a wild, inaccessible spot.

Here the captured ship was taken and the wines sold. An arrangement was made with the Lord O’Sullivan by which the pirates could rely on his assistance. For Corbet with one ship, and a man named Lusingham, who had charge of another ship, were prevented by O’Sullivan from falling into the hands of Elizabeth’s ships that had been sent to capture them. Lusingham, however, had been slain by “a piece of ordnance,” as he was in the act of waving his cap towards the Queen’s ships at Berehaven, but Corbet was yet alive. It was alleged that Heidon and Corbet had agreed jointly to fit out the John of Sandwich, giving her all the necessary guns with the hope of being able to capture a good ship wherewith to provide Corbet. But whilst in the English Channel a storm had sprung up and the ship had sprung a leak. They were therefore forced into Alderney, where the vessel became a wreck, and Heidon, Corbet, Deigle, as well as fourteen others, made their escape in a small pinnace.

It was discovered that Robert Hitchins had been all his life given to piracy, so, after having been arrested in the Channel Isles, he was executed at low-water mark near St. Martin’s Point, Guernsey, and there his body was left in chains as a warning to others. The rest of the prisoners were afterwards ordered by Elizabeth to be set free, “after a good and sharp admonition to beware hereafter to fall again into the damage of our laws.” They were bidden to return to their native places and to get their living by honest labour. It is a proof that the Crown really valued her seamen by an interesting proclamation that was made in 1572 when there was a likeliness of war. The Queen went so far as to promise pardon for all piracies hitherto committed by any mariners who should now put their ships into her naval service, and we must not forget that, at a later date, the first tidings of the Armada’s advent were brought into Plymouth by a patriotic English pirate named Fleming. “Fleming,” wrote John Smith, the great Elizabethan traveller and founder of the English colony of Virginia, “was as expert and as much sought for” as any other pirates of the Queen’s reign, “yet such a friend to his Country, that discovering the Spanish Armado, he voluntarily came to Plymouth, yeelded himselfe freely to my Lord Admirall, and gave him notice of the Spaniards comming; which good warning came so happily and unexpectedly, that he had his pardon, and a good reward.”

“As in all lands,” writes this delightful Elizabethan, “where there are many people, there are some theeves, so in all seas much frequented, there are some pirates; the most ancient within the memory of threescore yeares was one Callis, who most refreshed himselfe upon the Coast of Wales; Clinton and Pursser his companions, who grew famous, till Queene Elizabeth of blessed memory, hanged them at Wapping.” Now this John Callis or Calles, after his arrest, wrote a letter of repentance to Walsyngham saying: “I bewail my former wicked life, and beseech God and Her Majesty to forgive me. If she will spare my life and use me in her service by sea, with those she can trust best, either to clear the coasts of other wicked pirates or otherwise, as I know their haunts, roads, creeks, and maintainers so well, I can do more therein than if she sent ships abroad and spent £20,000.”

Thinking thereby to obtain pardon, Calles accordingly forwarded particulars of his fellow pirates, their “maintainers and victuallers of me and my companies.” This list contained the names and addresses of the purchasers and receivers of goods which had been pillaged from two Portuguese, one French, a Spanish and a Scotch ship, which Calles and a Captain Sturges of Rochelle had pirated. If he were given his liberty, this loquacious corsair further promised that he would also bring in a Danish ship, which he had pirated. He promised also to warn Walsyngham to take care that Sulivan Bere of Berehaven “does not practise any treason” towards Her Majesty there, as he alleged that Sulivan had told Calles in the former’s castle at Berehaven that James Fitzmorris and a number of Frenchmen were determined to land there if they could obtain pilots to guide them thither. The old pirate further alleged that they had tried to persuade himself to join them and become their guide, promising him “large gifts.” “But I would not join any rebel of Her Majesty,” he wrote grandiloquently, “hoping her mercy in time to come.”

Last March, he went on, while he was riding at anchor at Torbay, he met a Frenchman, commanded by Captain Molloner, who came aboard Calles’s ship and sought information regarding the Irish coast and the best harbours. Calles informed him the best were Cork and Kinsale. His inquirers then asked whether Berehaven and Dingell were not good places where to land. “They told me if I would go over with them to France, I need not fear the Queen for any offence I had done.” The French King would pardon him for anything Calles had done against His Majesty’s subjects, and would give him 3000 crowns to become his subject and be sworn his man, as well as a yearly fee during life. “I asked him why his master wanted to use me, and he said his master shortly meant to do some service on the coast of Ireland, and wanted pilots.” Calles protested that he had declined this invitation, to which the other man was reported to have replied that he would never have such a chance of preferment offered him in England. But though this made a very fine yarn, the authorities were too well aware of Calles’s past history to give it too much credence.

“The misery of a Pirate (although many are as sufficient Seamen as any) yet in regard of his superfluity,” wrote the founder of Virginia, “you shall finde it such, that any wise man would rather live amongst wilde beasts than them: therefore let all unadvised persons take heed, how they entertaine that quality: and I could wish Merchants, Gentlemen, and all setters forth of ships, not to bee sparing of a competent pay, nor true payment, for neither Souldiers nor Seamen can live without meanes, but necessity will force them to steale: and when they are once entered into that trade, they are hardly reclaimed.”

Poverty as well as the love of adventure and the lust for gain had certainly to be reckoned among the incentives to this life. So steadily had the evil grown that on 7th August 1579, Yorke complained to Lord Burghley that the sea had never been so full of pirates, and a Plymouth ship which had set out from St. Malo bound for Dartmouth had been robbed and chased on to the rocks. None the less, the “persons of credit” who had been appointed in every haven, creek or other landing-place round the coast, in order to deal with the evil, were doing their best, and three notable pirates had some time before been arrested and placed in York Castle together with other pirates.

But the practice of piracy, as we have seen, was the peculiar failing of no country exclusively, though in certain parts of the world and in certain centuries pirates were more prevalent than elsewhere. The very men who in the English Channel might have attained disgrace and wealth as sea-robbers might, also, when he went into the Mediterranean, be himself pillaged by those Barbarian corsairs of whom we spoke just now. Many an exciting brush did the mariners of England encounter with these men, and many were the sad tales which reached England of the cruelties of these Moslem tyrants. An interesting account of such an adventure is related by Master Roger Bodenham. The incident really happened seven years before Elizabeth came to the throne, but it may not be out of place here to deal with it.

After having set forth from Gravesend in the “great barke Aucher” bound for the islands of Candia and Chio in the Levant, the ship arrived at Messina in Sicily. But it was made known that a good many Moslem galleys were in the Levant and the rest of the voyage would be more than risky. The Aucher’s crew got to know of this, so that Bodenham was not likely to get farther on his way and deliver his cargo at Chio. “Then,” he writes, “I had no small businesse to cause my mariners to venture with the ship in such a manifest danger. Neverthelesse I wan them to goe with me, except three which I set on land.” But these presently begged to come aboard again and were taken, and the ship got under way. A Greek pilot was taken on board, and when off Chio three Turkish pirates were suddenly espied. These were giving chase to a number of small boats which were sailing rigged with a lateen-sail. It happened that in one of the latter was the son of the pilot, and at this Greek’s request Bodenham steered towards the Turks and caused the Aucher’s gunner to fire a demi-culverin at the chaser that was just about to board one of the boats. This was such a good shot that the Turk dropped astern. Presently all the little boats came and begged that they might be allowed to hang on to the Aucher’s stern till daylight. After clearing from Chio, Bodenham took his ship to Candia and Messina. But whilst on the way thither and in the very waters where the battle of Lepanto was presently to be fought, he found some of the Turkish galleots pirating some Venetian ships laden with muscatels, and, good Samaritan that he was, Bodenham succeeded in driving off the Moslem aggressors and rescuing the merchantmen. “I rescued them,” he writes briefly, “and had but a barrell of wine for my powder and shot.”

CHAPTER VIII
ELIZABETHAN SEAMEN AND TURKISH PIRATES

But a much more adventurous voyage was that of a ship called The Three Half Moones, which, with a crew of thirty-eight men and well found in arms—“the better to encounter their enemies withall”—set out from Portsmouth in the year 1563.

In some ways the story reads like mere romance, but it has been so thoroughly well-vouched for that there is not a particle of suspicion connected with it. Having set forth bound for the south of Spain they arrived near the Straits of Gibraltar, when they found themselves surrounded by eight Turkish galleys. (It should be mentioned that the Elizabethans used the word Turk somewhat loosely to mean Moslems.) It was rapidly made clear that only two alternatives were possible. Flight was out of the question, and either the Aucher must fight to a finish or she must be sunk. But being English and a gallant crew, they decided to fight. Now, amongst those on board were the owner, the master, the master’s mate, the boatswain, the purser and the gunner as officers.

When their desperate situation was realised, the owner exhorted his men to behave valiantly, to be brave, and to bear a reverse with resignation. Then, falling on their knees, they all commended themselves to God and prepared for the fight. “Then stood up one Grove, the master, being a comely man, with his sword and target, holding them up in defiance against his enemies. So likewise stood up the Owner, the Master’s mate, Boatswaine, Purser, and every man well appointed. Nowe likewise sounded up the drums, trumpets and flutes, which would have encouraged any man, had he never so litle heart or courage in him.” But next let us introduce to the reader John Foxe, the ship’s gunner, a man of marvellous resource, as we will see presently. Foxe saw that the guns were arranged to the best effect and that the Turks were receiving a hot fire. But three times as fast as the English shot came the infidel’s fire, and the fight raged furiously with eight galleys to one big ship. The Turks advanced, and then came the time for the English bowmen to let fly their arrows, which fell thickly among the rowers. Simultaneously the English poured out from their guns a hotter fire than ever, and the Turks fell like ninepins. But meanwhile the Aucher was receiving serious damage below her waterline, and this the Turks seeing, the infidels endeavoured now to board the ship. As they leapt on board many of them fell never again to rise, the others engaging in a tremendous conflict on the Aucher’s deck. “For the Englishmen,” writes the narrator in fine, robustous Elizabethan language, “shewed themselves men in deed, in working manfully with their browne bills and halbardes: where the owner, master, boateswaine, and their company stoode to it lustily, that the Turkes were halfe dismaied. But chiefly the boateswaine shewed himself valiant above the rest: for he fared amongst the Turkes like a wood Lion: for there was none of them that either could or durst stand in his face, till at the last there came a shot from the Turkes, which brake his whistle asunder, and smote him on the brest, so that he fell downe, bidding them farewell, and to be of good comfort, encouraging them likewise to winne praise by death, rather than to live captives in misery and shame.”

Gallantry against Odds

The Englishmen showed themselves men indeed against the Moors, especially the boatswain, who was brought down by a bullet in his chest. But overcome by numbers the brave crew were overwhelmed, and the survivors condemned to the oars.

Such was the fine gallantry of these brave men, but they were fighting against heavy odds. The Turks pressed them sorely, and not one of the company but behaved as a man, except the master’s mate “who shrunke from the skirmish, like a notable coward, esteeming neither the valure of his name, nor accounting of the present example of his fellowes, nor having respect to the miseries, whereunto he should be put.” The rest of the crew covered themselves with glory, but at length it was of no avail, for the Turks won the day. Then, in accordance with the historic custom of the sea, the crew of the Aucher were placed in the galleys, set to row at the oars “and they were no sooner in them, but their garments were pulled over their eares, and torne from their backes,” for the galley slave was always condemned to row stark naked.

At length the galleys reached their stronghold at the port of Alexandria, which was well protected in those days by means of fortifications. The reader will recollect that it was stated some time back that the sailing season was confined only to the late spring and summer, and that in the winter the ships were laid up. The close time now approaching, the Christian prisoners were brought ashore at Alexandria and cast into prison until the time came round again for the season of piracy. At this port, says the Elizabethan chronicler, “the Turkes doe customably bring their gallies on shoare every yeere, in the winter season, and there doe trimme them, and lay them up against the spring time. In which road there is a prison, wherein the captives and such prisoners as serve in the gallies, are put for all that time, untill the seas be calme and passable for the gallies, every prisoner being most grievously laden with irons on their legges, to their great paine.”

So the voyage of the Aucher had come to a tragic ending. But after a time the news of this incident evidently reached England, for both the master and the owner were ransomed by their friends from their prison. The rest had to bear their ill-treatment and semi-starvation as best they would. But he who bore it all with wonderful endurance was the gunner John Foxe and “being somewhat skilfull in the craft of a Barbour, by reason thereof made great shift in helping his fare now and then with a good meale.” In the course of time the keeper of the prison became rather fond of him and allowed him special privileges, so that he could walk as far as the sea and back when he liked, but he was warned always to return by night, and he was never allowed to go about without his shackles on his legs. Later on, six more of the prisoners were allowed a like privilege.

The life sped wearily on, and now, for fourteen sorry years, this durance vile had continued. It was the year 1577, and the winter season had come round again and the galleys drawn up the beach. The masts and sails thereof were brought ashore and properly housed till once more the spring should return, and the Turkish masters and mariners were now “nested in their own homes,” as the narrative quaintly words it. The galley-slaves had again resumed their long bondage ashore, and now there were no fewer than 268 wretched Christians there, languishing in captivity, having been captured from sixteen different nations. It was then that John Foxe, man of resource that he was, resolved that escape must be made and his fellow-prisoners also released. If you consider such a project as the release of nearly 300 prisoners from the hands of these Turkish pirates, the idea seems entirely impracticable and utterly visionary.

To John Foxe, however, it seemed otherwise, and this is how he set to work. After pondering over a method for a very long time and saying many prayers that his scheme might be successful, he betook himself to a fellow-prisoner—a Spanish Christian—named Peter Unticaro, who had been in captivity no less than thirty years. This man was lodged in “a certaine victualling house” near the roadstead. He had never attempted escape during all those years, so was treated with less suspicion and trusted. Foxe and Unticaro had often discussed their bondage, however, and at last the Englishman took the risk of making him his confidant, and also one other fellow-prisoner. These three men put their heads together, and Foxe unfolded a method of escape. Their chances of meeting were but few and short, but at the end of seven weeks they had been able to agree on a definite plan. Five more prisoners were now taken into their confidence whom they thought they could safely trust.

The last day of the old year came round, and these eight men agreed to meet in the prison and inform the rest of the prisoners of the plan. On the 31st of December, then, this was done. It needed but little persuasion to cause these two hundred odd to join in the scheme, and Foxe having “delivered unto them a sort of files, which he had gathered together for this purpose, by the meanes of Peter Unticaro,” admonished them to be ready at eight o’clock the next night with their fetters filed through. So on the next day Foxe, with his six companions, resorted to the house of Peter Unticaro. In order to prevent any suspicions of a dark deed, they spent the time in mirth till the night came on and the hour of eight drew nigh. Foxe then sent Unticaro to the keeper of the road, pretending that he had been sent by one of the Turkish officials, ordering him to come at once. The keeper promptly came, and before doing so, told the warders not to bar the gate as he should not be long away.

In the meantime the other seven prisoners had been able to arm themselves with the best weapons they could find in the house of the Spaniard, and John Foxe was able to lay his hands on a rusty old sword blade “without either hilt or pomell,” but he managed to make it effective. By now the keeper had arrived, but as soon as he came to the house and saw it silent and in darkness he began to be suspicious. John Foxe was ready for him, and before the keeper had retraced his steps more than a few yards, the Englishman sprang out, and, calling him a villain and “a bloodsucker of many a Christian’s blood, lift up his bright shining sword of tenne yeeres rust” and killed him on the spot. They then marched quietly in the direction of the warders of the road and quickly dispatched these six officials. Foxe then barred the gate and put a cannon against it to prevent pursuit. So far all had worked with remarkable smoothness. They next proceeded to the gaoler’s lodge, where they found the keys of the fortress and prison by his bedside. They also found some better weapons than the arms they were using. But there was also a chest full of ducats. To three of the party this wonderful sight proved irresistible. Foxe would not have anything to do with the money for “that it was his and their libertie which he sought for, to the honour of his God, and not to make a marte of the wicked treasure of the Infidels.” But Unticaro and two others helped themselves liberally, and concealed the money between their skin and their shirt.

These eight men, armed with the keys, now came to the prison, whose doors they opened. The captives were ready and waiting. Foxe called on them to do their share, and the whole band—between two and three hundred—poured forth. To each section did Foxe bestow some duty. The eight prison warders were put to death, but some of the prisoners Foxe had wisely sent down to the water, where they got ready for sea the best galley, called the Captain of Alexandria. Whilst some were getting her launched, others were rushing about bringing her masts and sails and oars and the rest of her inventory from the winter quarters. The whole place was seething with suppressed excitement. Meanwhile there was a warm contest going on at the prison before all the warders were slain. The latter had fled to the top of the prison, and Foxe with his companions went after them with ladders. Blood and slaughter were all round them. Three times was Foxe shot, but by a miracle the shot only passed through his clothing on each occasion. But, as if by way of punishment for their greed, Unticaro and his two companions who had taken the ducats were killed outright, being “not able to weild themselves, being so pestered with the weight and uneasie carrying of the wicked and prophane treasure.”

In this conflict one of the Turks was run through with a sword and, not yet dead, fell from the top of the prison wall to the ground. Such a noise did he then begin to make that the alarm was raised, and the authorities were amazed to find the Christian prisoners were “paying their ransoms” by dealing death to their late masters. Alexandria was now roused, and both a certain castle as well as a strong fortress were bestirring themselves to action. It seemed as if the prisoners, after all their years of suffering, after having brought about so gallant an escape, were now to fail just as victory was well in sight. It was a saddening thought. But there was one road of escape and one only. Whilst some of the prisoners were still running down to the sea carrying munitions, some additional oars, victuals and whatever else were required for the galleys, others were getting ready for pushing off. The last of the Christians leapt aboard, the final touch was given to the gear, and up went the yards and the sails were unloosed. There was a good breeze and this, the swiftest and best of all Alexandria’s ships, was speeding on at a good pace. But ashore the Turks have already got to their guns, and the roar of cannon is heard from both the castle and fortress. The sea is splashing everywhere with Turkish ball and the smoke is swept by the breeze off the shore. Five and forty times did these guns fire and never once did a shot so much as graze the galley, although she could see the splashes all around her.

On and still on sailed this long, lean galley, increasing her speed all the time, till at length, by God’s mercy, she, with her long-suffering crew, who by years of involuntary training had learnt to handle her to perfection, were at last out of range of any Turkish cannon. In the distance they could see their late masters coming down to the beach “like unto a swarme of bees,” and bustling about in a futile endeavour to get their other galleys ready for the sea. But it was of little avail. The Christians had long been preparing for flight in the Captain, so the Turks found it took an unbearable time in seeing out the oars and masts, and cables and everything else necessary to a galley’s inventory lying hidden away in winter quarters. They had never suspected such a well-planned escape as this. Nothing was ready; all was confusion. And even when the galleys were at last launched and rigged, the weather was so boisterous, there was such a strong wind that no man cared about taking charge of these fine-weather craft just at that time.

So the escaping galley got right away, and then, as soon as they were a safe distance away, Foxe summoned his men to do what Nelson was to perform less than three centuries later at almost this very spot. You remember how, after the glorious battle of the Nile, when the British fleet had obtained such a grand victory over the French, Nelson sent orders through the fleet to return thanksgiving to Almighty God for the result of the battle. All work was stopped, and men who had spent the whole night risking death and fighting for their lives, dishevelled and dirty with sweat and grime, now stood bareheaded and rendered their thanks. So it was now on the galley Captain. Foxe “called to them all, willing them to be thankfull unto Almighty God for their deliverie, and most humbly to fall downe upon their knees, beseeching Him to aide them unto their friends’ land, and not to bring them into an other daunger, sith Hee had most mightily delivered them from so great a thraldome and bondage.” It must have been a momentous occasion. Men who, after being prisoners for thirty years and less, men who had just come through a night of wild excitement, men who had fought with their arms and sweated hard to get their galley ready for sea, men who even at the last minute had barely escaped being blown into eternity by the Turkish cannon, now halted in their work and made their thanksgiving, whilst most of them hardly could realise that at length they were free men and the time of their tribulation was at an end.

And then they resumed their rowing, and instead of working till they dropped for faintness, each man helped his neighbour when weariness was stealing over the oarsmen. Never did a more united ship’s company put to sea. One object alone did they all possess—to come to some Christian land with the least possible delay. They had no charts, but Foxe and his English fellow-seamen knew something about astronomy, and by studying the stars in the heavens they roughly guessed the direction in which they ought to steer.

With such haphazard navigation, however, they soon lost their position when variable winds sprang up. Those light-draught ships made a good deal of leeway, and as the wind had been from so many points of the compass “they were now in a new maze.” But troubles do not come singly: they were further troubled by their victuals giving out, so that it seemed as if they had escaped from one form of punishment only to fall into a worse kind of hardship. As many as eight died of starvation, but at last, on the twenty-ninth day after leaving Alexandria, the others picked up the land again and found it was the island of Candia. Their distance made good had thus been about 350 miles north-west, which works out at about twelve miles a day. But though this is ridiculously small it must be borne in mind that their courses were many and devious, that to row for twenty-nine consecutive days was a terrible trial for human endurance, and latterly they were rowing with empty stomachs. They came at length to Gallipoli in Candia and landed. Here the good abbot and monks of the Convent of Amerciates received them with welcome and treated them with every Christian hospitality. They refreshed these poor voyagers and attended to their wants until well enough to resume their travels. Two hundred and fifty-eight had survived, and good nourishment, with kindly treatment on land, restored their health and vigour.

We need not attempt to suggest the warmth of the welcome which these poor prisoners received and the congratulations which were showered upon them in having escaped from the hands of the Turks. It was in itself a remarkable achievement that so many had come out alive. As a token and remembrance of this miraculous escape Foxe left behind as a present to the monks the sword with which the Englishman had slain the keeper of the prison. Esteeming it a precious jewel it remained hanging up in a place of honour in the monastery. When the time came for the Captain to get under way again, she coasted till she arrived at Tarento (in the heel of Italy) and so concluded their voyage. They were once again in a Christian land and away from their oppressors. The galley they sold at this port and immediately started to walk on foot to Naples. Yes, they had escaped, but by how little may be gathered from the fact that the Christians having started their long walk in the morning, there arrived that self-same night seven Turkish galleys. But the latter were too late: their captives were now inland.

Having reached Naples without further adventure, the Christians separated and, according to his nationality, made for their distant homes. But Foxe proceeded first to Rome, arriving there one Easter Eve, where he was well entertained by an Englishman who brought the news of this wonderful escape to the notice of the Pope. Foxe was without any means of livelihood, and it was a long way to walk to the English Channel, so he determined to try his luck in Spain. The Pope treated the poor man with every consideration, and sent him on his journey with a letter to the King of Spain. “We, in his behalf, do in the bowels of Christ desire you,” wrote His Holiness, “that, taking compassion of his former captivity and present penury, you do not only suffer him freely to pass throughout your cities and towns, but also succour him with your charitable alms, the reward whereof you shall hereafter most assuredly receive.”

Leaving Rome in April 1577, Foxe arrived in Spain apparently the following August. The Spanish king appointed him to the office of gunner in the royal galleys at a salary of eight ducats a month. Here he remained for about two years, and then, feeling homesick, returned to England in 1579. “Who being come into England,” as we read in Hakluyt, “went unto the Court, and shewed all his travell unto the Councell: who, considering of the state of this man, in that hee had spent and lost a great part of his youth in thraldome and bondage, extended to him their liberalitie, to helpe to maintaine him now in age, to their right honour, and to the incouragement of all true heartied Christians.”

Such, then, was the happy ending to Foxe’s travels sixteen years after his ship had set forth from Portsmouth. He had shown himself not merely to be a man of exceptional physical endurance, but a man of considerable resource and a born leader of men in times of crisis and despair We may well relish the memory of such a fine character.

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

The seamen had escaped from Tripoli and were within sight of Malta when a violent storm drove them back to the Moorish coast. Compelled by hunger to land, they were cut off by a party of horsemen, and again thrown into captivity to be most barbarously treated.

The enterprising voyages of the English ships to the Levant in the sixteenth century had been grievously interfered with by the Algerine galleys roving about the Mediterranean, especially in proximity to the Straits of Gibraltar. They would set out from England with goods to deliver and then return with Mediterranean fruits and other commodities. But so often were these valuable ships and cargoes captured by the hateful infidels that the English merchants who had dispatched the goods became seriously at a loss and were compelled to invoke the aid of Elizabeth, who endeavoured, by means of diplomacy, to obtain the release of these ships and to prevent such awkward incidents recurring. To give the names of a few such ships, and to indicate the loss in regard to ships’ freights and of men held captive in slavery we have only to mention the following: The Salomon of Plymouth had been captured with a load of salt and a crew of thirty-six men. The Elizabeth of Guernsey was seized with ten Englishmen and a number of Bretons, her value being 2000 florins. The Maria Martin, under the command of Thomas More, with a crew of thirty-five, had been taken while returning from Patrasso in Morea. Her value was 1400 florins. The Elizabeth Stokes of London, under the command of David Fillie of London, whilst bound for Patrasso, had been also captured, but her value was 20,000 or 30,000 florins. The Nicolas of London, under the command of Thomas Foster, had also been seized, at a loss of about 5000 florins. So also in like manner could be mentioned the Judith of London, the Jesus of London, the Swallow of London.

But England, of course, was not the only country which suffered by these piratical acts. In 1617 France was moved to take serious action, and sent a fleet of fifty ships against these Barbarian corsairs. Off St. Tropez they captured one of these roving craft, and later on met another which was captured by a French renegado of Rochelle. The latter defended himself fiercely for some time, but at length, seeing that the day was going against him, he sunk his ship and was drowned, together with the whole of his crew, rather than be captured by the Christians. And from now onwards, right up to the nineteenth century, there were at different dates successive expeditions sent against these rovers by the chief European powers.

Many of these expeditions were of little value, some were practically useless, while others did only ephemeral good. Thus, you will remember, the only active service which the navy of our James I. ever saw was in 1620, when it was sent against the pirates of Algiers. But they had become so successful and so daring that they were not easily to be tackled. Not content now with roving over the Mediterranean, not satisfied with those occasional voyages out through the Gibraltar Straits into the Atlantic, they now, if you please, had the temerity to cross the Bay of Biscay and to cruise about the approaches of the English Channel. These Algerine pirates actually sailed as far north as the south of Ireland, where they acted just as they had for generations along the Mediterranean: that is to say, they landed on the Munster shore, committed frightful atrocities and carried away men, women and children into the harsh slavery which was so brutally enforced in their Barbarian territory. What good did the Jacobean expedition which we sent out, you may naturally ask? The answer may be given in the fewest words. Although the fleet contained six of our royal ships and a dozen merchantmen, yet it returned home with no practical benefit, the whole affair having been a hopeless muddle.

In 1655, Blake, the great admiral of Cromwell’s time, was sent to tackle these pirate pests. It was a big job, but there was no one at that time better suited for an occasion that required determination. Tunis was a very plague-spot by its piratical colony and its captives made slaves. It had to be humbled to the dust, and Blake, with all the austerity and thoroughness of a Puritan officer, was resolved to do his duty to Christendom. But Tunis was invulnerable, so it was a most difficult undertaking. He spent the early spring of this year cruising about the neighbourhood, biding his time and being put to great inconvenience by foul winds and tempestuous weather. He found that these Tunis pirates were obstinate and wilful: they were unprepared to listen to any reason. Intractable and insolent, it was impossible to treat with them: force was the only word to which they could be made to hearken. “These barbarous provocations,” wrote Blake in giving an account of his activities here, “did so far work upon our spirits that we judged it necessary, for the honour of the fleet, our nation and religion, seeing they would not deal with us as friends, to make them feel us as enemies”; and it was thereupon resolved, at a council of war, to endeavour the firing their ships in Porto Farina.

Tunis, itself, being invulnerable, Blake entered the neighbouring harbour, this Porto Farina, very early in the morning. The singular thing was that he was favoured with amazingly good luck—a fair wind in and a fair wind out. But let me tell the story in the Admiral’s own words: “Accordingly, the next morning very early, we entered with the fleet into the harbour, and anchored before their castles, the Lord being pleased to favour us with a gentle gale off the sea, which cast all the smoke upon them, and made our work the more easy. After some hours’ dispute we set on fire all their ships, which were in number nine; and, the same favourable gale still continuing, we retreated out again into the road. We had twenty-five men slain, and about forty besides hurt, with very little other loss. It was also remarkable by us that, shortly after our getting forth, the wind and weather changed, and continued very stormy for many days, so that we could not have effected the business, had not the Lord afforded that nick of time in which it was done.”

But these attacks by the powers were regarded by the pirates as mere pin-pricks. For it was nothing to them that even all their galleys should be burnt. Such craft were easily built again, and there was an overwhelming amount of slave-labour and plenty of captive seamen to rig these ships as soon as finished. So the evil continued and the epidemic spread as before. In 1658, these Barbarian corsairs attacked a ship called the Diamond, homeward bound from Lisbon to Venice. She was laden with a valuable cargo, and her captain saw that he would not be able to defend his ship against three galleys, so, rather than let her fall into piratical hands, he determined to destroy her. He placed an adequate quantity of powder, and then laying a match to the same, he jumped into his long-boat, from which presently he had the pleasure of seeing his enemies blown into space by the terrific explosion just as these infidels were in the act of boarding the Diamond.

Ten years later Sir Thomas Allen was sent during the summer with a squadron once more to repress Algerine piracy. He arrived before Algiers, and was so successful that he compelled the release of all the English captives which had been accumulating there. Indeed, it is amazing to count up so many of these expeditions from England alone. Thus, in the early spring of 1671, we find Sir Edward Spragge sent out to the Mediterranean for the same purpose. The following account is condensed from his own dispatch and is of no ordinary interest. On the 20th of April, Spragge was cruising in his flagship the Revenge, about fifteen or twenty miles off Algiers, when he met his other ships, the Mary, Hampshire, Portsmouth and the Advice, which were all frigates. These informed him that several Algerine war-craft were at Bougie. He called a council of war, at which it was agreed that Spragge should make the best of his way there with the Mary, the Portsmouth pink and his fireships, and he should endeavour to destroy these corsairs in their own lair. The Hampshire and the Portsmouth were left to cruise off Algiers till further orders should reach them.

The wind was now easterly, and one of his ships, named the Dragon, had been gone five days, as she was busy chasing a couple of Algerine corsair craft: but as the wind for some days had been from the south-west, Spragge was in hopes that the chase would have carried the ships to the eastward and thus force the Algerines into Bougie. And so, on the 23rd of April, the Dragon returned to Spragge, having been engaged for two days in fighting the two Algerine craft. Unfortunately her commander, Captain Herbert (whom the reader will remember by his later title when he became the Earl of Torrington), had been shot in the face by a musket shot, and nine of his men had also been wounded with small shot. The wind continued easterly until 28th April, but at eight o’clock that night it flew round to south-west and the weather became very gusty and rainy. This caused Spragge’s Little Eagle fireship to become disabled, and she was dismasted by the wind. But, on the last day of April, Spragge got her fitted with masts again and re-rigged, for luckily he had with him a corn ship captured from the corsairs, and her spars, together with some topmasts and other spars, caused the fireship to be ready again for service. Unfortunately the same bad weather caused the Warwick to spring her mast—an accident that frequently befell the ships of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—so she “bore away to the Christian shore: my Brigantine at the same time bore away, and as yet I have no news of her.”

The same day this admiral arrived in Bougie Bay, but here again he had bad luck. Just as he was within half a shot of the enemy’s castles and forts the wind dropped and it fell a flat calm. Then the breeze sprang up, but it blew off shore. So the time passed. On the 2nd of May the winds were still very fluky, and after twice in vain attempting to do anything with these varied puffs, Spragge resolved to attack by night with his ships’ boats and his smallest fireship. The water close to the forts was very shallow, and the English fireship could be rowed almost as well as a ship’s long-boat. So about midnight he dispatched all the boats he could, as well as the Eagle fireship, under the command of “my eldest Lieutenant, Master Nugent.” It was a dark night, and the high land was very useful for its obscuring effects.

Nugent, leaving one of the long-boats with the fireship, in addition to the fireship’s own boat, now rowed off to reconnoitre the enemy, having first given the fireship’s captain orders to continue approaching until he should find himself in shoal water: he was then immediately to anchor. Nugent had then rowed off and had scarcely left the fireship one minute when, after proceeding but a little way over the leaden waters, he found himself quite close to where the English squadron was anchored. He had thus lost his bearings in the dark and at once steered off again to find the fireship, when, to his great amazement, he suddenly saw the latter burst out into a sheet of flame. That, of course, was another piece of ill-luck, for it entirely upset all the carefully laid plans and instantly alarmed the enemy. It would have been useless to have attempted a boat attack that night, so the effort was postponed. What had happened was this: the little fireship had been all ready when, by an accident, the gunner had fired off his pistol. This had caused the ignition, and so the ship had been lost without any good being done. It was a thousand pities as, owing to her shallow draught, she had been relied upon for getting right close in.

With this warning the enemy the next day unrigged their ships, which lay in their harbour, then gathered together all the yards, the topmasts and spars generally off these ships, together with their cables. All this they made into a boom, which was buoyed up by means of casks. Spragge and his fleet watched this being done, for there was no wind, or, as he expressed it, we had “no opportunity of wind to do anything upon them.” On the 8th of May they noticed that the corsairs ashore were reinforced by the arrival of horse-as well as foot-soldiers, which the Englishmen suspected rightly had come from Algiers. The Bougie corsairs greeted this arrival with wild cheering and by firing of the guns in their ships and castles, as well as by the display of colours.

About noon, just as Spragge was anxious to reopen operations, he was harassed by a flat calm. Luckily, however, at 2 p.m. a nice breeze sprang up, and the Revenge, Dragon, Advice and Mary advanced and let go in 3½ fathoms nearer in, mooring stem and stern so that their broadsides might face Bougie’s fortifications. The position was roughly thus. Looking towards Bougie, Spragge’s six ships were moored roughly in a half-circle in the following order from left to right. First came the Portsmouth, then the Garland, the Dragon, the Mary, the Advice and finally the Revenge flagship. These were all, so to speak, in the foreground of the picture. In the background were the enemy’s ships on the left, whilst on the right were the castles and fortifications. In the middle distance on the left was the boom defence already noted. The Revenge was in 4 fathoms, being close up to the castles and walls, and the fight began. For two hours these ships bombarded Bougie’s ships and fortresses.

Spragge then decided to make a boat attack, his ships still remaining at anchor. He therefore sent away his pinnace, under the command of a man named Harman, “a Reformado seaman of mine.” A “reformado,” by the way, was a volunteer serving with the fleet without a commission yet with the rank of an officer. Harman was sent because Spragge’s second lieutenant had been hurt by a splinter in the leg. Lieutenant Pin was sent in command of the Mary’s boat, and Lieutenant Pierce had charge of the Dragon’s boat. The project was to cut the boom, and this was bravely done by these three boats, though not without some casualties. Eight of the Mary’s boat’s crew and her lieutenant were wounded with small shot. In the Admiral’s pinnace seven were killed outright, and all the rest were wounded excepting Harman. Of the Dragon’s boat’s crew ten were wounded as well as her lieutenant, and one was killed.

But the boom had been cut, and that was the essential point. That being done, the Admiral then signalled to his one remaining fireship, the little Victory, to do her work. She obeyed and got in so well through the boom that she brought up athwart the enemy’s “bolt-sprits, their ships being aground and fast to the castles.” The Victory burnt very well indeed, and destroyed all the enemy’s shipping, ten in all. Of these ten, seven were the best ships of the Algerine fleet, and of the three others one was a Genoese prize and the other had been a ship the pirates had captured from an English crew. The commander, the master’s mate, the gunner and one seaman of the fireship had been wounded badly in the fight, but the victory was complete and undoubted. On the 10th of May a Dutchman who had been captive with the corsairs for three years escaped by swimming off to the Revenge, and Spragge had him taken on board. The Dutchman informed the English Admiral that the enemy admitted that at least 360 Turkish soldiers had lost their lives in this engagement by fire and gunshot, as they could not get ashore from the ships. There were in all about 1900 men in addition to those 300 who came that morning from Algiers. The Dutchman, for himself, thought the losses far exceeded the number assessed by the enemy.

He stated that the castles and the town itself had been badly damaged, and as all their medicine-chests were on the ships and so burnt, it was impossible for the enemy to dress the wounds of their injured. “Old Treky, their Admiral, is likewise wounded,” wrote Spragge. Among the enemy’s killed was Dansker, a renegado, and our losses consisted only of 17 killed and 41 wounded.

CHAPTER X
THE GOOD SHIP EXCHANGE OF BRISTOL

A satirical English gentleman who lived in the reign of Charles II. and described himself as formerly “a servant in England’s Navie,” published a pamphlet in 1648 in which he complained bitterly of the inability of “the present Government,” even in spite of the expense of vast quantities of money, “to clear England’s seas of Ireland’s Pyrates.” The latter belonged at this time especially to Waterford and Wexford. A large amount of money, he bewailed, had been and was still being spent “to reduce half a dozen inconsiderable Pyrates,” but yet the “pyrates are not reduced, neither are the seas guarded.” One of these “pyrates” had in February 1647 in one day taken three small ships and one pinnace of a total value of £9000. One of these ships, whilst defending herself, had lost her master and one of her mates, as well as five mariners, besides other members of her crew wounded. And this author of A Cordiall for the Calenture asks if the present Government, with such an expenditure, cannot reduce half a dozen pirates, “how will England’s Commonwealth be wasted if the French, the Danes, the Dutch, or all of them shall infest England’s Seas.”

Well, we know now that in time England’s navy did actually defeat each of these—the Dutch, French and Danes. And although the pirates were a real and lasting trouble, both in the narrow seas and in the Mediterranean, yet, as the reader has now seen, it was no easy matter to crush them more than for a short period. In 1675 we find Sir John Narborough with a squadron sent to chastise the pirates of Tripoli which were interrupting our overseas trade. At dead of night he arrived before Tripoli, manned his ships’ boats and sent them into the port under his lieutenant, Mr. Cloudesly Shovell, who in later times was to achieve such naval fame. The latter in the present instance seized the enemy’s guard-boat, and so was able to get right in undiscovered. He then surprised four Tripolitan ships, which were all that happened to be in port, and having burnt these, he returned to Narborough’s squadron, having successfully accomplished that which he was sent to perform without the loss of a man.

France, too, at this time having risen to the status of a great naval power, was performing her share in putting down this perpetual nuisance. In 1681, as the Barbarian corsairs had for some time interrupted the French trade across the Mediterranean, Du Quesne was sent with a fleet against them. He was able to destroy eight galleys in the Port of Scio in the Archipelago, and threw in so many bombs that at length he subjected the corsairs to terms. Finally, in 1684, he had obtained from them all the French captives and had caused the pirates to pay 500,000 crowns for the prizes they had taken. And in 1682 Admiral Herbert had again been sent out by England against the Algerine pirates.

And now, before we leave this period, I want to put before the reader the interesting story which centres round the Bristol ship named the Exchange, which was so happily rescued from the Algerine pirates.

The story begins on the 1st of November 1621, when two ships were sent on their voyage from Plymouth. The larger of these was the George Bonaventure, about 70 tons burthen. The smaller of the two was the Nicholas, of 40 tons burthen, and her skipper’s name was John Rawlins, of whom we shall have much to say. These two vessels, after being freighted by Plymouth merchants, proceeded down Channel, past Ushant and, after a fair passage, found themselves across the Bay, round the Spanish coast and off Trafalgar by the 18th of November. But the next morning, just as they were getting into the Straits of Gibraltar, the watch descried five ships under sail coming towards them as fast as they could.

In a moment the English ships rightly guessed these were pirate craft, and immediately began to escape. But in spite of all their efforts, the pirates came the more quickly. There were five of them in all, and the first came right to windward of the English craft, the second came “up on our luff,” and presently the remainder also came along. Their Admiral was one Callfater, whose ship was described as “having upon her main topsail two topgallant sails, one above another.” For of these five ships two were prizes, one being a small London ship, and the other a west-country ship which, homeward bound with a cargo of figs and other goods, had had the misfortune to fall into the hands of these rovers.

So the George Bonaventure was taken and the Turkish Vice-Admiral, whose name was Villa Rise, now called upon the Nicholas to strike sail also, and Rawlins, seeing it was useless to do otherwise, obeyed. The same day, before nightfall, the Turkish Admiral sent twelve of the George Bonaventure’s crew ashore, together with some other Englishmen whom he had taken prisoners from another previous ship. The Admiral was doubtless nervous lest with so many English seamen a mutiny might break out. So some were set upon a strange land to fare as best they might. Villa Rise, the Vice-Admiral, ordered Rawlins and five of his company to go aboard Villa Rise’s ship, leaving three men and a boy on the Nicholas. To the latter were sent thirteen Turks and Moors—a right proportion to overmaster the other four, in case mutiny should be meditated. The ships then set a course for Algiers.

But the next night a heavy gale sprang up, so that they lost sight of the Nicholas, and the pirates were afraid their own ships would likewise perish. On the 22nd of November Rawlins arrived at Algiers, but the Nicholas had not yet come into port. In this piratical stronghold he found numerous Englishmen now as slaves, and there were a hundred “handsome English youths” who had been compelled to turn Turks. For these inhuman Moslems, these vipers of Africa, these monsters of the sea, having caught a Christian in their net would next set about trying to make him change his Christianity for Mohammedanism. If he refused, he would be tortured without mercy, until some of them, unable to endure these terrible sufferings any longer, yielded and declared they would become Turks, being yet Christians at heart. These poor, ill-treated English slaves, though bowed down with their own troubles, welcomed this latest batch and, says the contemporary narrator, “like good Christians, they bade us ‘Be of good cheer! and comfort ourselves in this! That God’s trials were gentle purgations; and these crosses were but to cleanse the dross from the gold, and bring us out of the fire again more clear and lovely.’”

But if these Algerine pirates and taskmasters were ordinarily cruel towards English seamen they were now the more embittered than ever, for they were still smarting from the injury they had received in May of that year when Sir Robert Mansell’s fleet had attempted to fire their ships in the Mole. Tortures and all manner of cruelties were dealt out to them by the infuriated Moslems, and there was but little respect for the dignity of humanity. Some of these men from the George Bonaventure and the Nicholas were sold by auction to the highest bidder, and the bargainers would assemble and look the sailormen over critically as if they were at a horse fair, for the Nicholas had arrived safely on the 26th of November. The Bashaw was allowed to take one of these prisoners for himself, the rest being sold. Rawlins was the last to be put up for sale, as he had “a lame hand.” He was eventually bought by Villa Rise for the sum which in the equivalent of English money amounted to £7, 10s. The Nicholas’ carpenter was also bought at the same time.

These and other slaves were then sent into Villa Rise’s ship to do the work of shipwrights and to start rigging her. But some of these Algerines became exceedingly angry when they found Rawlins, because of his “lame” hand, could not do as much work as the other slaves. There was a loud complaint, and they threatened to send him up-country far into Africa, where “he should never see Christendom again” and be banished for life. In the meanwhile there lay at Algiers a ship called the Exchange of Bristol, which had some time previously been seized by the pirates. Here she “lay unrigged in the harbour, till, at last, one John Goodale, an English Turk, with his confederates (understanding she was a good sailer, and might be made a proper man-of-war) bought her from the Turks that took her” and got her ready for sea. Now the overseer happened be an English renegado named Rammetham Rise, but his real name was Henry Chandler, and it was through him that Goodale became master of the Nicholas. They resolved that as there were so many English prisoners they should have only English slaves for their crew and only English and Dutch renegadoes as their gunners, but for soldiers they took also Moslems on board.

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.

It was a daring plan and worthy of a man like Rawlins. But in all attempts at mutiny it is one thing to conceive a plan and it is another matter to know whom to entrust with the secret. In this respect Rawlins was as cautious as he was enterprising, and he felt his way so slowly and carefully that nothing was done hastily or impetuously or with excess of confidence.

CHAPTER XI
A WONDERFUL ACHIEVEMENT

Rawlins knew he could rely on his fellow-countrymen, but at first he hesitated to say anything to the four Hollanders. At last, however, he found them anxious to join in with the scheme, and his next effort was equally successful, for he “undermined” the English renegado-gunner and three more, his associates. Last of all, the Dutch renegadoes of the “gunner-room” were won over and persuaded by the four Hollanders.

The secret had been well kept, and Rawlins resolved that during the captain’s morning watch he would make the attempt. Now where the English slaves lay in the gunroom there were always four or five crowbars of iron hanging up. When the time was approaching when the mutiny should take place, Rawlins was in the act of taking down his iron crowbar when he had the misfortune to make such a noise with it that it woke up the Turkish soldiers, and they, in alarm, roused the other Moslems. Everything was in pitch darkness and it was uncertain as to what would happen. Presently the Turkish boatswain came below with a candle and searched all the parts of the ship where the slaves were lying, but he found nothing suspicious other than the crowbar, which had apparently slipped down. He then went and informed the captain, who merely remarked that there was nothing to cause uneasiness, as the crowbar not infrequently slipped down.

But with this unlucky beginning Rawlins deemed it best to postpone the undertaking for the present. He had intended, with the aid of his friends, knife in hand, to press upon the gunner’s breast and the other English renegadoes, and either force them to help, or else to cut their throats. “Die or consent”—this was to be the prevailing force, and the watchword was to be, “For God and King James, and St. George for England.” In the meantime the Exchange continued on her northerly voyage, farther and farther away from the coast of Barbary. Still cautious but keen, Rawlins went about the ship’s company, and now had persuaded the gunners and the other English renegades to fall in with his project. This was one of the riskiest moments of his enterprise, but it resulted that there were “reciprocal oaths taken, and hands given” to preserve loyalty to each other: yet once again was Rawlins to be disappointed.

For after the renegado gunner had solemnly sworn secrecy, he went up the hatchway on deck for a quarter of an hour, after which he returned to Rawlins in the “gunner-room.” Then, to Rawlins’ surprise, in came an infuriated Turk with his knife drawn. This he presented in a menacing manner to Rawlins’ body. The latter, cleverly feigning innocence, inquired what was the matter, and whether it was the Turk’s intention to kill him. To this the Turk answered, “No, master. Be not afraid: I think he doth but jest.” But it was clear to Rawlins that the other man had broken his compact and rounded on him. So, drawing back, Rawlins drew out his own knife and also stepped towards the gunner’s side, so that he was able to snatch the knife from the gunner’s sheath. The Turk, seeing that now the Englishman had two knives to his one, threw down his weapon, protesting that all the time he had been joking. The gunner also whispered in Rawlins’ ear that he had never betrayed the plan nor would he do such a thing. However, Rawlins thought otherwise and kept the two knives with him all the night.

Very ingenious was the way in which this Rawlins was weaving his net gradually but surely around the ship. He succeeded in persuading the captain to head for Cape Finisterre, pretending that thereabouts they would be likely to come upon a ship to be pillaged. This was perfectly true, though the Englishman’s intention was to get the Exchange farther and farther from the Straits of Gibraltar, so that it became less and less likely that the corsairs would send out reinforcements. On the 6th of February, when about thirty-six miles off the Cape, a sail was descried. The Exchange gave chase and came up with her, “making her strike all her sails: whereby we knew her to be a bark belonging to Torbay, near Dartmouth.” She was laden with a cargo of salt, and her crew consisted of nine men and a boy. But it came on bad weather, so the Exchange did not then launch her boat, but ordered the Torbay ship to let down her boat. Her master, with five men and the boy, now rowed off to the Exchange, leaving behind his mate and two men in the bark. The Turkish captain now sent ten Moslems to man her. Now among these ten were two Dutch and one English renegadoes “who were of our confederacy.”

Just as the latter were about to hoist out their boat from the Exchange, Rawlins was able to have a hurried conversation with them. He quickly warned them it was his intention that night or the next to put his plan into action, and he advised these men to inform the mate and two men of the Torbay bark of this plot and then make for England, “bearing up the helm, whiles the Turks slept and suspected no such matter.” Rawlins reminded them that in his first watch, about midnight, he would show them a light by which the men on the bark might know that the plan was already in action. So the boat was let down from the Exchange and rowed off to the Torbay bark. The confederates then told the mate of their intention, and he entirely approved of the plan, though at first amazed by its ingenuity.

The fact was that the idea was really much simpler than was at first apparent. Being sailors the English “had the helm of the ship,” for the Turks, being only soldiers and ignorant of sea affairs, could not say whether their vessel were sailing in the direction of Algiers or in the opposite direction. They knew nothing of navigation and practically nothing of seamanship, so they were, in spite of all their brutality, more at the mercy of the Christians than they had realised. But, resolved the plotters, if by any chance these Moslems should guess that the ship was sailing away from Algiers then they would at once cut the Turks’ throats, and then throw their bodies overboard. It will be remembered that the master and some of the Torbay bark’s crew were now in the Exchange, and Rawlins made it his business to approach these men tactfully and ask them to share in the plan. This they resolved to do.

So far so good. Now the number of Turks had been gradually diminishing since the beginning of the cruise. For, first of all, nine Turks and one English slave had been sent back to Algiers with the polacca prize; and now some more had been sent off to the Torbay bark. Had the Exchange’s captain fully realised how seriously he was diminishing the strength of his own force, he could scarcely have done such a foolish thing. But throughout the whole plot he was, without ever suspecting it, being fooled by a clever schemer. Rawlins had all the tact and foresight of a diplomatist combined with the ability to know when to strike and the power to strike hard. And all this time, while the captain himself was diminishing the number of Moslems and simultaneously adding to the number of Englishmen by the arrival of the Torbay ship, Rawlins, in the most impudent manner, was going about the ship winning every one except the Turkish soldiers over to his side. One knows not which to admire most: his wonderful courage or his consummate skill. For had he made one single error in reposing confidence in the wrong man, the death of the Englishman would have been both certain and cruel.

And the following step in Rawlins’ diplomatic advance was even more interesting still. When morning came again—it was now the 7th of February—the Torbay prize was quite out of sight. This annoyed the captain of the Exchange intensely, and he began both to storm and to swear. He commanded Rawlins to search the seas up and down; but there was not a vestige of the bark. She was beyond the horizon. In course of time the captain abated his wrath and remarked that no doubt he would see her again in Algiers and that all would be well. This remark rather worried Rawlins, as he began to fear the captain would order the Exchange to return to the Straits of Gibraltar. But Rawlins did not allow himself to worry long, and proceeded below down into the hold. Here he found that there was a good deal of water in the bilges which could not be sucked up by the pump. He came on deck and informed the captain. The latter naturally asked how this had come about that the pump would not discharge this, and Rawlins explained that the ship was too much down by the head and needed to have more weight aft to raise her bows more out of the water.

He therefore ordered Rawlins to get the ship trimmed properly. The captain was swallowing the bait most beautifully; presently he would be hooked. Rawlins explained that “We must quit our cables and bring four pieces of ordnance” further aft, and that would cause the water to flow to the pump. The captain, being quite ignorant of the ways of a ship, ordered these suggestions to become orders, and so two of the guns which usually were forward were now brought with their mouths right before the binnacle. In the ship were three decks. Rawlins and his mates of the “gunner-room” were warned to be ready to break up the lower deck; and the English slaves, who always lay in the middle deck, were likewise told to watch the hatchways. Rawlins himself persuaded the gunner to let him have as much powder as would prime the guns, and quietly warned his confederates to begin the mutiny as soon as ever the gun was fired, when they were to give a wild shout and hand on the password.

The time appointed for the crisis was 2 p.m., and about that time Rawlins advised the master-gunner to speak to the captain that the soldiers might come on the poop deck and so bring the ship’s bows more out of the water and cause the pump to work better. To this suggestion the captain readily agreed, so twenty Turkish soldiers came aft to the poop, while five or six of the confederates stole into the captain’s cabin and brought away various weapons and shields. After that Rawlins and his assistants began to pump the water. Later on, having made every preparation and considered all details, in order to avoid suspicion the members of the “gunner-room” went below and the slaves in the middle deck went about their work in the usual way. Then the nine English slaves and John Rawlins, the five men and one boy from the Torbay bark, the four English renegades, the two Dutch and the four Hollanders “lifting up our hearts and thanks to God for the success of the business” set to work on the final act of the cleverly conceived plot.

About noon Roe and Davis were ordered by Rawlins to prepare their matches, while most of the Turks were on the poop weighing down the stern to bring the water to the pump. The two men came with the matches, and at the appointed time Roe fired one of the guns, which caused a terrific explosion. Immediately this was followed by wild cheering on the part of the confederates. The explosion broke down the binnacle and compasses, and the soldiers were amazed by the cheering of the Christian slaves. And then they realised what had happened—that there had been a mutiny, that the ship had been surprised. The Turks were mad with fury and indignation. Calling the mutineers “Dogs,” they began to tear up planks of the ship and to attack the confederates with hammers, hatchets, knives, boat’s oars, boat-hook and whatever came into their hands. Even the stones and bricks of the “cook-room,” or galley, were picked up and hurled at Rawlins’ party.

But the carefully arranged plot was working out perfectly. Below, the slaves had cleared the decks of all the Turks and Moors, and Rawlins now sent a guard to protect the powder, and the confederates charged their muskets against the remaining Turks, killing some of them on the spot. The Moslems, who had been such tyrannical taskmasters, now actually called for Rawlins, so he, guarded by some of his adherents, went to them. The latter fell on their knees and begged for mercy, who had shown no mercy to others. Rawlins knew what he was about, and after these tyrants had been taken one by one, he caused them to be killed, while other Turks leapt overboard, remarking that “it was the chance of war.” Others were manacled and then hurled overboard. Some more had yet to be killed outright, and then at length the victory and annihilation were complete. By careful plotting and good organisation and a firmness at the proper time, the whole scheme had been an entire success.

It happened that when the explosion had taken place, the captain was in his cabin writing, and at once rushed out. But when he saw the confederates and how matters stood and that the ship was already in other hands, he at once surrendered and begged for his life. He reminded Rawlins “how he had redeemed him from Villa Rise,” and that he had since treated him with great consideration. Rawlins had to admit that this was so, so he agreed to spare the captain his life. As before mentioned the captain was an English renegade whose real name was Henry Chandler, he being the son of a chandler in Southwark. So this man was brought back to England, as well as John Goodale; Richard Clarke, gunner (alias Jafar in Turkish); George Cook, gunner’s mate (alias Ramedam in Turkish); John Browne (alias Mamme in Turkish); and William Winter, ship’s carpenter (alias Mustapha in Turkish); “besides all the slaves and Hollanders, with other renegadoes, who were willing to be reconciled to their true Saviour, as being formerly seduced with the hopes of riches, honour, preferment, and suchlike devilish baits to catch the souls of mortal men and entangle frailty in the tarriers of horrible abuses and imposturing deceit.”

The Englishmen now set to work and cleared the ship of the dead Moslem bodies, and then Rawlins assembled his men and gave praise to God “using the accustomed Service on shipboard; and, for want of books, lifted up their voices to God, as He put into their hearts or renewed their memories.” And after having sung a psalm, they embraced each other “for playing the men in such a deliverance.” The same night they washed the ship of the carnage, put every thing in order, repaired the broken quarter which had been damaged by the explosion, set up the binnacle again and made for England. On the 13th February the Exchange arrived at Plymouth, where they “were welcomed like the recovery of the lost sheep, or as you read of a loving mother that runneth with embraces to entertain her son from a long voyage and escape of many dangers.”

As for the Torbay bark, she too had got back to England, having arrived at Penzance two days before. Her story is brief but not less interesting. The mate had been informed of Rawlins’ plan, and he and his friends had agreed. But the carrying out of this had been a far simpler and neater matter than that which had taken place on the Exchange. For once again mere landsmen had been fooled at the hands of seamen. It happened on this wise. They made the Turks believe that the wind had now come fair and that the prize was being sailed back to Algiers. This they believed until they sighted the English shore, when one of the Turks remarked that “that land is not like Cape St. Vincent.” To this the man at the helm replied very neatly, “Yes; and if you will be contented and go down into the hold, and turn the salt over to windward, whereby the ship may bear full sail, you shall know and see more to-morrow.”

Suspecting nothing the five Turks then went quietly down. But as soon as they had gone below into the hold, the renegadoes, with the help of two Englishmen, nailed down the hatches and kept the rascals there till they reached Penzance. But one of the other Turks was on deck, and at this incident he broke out into great rage. This was but short-lived, for an Englishman stepped up to him, dashed out his brains and threw his body overboard.

All the other prisoners were brought safely to England and lodged either in Plymouth gaol or Exeter, “either to be arraigned according to the punishment of delinquents in that kind, or disposed of as the king and council shall think meet.” We need not stop to imagine the joy of welcoming back men who had been lost in slavery. We need not try to guess the delight of the west-countrymen that at last some of these renegadoes had been brought back to be punished in England. There is not the slightest doubt of this story of the Exchange being true, but it shows that even in that rather disappointing age which followed on immediately after the defeat of the Armada, there were, at a time when maritime matters were under a cloud, not wanting English seamen of the right stamp, men of courage and action, men who could fight and navigate a ship as in the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth. Happily the type of man which includes such sailor characters as Rawlins is not yet dead; the Anglo-Saxon race still rears many of his calibre, and it needs only the opportunity to display such nerve, daring enterprise and tactful action.

CHAPTER XII
THE GREAT SIR HENRY MORGAN

About the year 1636 a certain London mariner, named Dunton, had an experience somewhat similar to that which we related in the last chapter concerning Rawlins. Dunton had the bad luck to be taken by the Sallee pirates, who then sent him out as master and pilot of a Sallee pirate ship containing twenty-one Moors and five Flemish renegadoes. The instructions were that Dunton should sail to the English coast and there capture Christian prisoners. He had arrived from Barbary in the English Channel and was off Hurst Castle by the Needles, Isle of Wight, when he was promptly arrested as a pirate and sent to Winchester to be tried by law. He was given his release at a later date, but his ten-year-old boy was still a slave with the Algerines.

Now about the year when this was taking place, there was born into the world Henry Morgan, who has become celebrated in history and fiction as one of the greatest sea-rovers who ever stepped aboard a ship. His career is one of continual success, of cruelties and amassing of wealth. He was a buccaneer, and a remarkably clever fellow who rose to the position of Governor-General of one of our most important colonial possessions. Adventures are to the adventurous, and if ever there was a Britisher who longed for and obtained a life of excitement, here you have it in the story of Henry Morgan. It would be easy enough to fill the whole of this book and more with his activities afloat, but as our space is limited, and there are still many other pirates of different seas to be considered, it is necessary to confine ourselves to the main facts of his career.

The date of his birth is not quite certain, but it is generally supposed to belong to the year 1635. He first saw light in Glamorganshire, and his existence was tinged with adventure almost from the first. For whilst he was a mere boy, he was kidnapped and sold as a servant at Barbados. Thus it was that he was thrust on to the region of the West Indies, and in this corner of the world, so rich in romance, so historic for its association with Spanish treasure-ships of Elizabethan times, so reminiscent of Drake and others, he was to perform deeds of daring which as such are not unworthy to be ranked alongside the achievements of the great Elizabethan seamen. But he differed from Drake in one important respect. The Elizabethan was severe even to harshness, but he was a more humane being than Morgan. All the wonderful things which the Welshman performed are overshadowed by his cruel, brutish atrocities. In a cruel, inhuman age Morgan unhappily stands out as one of the wickedest sailors of his time. And yet, although we live in an epoch which is somewhat prone to white-washing the world’s most notorious criminals, yet we must modify the popular judgment which prevails in regard to Morgan. To say that he was a pirate and nothing else is not accurate. At heart he certainly was this. But as Sir John Laughton, our greatest modern naval historian has already pointed out, he attacked only those who were the recognised enemies of England.

I admit that in practice, especially in the case of men of such piratical character as Henry Morgan, the difference between privateering and piracy is very slight. The mere possession of a permission to capture the ships belonging to other people is nothing compared to a real sea-robbing intention. Morgan was lucky in having been required for a series of certain peculiar emergencies. His help happened at the time to be indispensable, and so he was able to do legally what otherwise he would have done illegally. All those seizures were legalised by the commission which he was granted at various times. But this is not to say that without those commissions he would not have acted in a somewhat similar manner.

We are accustomed to speak of Morgan and his associates as buccaneers. Now let us understand at once the meaning of this term. Originally the word meant one who dried and smoked meat on a “boucan.” A “boucan” was a hurdle made of sticks on which strips of beef newly salted were smoked by the West Indians. But the name of buccaneers was first given to the French hunters of S. Domingo, who prepared their meat according to this Indian custom. From the fact that these men who so prepared the flesh of oxen and wild boars were also known for another characteristic, namely, piracy, the name was applied in its widest sense to those English and French sea-rovers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who employed their time in depredating Spanish ships and territory of the Caribbean Sea. Hence from signifying a man who treated his food in a certain fashion, the word buccaneer came to mean nothing more or less than a robber of the sea.

After young Morgan had finished his time in service at Barbados, he joined himself to these buccaneer-robbers after arriving at Jamaica. It should be added that Morgan’s uncle, Colonel Edward Morgan, went out from England in 1664 to become Governor-General of Jamaica, but his death occurred in the following year. There are gaps in Morgan’s life, and there has been some confusion caused by others possessing the same surname. But it appears pretty certain now that in the year 1663 Henry Morgan was at sea in command of a privateer. Even by this time he had begun to be an expert in depredation and in sacking some of the Caribbean towns, and striking terror into the hearts of the wretched inhabitants. We may pass over these minor events and come to the time when, his uncle having died, Sir Thomas Modyford was sent out from England as Lieutenant-Governor. Bear in mind that intense hatred of the Spanish prevailing at this time, and which had not been by any means quenched by the defeat of the Armada. To put it mildly, the Caribbean Sea was an Anglo-Spanish cockpit where many and many a fight had taken, and was still to take, place. Modyford wanted the island of Curaçoa to be taken, and there was then no better man to do the job than a very celebrated buccaneer named Edward Mansfield. Sir Thomas therefore commissioned Mansfield to seize this island. He got together a strong naval expedition and accomplished the task early in the year 1666, Henry Morgan being in command of one of Mansfield’s ships.

Off the Nicaraguan coast lies an island which has been called at different times Santa Catalina or Providence Island. This had been taken from the English by the Spaniards more than twenty years before, and Morgan was also present when Mansfield now recaptured it. A small garrison was left to occupy it, and Mansfield returned with his ships to Jamaica. But before long Santa Catalina fell again into the hands of the Spaniards, and Mansfield died. It is now that Morgan’s career begins to come into the limelight. For after Mansfield’s decease the buccaneers, bereft of their leader, thought the matter over and decided to make Morgan his successor, and the commissions which Mansfield had been accustomed to receive from Modyford now fell to the Welshman.

The first of these duties occurred when Modyford became aware of a rumour that the Spaniards were contemplating an invasion of Jamaica. It was nothing more than a rumour, but, as governor, he desired to find out the truth. He therefore despatched Morgan to ascertain the facts. He was directed to get ten ships together and to carry 500 men in this fleet. The ships gathered on the south side of Cuba and then, having accomplished their voyage, Morgan landed his men and found that the people had fled from the coast, driving all their cattle away. Morgan marched inland, plundered the town of Puerto Principe, and then was able to send information to Modyford that considerable forces were being collected and that an expedition against Jamaica was, in truth, being planned. He had fulfilled his commission as instructed.

His next big achievement occurred when he sailed to the mainland in order to attack Porto Bello, where levies were being made to attack Jamaica. Several Englishmen were known also to be confined here in grim dungeons. And if any further incentive were required, this would certainly rouse the ire and sharpen the keenness of Morgan and his men. Porto Bello relied for its defence on three forts, and it was likely to be no easy work to compel these to yield. But Morgan succeeded in his object, and this is how he went to work: Arrived in the vicinity of Porto Bello, he left his ships and, under the cover of night, proceeded towards the shore with his men in about two dozen canoes. By three o’clock in the morning his force had crept into the shore and landed. The first fort was assaulted by the aid of ladders, and the garrison was slaughtered. So, too, the second fort was attacked. Hither the Spanish governor had betaken himself. For a time it offered a stout resistance, but Morgan had a number of ladders so made that they were wide enough to allow several men to climb up abreast of each other. By this means the castle walls were overcome, the castle itself taken, and the governor slain. The third fort surrendered, the town was sacked, and then, for over a fortnight, the buccaneers indulged themselves as was their wont in debauchery. I have no intention of suggesting the details either of these excesses nor of the abominable tortures to which the inhabitants were now subjected in order to compel them to reveal the places where their treasures were hidden. Not even the most unprincipled admirer of the buccaneers could honestly find it possible to defend Morgan and his associates against the most serious charges on the ground of common justice.

Morgan may not have been any worse than some of his contemporaries at heart, but whatever else he was, he was an unmerciful tyrant. As for his enemies, we cannot regard them with much admiration either. This Dago crowd were morally not much better than the Welshman, and though sometimes they put up a good fight, they were too often cowards. In this present instance they adopted that futile and weak plan of buying off the aggressor. You will remember that, unfortunately, our ancestors adopted this plan many hundreds of years ago when they sought to ward off the Viking depredators by buying peace. It was a foolish and an ineffectual method both then and in the seventeenth century in the case of Morgan. For what else does such an action mean than a confession of inferiority? Peace at this price is out of all proportion to the ultimate value obtained, and the condition is merely a temptation to the aggressor to come back for more. Stripped of any technicality, Morgan blackmailed these Panamanians to the extent of 100,000 pieces of eight, and 300 negroes. On these conditions, which were agreed upon, he consented to withdraw. So, very well rewarded for his trouble, Morgan returned joyfully to Jamaica, and for some time the buccaneers were able to indulge themselves in the pleasures which this booty was capable of affording them.

You will generally find that a buccaneer, a highwayman, a gambler, a smuggler or any kind of pirate by land or by sea is a spendthrift. There are certainly exceptions, but this is the rule. A man who knows that he can easily get more money when he runs short shows no reserve in spending, provided it affords him gratification. So with these buccaneers. At length they came to the end of their resources and were ready to go forth again. It is true that Modyford had been in two minds after Morgan’s return from Porto Bello. He rejoiced at the success of his arms, but he was nervous of the consequences. The Welshman had certainly exceeded his commission, and there might be trouble, as a result, at headquarters.

And yet there was work to be done, and Morgan was the only man who could do it. So once more Modyford had to commission him to carry out hostilities against the Spaniards. To the eastward of Jamaica lies the island of S. Domingo, or as it was known in those days, Hispaniola. If you were to examine a chart of Hispaniola you would see in the south-west corner a bay and a small island. The latter is known as Vache Island. This was to be the meeting-place where Morgan was now to collect his ships. Apart from being a good anchorage, it was a convenient starting-place if one wished to attack either the mainland of Central America or Cuba. In the present instance the objective was in the latter. The ships got under way, Morgan arrived at the scene of operations, and positively ravaged the Cuban Coast, again striking terror wherever he went. But, important as this was, it is not to be reckoned alongside the achievement which he performed in the early part of 1669.

On the north coast of South America is a wide gulf which opens out into the Caribbean Sea. But as this gulf extends southward, the shores on either side narrow so closely that the shape resembles the neck of a bottle. The town here is named Maracaibo. But a little distance still farther south the shores on either side recede considerably like the lower portion of a bottle, and there extends a vast lagoon which takes its name from the town mentioned. It is obvious to any one that the strategical point is at the neck. And when I mention that here the navigation was both tricky and shallow, and that the channel was protected by a strong castle, the reader will instantly appreciate that any one who tried to bring his ships into the lake would have a very difficult task.

Now in the month of March, Morgan, with eight ships and 500 men, had arrived off this entrance. With great daring and dogged determination he was able to force his way in through this narrow entrance. He not only dismantled the fort, but he sacked the town of Maracaibo in his own ruthless manner; then he followed up his attack by scouring the neighbouring woods, and put the captured and terrified inhabitants to cruel tortures in order to compel them to reveal the hiding-places of their valuables. He captured many a prisoner and at length, very well satisfied with his success, after the lapse of three weeks decided to advance still farther. He had got his ships through the most difficult portion, and now he intended to navigate the lagoon itself.

At length he arrived at a town called by the inhabitants Gibraltar, after the European place of that name. Here Morgan again satiated himself with plunder, with cruelties and with debauchery until the time came for him to take his ships away with all the booty they could carry. But the serious news reached them that awaiting them off the entrance to the gulf were three Spanish men-of-war. Still more serious was the information that the castle at Maracaibo had now been efficiently manned and armed. That was more than awkward, for without the permission of the fort it was quite impossible for his ships to make their exit in safety. The situation would have puzzled many a fine strategist. Here was the buccaneer positively trapped with no means of escape.

But Morgan was quite equal to the occasion, and he set to work. His first object was to gain time, and so he began by opening negotiations with the Spanish Admiral Don Alonso del Campo y Espinosa. He knew these negotiations would prove fruitless, as indeed they did. But in the meantime Morgan had been busily employing his men in getting ready a fireship. In our modern days of steel hulls, fireships play no part in naval tactics, but in the time of oak and hemp this mode of aggression continued till very late. The fireship would first be filled with combustible material, and then released, the wind or current taking her down on to the enemy’s ships. The grapnel irons projecting from her side would foul the enemy, and it would be no easy matter to thrust the fireship off until she had done considerable damage by conflagration. This method of warfare was one of the oldest tactics in the history of naval fighting. It was successful over and over again, and the reader can well imagine that the sight of a flaming ship rapidly approaching a fleet of anchored ships with the tide was really terrifying. And even if the attacked ships were under way and not brought up it made little difference: for the flames would immediately set on fire a ship’s sails, and the tarred rigging would soon be ablaze, rendering the attacked ship disabled.

Of course it was possible at times for a fleet under way so to manœuvre as to get out of the direction towards which the fire-vessel was travelling. But Morgan was up to every eventuality. The fireship he disguised as a man-of-war, and she was not yet set alight. With this craft looking just like one of his own he took his fleet to look for the Spanish men-of-war. On the 1st of May he found them just within the entrance to the lagoon. He now made straight for them, and setting the fireship alight when quite near, sent her right alongside the Spanish flagship, a vessel of 40 guns. The latter was too late to shake her off, burst into flames and soon foundered. Another Spanish ship was so terror-stricken that her crew ran ashore, and she was burnt by her own men lest she should fall into the hands of the buccaneers. The third was captured after heavy slaughter. Some of the Spaniards succeeded in swimming ashore, among whom was the Admiral Don Alonso himself.

Morgan was able to capture a number of prisoners, and from these men he learned tidings which must have sent a thrill of great joy through his avaricious mind. The sunken ship had gone down with 40,000 pieces of eight! So the buccaneer took steps to recover as much of this treasure as he could, and salved no less than 15,000, in addition to a quantity of melted silver. His next work was to have the prize-ship refitted, and her he adopted as his own flagship. So far, so good. But he was still in the lagoon, and the door of the trap was yet closed as before, although the enemy’s ships had been now disposed of. He again opened negotiations with Don Alonso, and it is surprisingly true that the latter actually paid Morgan the sum of 20,000 pieces of eight and 500 head of cattle as a ransom for Maracaibo. But, on the other hand, Don Alonso declined to demean himself by granting Morgan permission to take his ships out.

That, of course, set Morgan’s brain working. He was determined to put to sea, and it was only a question of stratagem. He therefore allowed the Spaniards to gain the impression that he was landing his men so as to attack the fort from the landward side. This caused the Spaniards to move the guns of the fort to that direction, leaving the seaward side practically unarmed. That was Morgan’s chance and he fully availed himself thereof. It was night-time and there was the moon to help him. He waited till the tide was ebbing, and then allowing his ships to drop down with the current he held on until he was off the fort, when he spread sail and before long was well on his way to the northward. It was a clever device for getting out of a very tight corner.

So he sailed over the Spanish Main with rich booty from Gibraltar, with 15,000 pieces of eight from the wreck, with another 20,000 from Alonso, with a new ship and other possessions. Certainly the voyage had been most fortunate and remunerative. He reached Jamaica in safety, but again Modyford was compelled to reprove him for having exceeded his commission. But the same thing happened as before. The Spaniards were becoming more and more aggressive towards the English in the West Indies, and it was essential that they should be given a severe lesson before worse events occurred. Morgan was the only man for the task, and he was now appointed commander-in-chief of the warships of the Jamaican station, and sent forth with full authority to seize and destroy all the enemy’s vessels that could be found. He was further to destroy all stores and magazines, and for his pay he was to have all the goods and merchandise which he could lay his hands on, his men being paid the customary share that was usual on buccaneering expeditions.

We find him, then, at the middle of August 1670, leaving Port Royal (now better known as Kingston), Jamaica, and as before his rendezvous was Vache Island. With this as his base he sent ships for several months to ravage Cuba and the mainland, and as usual “refreshed” himself, as an Elizabethan would have said, with the things he was in most need, such as provisions. But he was able also to obtain a great deal of valuable information, and at length sailed in a south-west direction till he came to that island of Santa Catalina which we mentioned earlier in this chapter as having been taken by the Spaniards. This he now recaptured, and thereafter he was to perform another wonderful feat. The object he had conceived was to capture Panama. It was another bold idea boldly carried out. First of all, then, he sent from Santa Catalina four of his ships, and a boat, and nearly 500 men, under the leadership of Captain Brodely. These, after a three days’ voyage, arrived off Chagres Castle, which is at the mouth of the River Chagres, not far from where the modern Panama Canal comes out. In a remarkably short time Brodely was able to capture this castle: and presently Morgan arrived with the rest of his expedition.

Having made security doubly sure, he proceeded inland, taking his ships up the River Chagres. But after he had gone some distance it was found that, through lack of rain, the river had dried considerably. He therefore left 200 men behind to hold the place, and with the rest of his forces he set out to march on foot. He did not hamper his expedition with provisions, as he trusted to obtain supplies from the inhabitants whose dwellings he passed. On the tenth day he had arrived at his destination. Before him lay Panama and the Pacific. But the Spaniards were there on the plain to meet his forces with a considerable strength, consisting of 3000 infantry and cavalry as well as some guns.

But the Spaniards had also ready a unique tactic which seems almost ludicrous. We have already referred slightly to the cattle, which were a feature of this region of the globe. The Spaniards decided to employ such in battle. So, between themselves and the English, they interposed a vast herd of wild bulls, which were driven on in the hope of breaking the English ranks. The wild stampede of creatures of this sort is not likely to make for order, but, like the boomerang on land and the ram in naval warfare, such a device is capable of being less damaging to the attacked than to the attacker. For, as it happened, many of these bulls were shot dead by the English, and the rest of the animals turned their heads round and made for the Spanish, trampling many of them under foot. The English gained the day; the Spaniards were put to flight, and although the buccaneers lost heavily, yet the other side had lost 600 dead. The city of Panama was captured early in the afternoon, and yet again Morgan scooped in an amazing amount of booty. There was the same series of tortures, of threats, and there was a total absence of anything noble-minded in the way Morgan went about his way, satisfying his greed for gold. But he had just missed one very big haul, and this annoyed him exceedingly. For when the Spaniards saw their men were being defeated, they sent to sea a Spanish galleon which was full of money, church plate and other valuables, worth far more than ever Morgan had obtained from what was left in Panama.

The expedition started on its return journey overland, and after twelve days arrived at Chagres. Here the great quantity of booty was divided up among the crews; but the men were not satisfied with their share, protested that they had been cheated of their full amount, and much discontent ensued. There can be little doubt but that this was so, and that Morgan had enriched himself at the expense of his men. However, he managed to slip away to his ship, followed by only a handful of his former fleet, and once again found himself in Jamaica. Here he received the formal thanks of the governor, but there was trouble brewing. For while Morgan had been away, a treaty had been signed at Madrid concerning Spanish America. It is true that Modyford had, in those days of slow communication, known nothing of it; but he was recalled, and he returned to England a prisoner to answer for his having supported and encouraged buccaneering. The following year Morgan was also sent to England in a frigate, but Charles II. took a great liking to this dare-devil, and in 1674 sent him back again to Jamaica, this time with the rank of Colonel and with the title of knighthood, to be not a buccaneer but Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica. If ever there was an instance of the ungodly flourishing, here it is. Fourteen years longer did Morgan continue to live in this island as a rich man possessing social prestige. It is true that he made a good governor, but although he had defeated Alonso, reduced Panama, made a clever escape from Maracaibo, taken Santa Catalina and been a veritable thorn in the side of the Spaniards, yet he had been a brute, and he died a brute. He was a blackmailer on a large scale, he was unmercifully a tyrant, and he was a profligate. It is only because he attacked the enemies of his own Government, and because he was lucky to obtain the commissions demanded by law, that he is prevented from being reckoned as a mere common pirate. But if there is honour among most thieves, what shall we say of Morgan’s dishonesty and harshness in cheating the very men who had fought under him of their fair share of plunder when the battle was won? It is, perhaps, hardly fair to judge even a Morgan except by the prevailing standard of his time. But those who care to look up the details of Morgan’s private life will find much to condemn even if there is something to admire in his exceptional cleverness and undoubted courage. The sea is a hard school and makes hard men harder, and in those days when might was right and every ocean more or less in a chaotic state of lawlessness, when poverty, or chance, or despair, or the irresistible longing for adventure drove men to become pirates, there was no living for a soft-hearted sailor. He had to fight or be fought: he had to swim with the tide, or else sink. The luckiest and cleverest became the worst terrors of the sea, while the least fortunate had either to submit to the strong or else end their days in captivity. Morgan having been kidnapped while young may have been driven to kidnap others by sea: or there may have been other causes at work. One thing, however, is certain: the world is not made the richer by the advent of such a man as this Welsh buccaneer.

CHAPTER XIII
“BLACK-BEARD” TEACH

The sea-rovers whom we know by the name of buccaneers had an origin somewhat similar to that of the Moslem corsairs of Barbary. The reader will not have forgotten that the latter, after being driven out of Spain, settled on the north coast of Africa, and then, after being instructed in the nautical arts by the seamen of different nationalities, rose to the rank of grand corsairs.

So, likewise, the buccaneers were at first inoffensive settlers in Hispaniola, but, after having been driven from their habitations by the Spaniards, developed an implacable hatred of the latter and devoted themselves to infesting the shores of Spanish America and intercepting ships on their way over the sea. And just as the Moslem corsairs were a mixture of several nations—English, Dutch, Levantine, Italian and so on—in like manner the company of buccaneers before long was made up of various European seamen from many a different port.

But among the English buccaneers a special place must be reserved for a Bristol seaman named Edward Teach, better known as “Black-Beard” Teach, just as we remember the great Moslem corsair was known as Red-Beard Uruj, or Barbarossa. Teach left the west of England, and having arrived at Jamaica shipped as one of the crew of a privateer during the French war, and was not long in showing that he was made of the right stuff of which those who rove the seas for booty are supposed to be. But it was not until a Captain Benjamin Hornigold gave him the command of a prize which he had taken that Teach began to have his full opportunity. In the spring of 1717 Hornigold and Teach sailed away from the West Indies for North America. Before they had reached their destination they had captured a vessel with 120 barrels of flour, which they distributed between their two vessels. A little later they seized two more vessels, from which they obtained a quantity of wine and treasure. The pirates next proceeded to the coast of Virginia, where they cleaned ship, and then, after these diversions, they captured a ship bound for Martinique.

Hornigold now returned with his prizes to the island of Providence, and presently surrendered himself to the King’s clemency. But Teach went about his business as an independent pirate now. The vessel in which he sailed was fitted with forty guns, and he named her The Queen Anne’s Revenge, and he began rapidly to accumulate wealth. One day, while cruising near the island of St. Vincent, he captured a large vessel called the Great Allan, pillaged her of what he fancied and then set her on fire. Only a few days later the Scarborough man-of-war hove in sight, and for several hours the two ships engaged. The former recognised that Teach was a pirate and was endeavouring to conquer him: but it is a fact that after a time the Scarborough, seeing she was not a match for The Queen Anne’s Revenge, deemed it better to retire from the contest, thus allowing Teach to resume his piratical profession.

He next found himself encountering a sloop, which was commanded by a Major Bonnet, and Teach and Bonnet agreed to throw in their lot together. But as “Black Beard” soon saw that Bonnet was inexperienced in naval matters the former gave the command of the sloop to one of the crew named Richards, whilst Bonnet transferred to the larger ship. And then the two craft went roaming over the seas with singular success. Indeed, were one to mention every ship that Teach captured, the reader would find the catalogue to be one of mere monotony. The pirate had but to give chase after a sail, hoist his black flag, and the fleeing ship would heave-to and surrender. But as I believe the reader would find it more interesting to become acquainted with the more interesting episodes rather than a complete list of every single engagement, I propose to confine myself to the former.

Teach cruised about the West Indies and off the southern portion of what are now the United States. He would anchor off Charleston (South Carolina), wait till an outward-bound ship emerged from the harbour, and then promptly seize her, or, just to vary matters, he would capture a couple of others as they were about to enter Charleston. The impudence of the man was amazing, and his audacity spread terror in the town and paralysed the trade of the port. No vessel dared to show her nose outside the harbour, and a whole fleet of ships was thus tied up inside unable to move. And then, like many of these pirates, Teach showed how remarkably clever and resourceful he was. By this time he had captured quite a large number of prisoners, and it became essential that medicine supplies should be procured by some means. To this end he had the remarkable impudence to demand a medicine-chest from the governor: and this request was made neither diplomatically nor even politely. He asked for it with consummate insolence. He sent some of his own crew ashore, together with several of the prisoners, demanding these medicinal stores, and it was made quite clear to the governor that if these were not forthcoming and a safe return made to the ships, every prisoner should instantly be put to death, and the captured ships burnt to ashes. Whilst these negotiations were being carried on by the little deputation of prisoners, the pirate’s crew were swaggering up and down the streets of Charleston, and not a hand dared to touch them.

The governor was in a dilemma and listened carefully to the insolent demand: but as he was anxious to prevent human carnage, he got together medicinal supplies to the value of over £300 and sent them aboard. But to show you what sort of a man Teach was, let it be said that as soon as the pirate obtained these goods and the safe return of his own men, he pillaged the captured vessels of all their gold and provisions, then put the prisoners back on their respective ships and set sail for North Carolina. On the way thither Teach began to consider how he could best secure the spoil for himself and a few of his especial friends among the crew, so he pretended that he was about to give his ship’s bottom a scrub and headed for the shore, where she grounded. He then called to the sloop to come to his assistance. This they attempted, but the sloop also took the ground badly and both ships became total wrecks. Teach then took the tender, put forty hands therein, had about half of them landed on a lonely sandy island three miles from the shore, “where there was neither bird nor beast nor herb for their subsistence.” Had it not been for Major Bonnet, who afterwards sent a long-boat for them, they would have died.

Meanwhile Teach, now very rich, with the rest of his crew, went and surrendered himself to the Governor of North Carolina. Why? Not for any other reason than in order to plan out bigger piracies. For he knew that the governor would succumb to bribery, and by this official’s influence a court of vice-admiralty was held and The Queen Anne’s Revenge condemned as a lawful prize and the legal property of Teach, although it was a well-known fact that she belonged to English merchants.

It was not long before Teach was at sea again, and setting a course for Bermudas he pillaged four or five English and French merchantmen, and brought one of the ships back to North Carolina, where he shared the prizes with the governor who had already obliged him. Teach also made an affidavit that he had found this French ship at sea with not a soul on board, so the court allowed him to keep her, and the governor received sixty hogsheads of sugar for his kindly assistance. Teach was very nervous lest some one might arrive in the harbour and prove that the pirate was lying, so on the excuse that this ship was leaky and likely to stop up the entrance to the harbour if she sank, permission was obtained from the governor to burn her, and when that had been done, her bottom was sunk so that she might never exist as a witness against him.

But the time came when the piracies of this Teach could no longer be endured. Skippers of trading craft had already lost so heavily that it was resolved to take concerted action. The skippers knew that the Governor of Virginia was an honourable man, and they laid the matter before him, begging that an armed force might be sent from the men-of-war to settle these infesting pirates. The governor consulted the men-of-war captains as to what had best be done, and it was decided to hire two small vessels which could pursue Black Beard into all those inlets and creeks which exist on the American coast. These were to be manned by men from the warships, and placed under the command of Lieutenant May. A proclamation was also issued offering a handsome reward to any who within a year should capture or destroy a pirate.

But before we go on to watch the exciting events with which this punitive expedition was concerned I want the reader to realise something more of the kind of pirate they were to chase. A few actual incidents will reveal his character better than many words. The story is told that on a certain night when Black Beard was drinking in his cabin with Israel Hands (who was master of The Queen Anne’s Revenge), the ship’s pilot and a fourth man, Teach suddenly took up a pair of pistols and cocked them underneath the table. When the fourth man perceived this, he went up on deck, leaving Teach, Hands and the pilot together. As soon as the pistols were ready, Teach blew out the light, crossed his arms and fired at the two men. The first pistol did not harm, but the other wounded Hands in the knee. When Teach was asked why he did this, he replied with an oath, “If I didn’t now and then kill one of you, you would forget who I was.”