Chapter VIII: Part II: The Petty Pirates (2)

At the beginning of the seventeenth century a notable change came over the tactics of the Corsairs: they built fewer galleys, and began to construct square-sailed ships. In Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli the dockyards teemed with workmen busily engaged in learning the new build; and the honour, if such it be, of having taught them rests apparently between England and Flanders. Simon Danser, the Flemish rover, taught the Algerines the fashion of "round ships," in 1606, and an Englishman seems to have rendered the same kind office to the people of Tunis, aided by a Greek renegade, Memi Reis; where, moreover, another English pirate, "Captain Wer," was found in congenial company at the Goletta by Monsieur de Breves, the French ambassador.[65] The causes of the change were twofold: first, Christian slaves were not always to be caught, and to hire rowers for the galleys was a ruinous expense; and secondly, the special service for which the smaller galleots and brigantines were particularly destined, the descents upon the Spanish coasts was to some degree obstructed by the final expulsion of the last of the Moors from Andalusia in 1610.[66] That stroke deprived the Corsairs of the ready guides and sympathisers who had so often helped them to successful raids, and larger vessels and more fighting men were needed if such descents were to be continued. Moreover, the Barbary rovers were ambitious to contend with their old enemies for golden treasure on the Spanish main itself; the science of navigation was fast developing; and they felt themselves as equal to venturing upon long cruises as any European nation. Now a long cruise is impossible in a galley, where you have some hundreds of rowers to feed, and where each pound of biscuit adds to the labour of motion; but sails have no mouths, and can carry along a great weight of provisions without getting tired, like human arms. So sails triumphed over oars. The day of the galley was practically over, and the epoch of the ship had dawned. As early as 1616 Sir Francis Cottington reported to the Duke of Buckingham that the sailing force of Algiers was exciting general alarm in Spain: "The strength and boldness of the Barbary pirates is now grown to that height, both in the ocean and the Mediterranean seas, as I have never known anything to have wrought a greater sadness and distraction in this Court than the daily advice thereof. Their whole fleet consists of forty sail of tall ships, of between two and four hundred tons a piece; their admiral [flagship] of five hundred. They are divided into two squadrons; the one of eighteen sail remaining before Malaga, in sight of the city; the other about the Cape of S. Maria, which is between Lisbon and Seville. That squadron within the straits entered the road of Mostil, a town by Malaga, where with their ordnance they beat down part of the castle, and had doubtless taken the town, but that from Granada there came soldiers to succour it; yet they took there divers ships, and among them three or four from the west part of England. Two big English ships they drove ashore, not past four leagues from Malaga; and after they got on shore also, and burnt them, and to this day they remain before Malaga, intercepting all ships that pass that way, and absolutely prohibiting all trade into those parts of Spain." The other squadron was doing the same thing outside the straits, and the Spanish fleet was both too small in number and too cumbrous in build to attack them successfully. Yet "if this year they safely return to Algiers, especially if they should take any of the fleet, it is much to be feared that the King of Spain's forces by sea will not be sufficient to restrain them hereafter, so much sweetness they find by making prize of all Christians whatsoever."

This dispatch shows that the Corsairs had speedily mastered the new manner of navigation, as might have been expected of a nation of sailors. They had long been acquainted with the great galleasse of Spain and Venice, a sort of compromise between the rowed galley and the sailing galleon; for it was too heavy to depend wholly on its oars (which by way of distinction were rowed under cover), and its great lateen sails were generally its motive power. The galleys themselves, moreover, had sails, though not square sails; and the seaman who can sail a ship on lateen sails soon learns the management of the square rig. The engravings on pp. 5, 11, 165, 197, and 227 sufficiently show the type of vessel that now again came into vogue, and which was known as a galleon, nave, polacca, tartana, barcone, caravel, caramuzel, &c., according to its size and country. The Turkish caramuzel or tartan, says Furttenbach, stands high out of the water, is strong and swift, and mounts eighteen or twenty guns and as many as sixty well-armed pirates. It is a dangerous vessel to attack. From its commanding height its guns can pour down so furious a fire upon a Christian craft that the only alternative to surrender is positive extirpation. If the enemy tries to sneak out of range below the level of fire, the Turks drop grenades from the upper decks and set the ship on fire, and even if the Christians succeeded in boarding, they find themselves in a trap: for though the ship's waist is indeed cleared of the enemy, the hurricane decks at poop and prow command the boarding party, and through loopholes in the bulwarks--as good a cover as a trench--a hail of grape pours from the guns, and seizing their opportunity the Turks rush furiously through the doors and take their opponents simultaneously in face and rear; and then comes a busy time for scimitar and pike. Or, when you are alongside, if you see the caramuzel's mainsail being furled, and something moving in the iron cage on the _gabia_ or maintop, know that a petard will soon be dropped in your midst from the main peak, and probably a heavy stone or bomb from the opposite end of the long lateen yard, where it serves the double purpose of missile and counterpoise. Now is the time to keep your distance, unless you would have a hole in your ship's bottom. The Corsairs, indeed, are very wily in attack and defence, acquainted with many sorts of projectiles,--even submarine torpedoes, which a diver will attach to the enemy's keel,--and they know how to serve their stern chasers with amazing accuracy and rapidity.[67]

With their newly-built galleons, the raids of the Corsairs became more extensive: they were no longer bounded by the Straits of Gibraltar, or a little outside; they pushed their successes north and south. In 1617 they passed the Straits with eight well-armed vessels and bore down upon Madeira, where they landed eight hundred Turks. The scenes that followed were of the usual character; the whole island was laid waste, the churches pillaged, the people abused and enslaved. Twelve hundred men, women, and children were brought back to Algiers, with much firing of guns, and other signals of joy, in which the whole city joined.

In 1627 Mur[=a]d--a German renegade--took three Algerine ships as far north as Denmark and Iceland, whence he carried off four hundred, some say eight hundred, captives; and, not to be outdone, his namesake Mur[=a]d Reis, a Fleming, in 1631, ravaged the English coasts, and passing over to Ireland, descended upon Baltimore, sacked the town, and bore away two hundred and thirty-seven prisoners, men, women, and children, even from the cradle. "It was a piteous sight to see them exposed for sale at Algiers," cries good Father Dan; "for then they parted the wife from the husband, and the father from the child; then, say I, they sell the husband here, and the wife there, tearing from her arms the daughter whom she cannot hope to see ever again."[68] Many bystanders burst into tears as they saw the grief and despair of these poor Irish.

As before, but with better confidence, they pursue their favourite course in the Levant, and cruise across the Egyptian trade route, where are to be caught ships laden with the products of Cairo and San'a and Bombay; and lay-to at the back of Cyprus to snare the Syrian and Persian goods that sail from Scander[=u]n; and so home, with a pleasant raid along the Italian coasts, touching perhaps at an island or two to pick up slaves and booty, and thus to the mole of Algiers and the welcome of their mates; and this in spite of all the big ships of Christendom, "_qu'ils ne cessent de troubler, sans que tant de puissantes galeres et tant de bons navires que plusieurs Princes Chrestiens tiennent dans leur havres leur donnent la chasse, si ce ne sont les vaisseaux de Malte ou de Ligorne_."[69] And since 1618, when the Janissaries first elected their own Pasha, and practically ignored the authority of the Porte, the traditional fellowship with France, the Sultan's ally, had fallen through, and French vessels now formed part of the Corsairs' quarry. Between 1628 and 1634, eighty French ships were captured, worth, according to the reises' valuation, 4,752,000 livres, together with 1,331 slaves. The King of France must have regretted even the days when Barbarossa wintered at Toulon, so great was the plague of the sea-rovers and apparently so hopeless the attempt to put them down.

FOOTNOTES:

[65] Dan, Bk. III., ch. iv., p. 273-5, 280.

[66] See the _Story of the Moors in Spain_, 279.

[67] Furttenbach, _Architectura Navalis_, 107-110.

[68] Dan, _Hist. de Barbarie_, 277.

[69] Dan, _l. c._, 278.

XVIII.

THE REDEMPTION OF CAPTIVES.

17th and 18th Centuries.

When galleys went out of fashion, and "round ships" took their place, it may be supposed that the captivity of Christian slaves diminished. In reality, however, the number of slaves employed on the galleys was small compared with those who worked on shore. If the Spanish historian be correct in his statement that at the close of the sixteenth century the Algerines possessed but thirty-six galleys and galleots, (the brigantines were not rowed by slaves,) with a total of twelve hundred oars, even allowing three men to an oar, which is excessive for some of the Corsairs' light galleots, the number of slaves is but three thousand six hundred. But in 1634 Father Dan found twenty-five thousand Christian slaves in the city of Algiers and roundabout, without counting eight thousand renegades, and so far was the fleet from being diminished (except that there were few galleys) that the priest reckoned no less than seventy sailing cruisers, from large thirty-five and forty-gun ships, to ordinary galleons and polaccas; and on August 7th he himself saw twenty-eight of the best of them sail away in quest of Norman and English ships, which usually came to Spain at that season to take in wine, oil, and spices. He adds that Tunis had then but fourteen polaccas; Sal[=e] thirty very swift caravels, drawing little water on account of the harbour bar; and Tripoli but seven or eight, owing to the vigilance of the Knights of Malta. Altogether, the whole Barbary fleet numbered one hundred and twenty sailing ships, besides about twenty-five galleys and brigantines.

(_Dan, Hist. de Barbarie, 1637._)]

(_Dan, Hist. de Barbarie, 1637._)]

Father Dan draws a miserable picture of the captives' life ashore. Nothing of course could equal the torment of the galley-slaves, but the wretchedness of the shore-slaves was bad enough. When they were landed they were driven to the Besist[=a]n or slave-market, where they were put up to auction like the cattle which were also sold there; walked up and down by the auctioneer to show off their paces; and beaten if they were lazy or weary or seemed to "sham." The purchasers were often speculators who intended to sell again,--"bought for the rise," in fact; and "Christians are cheap to day" was a business quotation, just as though they had been stocks and shares. The prettiest women were generally shipped to Constantinople for the Sultan's choice; the rest were heavily chained and cast into vile dungeons in private houses till their work was allotted them, or into the large prisons or bagnios, of which there were then six in Algiers, each containing a number of cells in which fifteen or sixteen slaves were confined. Every rank and quality of both sexes might be seen in these wretched dens, gentle and simple, priest and laic, merchant and artisan, lady and peasant-girl, some hopeful of ransom, others despairing ever to be free again. The old and feeble were set to sell water; laden with chains, they led a donkey about the streets and doled out water from the skin upon his back; and an evil day it was when the poor captive did not bring home to his master the stipulated sum. Others took the bread to the bake-house and fetched it back in haste, for the Moors love hot loaves. Some cleaned the house, (since Mohammedans detest dirt,) whitened the walls, washed the clothes, and minded the children; others took the fruit to market, tended the cattle, or laboured in the fields, sometimes sharing the yoke of the plough with a beast of burden. Worst of all was the sore labour of quarrying stone for building, and carrying it down from the mountains to the shore.

Doubtless Father Dan made the worst of the misery he saw: it was not to the interest of the owners to injure their slaves, who might be ransomed or re-sold, and, at any rate, were more valuable in health than in weakness and disease. The worst part of captivity was not the physical toil and blows, but the mental care, the despair of release, the carking ache of proud hearts set to slave for taskmasters. Cruelty there certainly was, as even so staunch an apologist for the Moors as Joseph Morgan admits, but it can hardly have been the rule; and the report of another French priest who visited Algiers and other parts of Barbary in 1719 does not bear out Dan's statements: nor is there any reason to believe that the captives were worse treated in 1634 than in 1719.[70] The latter report, with some of Morgan's comments, may be summarized thus[71]:--

The slaves at Algiers are not indeed so unhappy as those in the hands of the mountain Moors. The policy of those in power, the interests of individuals, and the more sociable disposition of the townspeople, make their lot in general less rigorous: still they are slaves, hated for their religion, overtaxed with work, and liable to apostasy. They are of two sorts: Beylik or Government slaves, and those belonging to private persons. When a Corsair has taken a prize and has ascertained, by the application of the bastinado, the rank or occupation and proficiency of the various captives, he brings them before the governor to be strictly examined as to their place in the captured vessel, whether passengers or equipage: if the former, they are claimed by their consuls, who attend the examination, and as a rule they are set free; but if they served on board the ship for pay they are enslaved. Drawn up in a row, one in eight is chosen by the Dey for his own share, and he naturally selects the best workmen, and the surgeons and ship's masters, who are at once sent to the Government bagnio. The rest are to be divided equally between the owners and the equipage, and are taken to the Besist[=a]n and marched up and down by the _dell[=a]ls_ or auctioneers, to the time of their merits and calling, till the highest bid is reached. This is, however, a merely formal advance, for the final sale must take place at the Dey's palace, whither the captives and their would-be purchasers now resort. The second auction always realizes a much higher sum than the first; but the owners and equipage are only permitted to share the former price, while, by a beautifully simple process, the whole difference between the first and second sales goes absolutely to the Government.

The Government slaves wear an iron ring on one ankle, and are locked up at night in the bagnios, while by day they do all the heavy work of the city, as cleaning, carrying, and quarrying stone. Their rations are three loaves a day. Some have been seen to toil in chains. They have nevertheless their privileges; they have no work to do on Fridays, and they are at free liberty to play, work, or steal for themselves every day for about three hours before sunset, and Morgan adds that they do steal with the coolest impunity, and often sell the stolen goods back to the owners, who dare not complain. Sometimes the Dey sends them to sea, when they are allowed to retain part of the spoil; and others are permitted to keep taverns for renegades and the general riff-raff, both of Turks and Christians, to carouze in. Sometimes they may save enough to re-purchase their freedom, but it often happened that a slave remained a slave by preference, sooner than return to Europe and be beggared, and many of them were certainly better off in slavery at Algiers, where they got a blow for a crime, than in Europe, where their ill-deeds would have brought them to the wheel, or at least the halter.

There were undoubtedly instances, however, of unmitigated barbarity in the treatment of prisoners. For example, the Redemptionists relate the sufferings of four Knights of Malta--three of them French gentlemen, and one from Lucca--who were taken captive at the siege of Oran in 1706, and taken to Algiers. Here they were thrust into the Government prison, along with other prisoners and slaves, to the number of two thousand. Faint with the stench, they were removed to the Kasaba or Castle, where they remained two years. News was then brought that the galleys of Malta had captured the _capitana_ or flagship of Algiers, with six hundred and fifty Turks and Moors aboard, besides Christian slaves, to say nothing of killed and wounded: whereupon, furiously incensed, the Dey sent the imprisoned knights to the castle dungeon, and loaded them with chains weighing 120 lbs.; and there they remained, cramped with the irons, in a putrid cavern swarming with rats and other vermin. They could hear the people passing in the street without, and they clanked their chains if so be they might be heard, but none answered. At last their condition came to the ears of the French consul, who threatened like penalties to Turkish prisoners in Malta unless the knights were removed; and the Dey, on this, lightened their chains by half, and put them in a better room. There these unhappy gentlemen remained for eight long years more, save only at the great festivals of the Church, when they were set free to join in the religious rites at the French consulate; and once they formed a strange and sad feature in the wedding festivities of the consul, when they assumed their perukes and court-dresses for the nonce, only to exchange them again for the badge of servitude when the joyful moment of liberty was over. Their treatment grew worse as time wore on; they were made even to drag trucks of stone, these knights of an heroic Order; and hopeless of obtaining so large a sum as nearly $40,000, which was demanded for their ransom, they managed to file their chains and escape to the shore. But there, to their dismay, the ship they expected was not to be seen, and they took refuge with a _marabut_ or saint. Much to his credit, this worthy Moslem used his vast spiritual influence for their protection, and the Dey spared their lives. At last, by the joint efforts of their friends and the Redemptionists, these poor gentlemen were ransomed and restored to their own country.[72]

Among those who endured captivity in Algiers was one whom genius has placed among the greatest men of all time. In 1575, Cervantes[73] was returning from Naples--after serving for six years in the regiment of Figueroa, and losing the use of his left arm at Lepanto--to revisit his own country; when his ship _El Sol_ was attacked by several Corsair galleys commanded by Arnaut Memi; and, after a desperate resistance, in which Cervantes took a prominent part, was forced to strike her colours. Cervantes thus became the captive of a renegade Greek, one Deli Memi, a Corsair reis, who, finding upon him letters of recommendation from persons of the highest consequence, Don John of Austria among them, concluded that he was a prisoner of rank, for whom a heavy ransom might be asked. Accordingly the future author of _Don Quixote_ was loaded with chains and harshly treated, to make him the more anxious to be ransomed. The ransom, however, was slow in coming, and meanwhile the captive made several daring, ingenious, but unsuccessful attempts to escape, with the natural consequences or stricter watch and greater severities. At last, in the second year of his captivity, he was able to let his friends know of his condition; whereupon his father strained every resource to send a sufficient sum to release Miguel, and his brother Rodrigo, who was in the like plight. The brother was set free, but Cervantes himself was considered too valuable for the price.

With the help of his liberated brother he once more concerted a plan of escape. In a cavern six miles from Algiers, where he had a friend, he concealed by degrees forty or fifty fugitives, chiefly Spanish gentlemen, and contrived to supply them with food for six months, without arousing suspicion. It was arranged that a Spanish ship should be sent by his brother to take off the dwellers in the cave, whom Cervantes now joined. The ship arrived; communications were already opened; when some fishermen gave the alarm; the vessel was obliged to put to sea; and, meanwhile, the treachery of one of the captives had revealed the whole plot to Hasan Pasha, the Viceroy, who immediately sent a party of soldiers to the cavern. Cervantes, with his natural chivalry, at once came to the front and took the whole blame upon himself. Surprised at this magnanimity, the Viceroy--who is described in _Don Quixote_ as "the homicide of all human kind"[74]--sent for him, and found him as good as his word. No threats of torture or death could extort from him a syllable which could implicate any one of his fellow-captives. His undaunted manner evidently overawed the Viceroy, for instead of chastizing he purchased Cervantes from his master for five hundred gold crowns.

Nothing could deter this valiant spirit from his designs upon freedom. Attempt after attempt had failed, and still he tried again. Once he was very near liberty, when a Dominican monk betrayed him; even then he might have escaped, if he would have consented to desert his companions in the plot: but he was Cervantes. He was within an ace of execution, thanks to his own chivalry, and was kept for five months in the Moor's bagnio, under strict watch, though without blows--no one ever struck him during the whole of his captivity, though he often stood in expectation of impalement or some such horrible death. At last, in 1580, just as he was being taken off, laden with chains, to Constantinople, whither Hasan Pasha had been recalled, Father Juan Gil effected his ransom for about L100 of English money of the time, and Miguel de Cervantes, after five years of captivity, was once more free. As has been well said, if _Don Quixote_ and all else of his had never been written, "the proofs we have here of his greatness of soul, constancy, and cheerfulness, under the severest of trials which a man could endure, would be sufficient to ensure him lasting fame."[75]

(_Dan, Hist. de Barbarie, 1637._)]

Slavery in private houses, shops, and farms, was tolerable or intolerable according to the character and disposition of the master and of the slaves. Some were treated as members of the family, save in their liberty, as is the natural inclination of Moslems towards the slaves of their own religion; others were cursed and beaten, justly or unjustly, and lived a dog's life. Those who were supposed to be able to pay a good ransom were for a time especially ill-treated, in the hope of compelling them to send for their money. Escape was rare: the risk was too great, and the chances too small.

Thousands of Christian slaves meant tens of thousand of Christian sympathisers, bereaved parents and sisters, sorrowing children and friends; and it is easy to imagine what efforts were made to procure the release of their unhappy relatives in captivity. At first it was extremely difficult to open negotiations with the Corsairs; but when nation after nation appointed consuls to watch over their interests at Algiers and Tunis, there was a recognized medium of negotiation of which the relations took advantage. As will presently be seen, the office of consul in those days carried with it little of the power or dignity that becomes it now, and the efforts of the consul were often abortive.

There were others than consuls, however, to help in the good work. The freeing of captives is a Christian duty, and at the close of the twelfth century Jean de Matha, impressed with the unhappy fate of the many Christians who languished in the lands of the infidels, founded the "Order of the Holy Trinity and Redemption of Captives." The convent of S. Mathurin at Paris was immediately bestowed upon the Order, another was built at Rome on the Coelian Hill, another called Cerfroy near Meaux, and others in many countries, even as far as the Indies. Pope Innocent the Third warmly supported the pious design, and wrote a Latin letter recommending the Redemptionists to the protection of the Emperor of Morocco: it was addressed, _Illustri Miramomolin, Regi Marochetanorum_. Matha's first voyage (1199) brought back one hundred and eighty-six captives, and in succeeding generations some twenty thousand slaves were rescued by the good fathers, who, clad in their white robes, with the blue and red cross on the breast--three colours symbolical of the Three Persons--fearlessly confronted the Corsairs and bartered for the captives' ransom.

Father Pierre Dan and his colleagues of the Order of the Redemption set out from Marseilles, in 1634, in the suite of Sanson le Page, premier herald of France, and conversant in the Turkish tongue, to arrange for the exchange of captives.[76] Some Turks confined in the galleys at Marseilles were to be released in return for the freeing of the three hundred and forty-two Frenchmen who were in captivity in Algiers. The good father's views upon the origin of the Corsairs were very pronounced. He held that they were descended from Ham, the traitor, and were inheritors of the curse of the patriarch Noah; further, that they were the cruellest of all the unnatural monsters that Africa has bred, the most barbarous of mankind, pests of the human race, tyrants over the general liberty, and the wholesale murderers of innocent blood. He did not stop to examine into the condition of the galley-slaves in the ports of his own France, or to inquire whether the word Corsair applied to Moslems alone.

On July 15, 1634, Sanson and the priests arrived at Algiers. A full divan was being held, and the Pasha received them courteously, despite their obstinate refusal to dip the French flag to his crescent. They were forced, in deference to the universal custom at Algiers, to surrender their rudder and oars, not so much to prevent their own unauthorized departure, as to remove the temptation of Christian captives making their escape in the vessel. Orders were given that every respect was to be paid to the envoy's party on pain of decapitation. Rooms were prepared for them in the house of the agent who represented the coral fisheries of the neighbouring Bastion de France; and here Father Dan made an altar, celebrated Mass, and heard confession of the captives. Two days after their arrival, a new Pasha appeared from Constantinople: he was met by two state-galleys, and saluted by the fifteen hundred guns in the forts and the forty galleys in the harbour. The Aga of the Janissaries, and the Secretary of State, with a large suite of officers, drummers, and fifes, received him on his landing with a deafening noise. The new Pasha, who was robed in white, then mounted a splendid barb, richly caparisoned with precious stones and silk embroidery, and rode to the palace, whence he sent the French envoy a present of an ox, six sheep, twenty-four fowls, forty-eight hot loaves, and six dozen wax candles; to which the Sieur le Page responded with gold and silver watches, scarlet cloth, and rich brocades.

Despite these civilities, the negotiations languished; and finally, after three months of fruitless endeavours, the Mission left "this accursed town" in such haste that they never even looked to see if the wind would serve them, and consequently soon found themselves driven by a Greek Levant, or east wind, to Majorca; then across to Buj[=e]ya, which was no longer a place of importance or of piracy, since the Algerines had concentrated all their galleys at their chief port; and then sighted Bona, which showed traces of the invasion of 1607, when six Florentine galleys, commanded by French gentlemen, had seized the fort, made mincemeat of the unfortunate garrison, and carried off eighteen hundred men, women, and children to Leghorn. At last, with much toil, they reached La Calle, the port of the Bastion de France, a fine castle built by the merchants of Marseilles in 1561 for the protection of the valuable coral fisheries, and containing two handsome courts of solid masonry, and a population of four hundred French people. Sanson Napolon had been governor here, but he was killed in an expedition to Tabarka; Le Page accordingly appointed a lieutenant, and then the Mission returned to Marseilles, without results. The fathers, however, soon afterwards sailed for Tunis, whence they brought back forty-two French captives, with whom they made a solemn procession, escorted by all the clergy of Marseilles, and sang a triumphant _Te Deum_, the captives marching joyfully beside them, each with an illustrative chain over his shoulder.

This is but one example of a long course of determined efforts of the Redemptionists (to say nothing of Franciscans and Dominicans) to rescue their unhappy countrymen. In 1719 Father Comelin and others brought away ninety-eight Frenchmen,[77] and similar expeditions were constantly being made. The zeal of the Order was perhaps narrow: we read that when they offered to pay 3,000 pieces for three French captives, and the Dey voluntarily threw in a fourth without increasing the price, they refused the addition because he was a Lutheran. Nevertheless, they worked much good among the Catholic prisoners, established hospitals and chapels in various parts of the Barbary coast, and many a time suffered the penalty of their courage at the hands of a merciless Dey, who would sometimes put them to a cruel death in order to satisfy his vengeance for some reverse sustained by his troops or ships from the forces of France. Catholic, and especially French, captives at least had cause to be grateful to the Fathers of the Redemption. Those of the Northern nations fared worse: they had no powerful, widespread Church organization to help them, their rulers took little thought of their misery, and their tears and petitions went unregarded for many a long year.

FOOTNOTES:

[70] If one may draw an analogy from Morocco, the Christian slaves there appear to have been well treated in 1728, certainly better than the renegades. They had a Christian Alcaid, were allowed to keep taverns, and were lodged in a tolerable inn, where the Moslems were not allowed to come near them; they were nursed when sick by Spanish friars (who paid the Emperor of Morocco for the privilege of curing his slaves); and many of them amassed fortunes, and kept servants and mules. At least so says Braithwaite, _Hist. of the Rev. in Morocco_, 343 ff.

[71] This is the standard account of Christian slavery under the Corsairs. It is contained in the anonymous work entitled _Several Voyages to Barbary_, &c., [translated and annotated by J. Morgan,] second ed., London, Oliver Payne, &c., 1736. It is singular that although Sir R. Lambert Playfair's account of the slaves in his _Scourge of Christendom_ (1884) p. 9 ff. is practically taken verbatim from this work, there is not a word to show his indebtedness. The name of Joseph Morgan is never mentioned in the _Scourge of Christendom_, though the author was clearly indebted to him for various incidents, and among others for a faultily copied letter (p. 35) from the well-known ambassador Sir Francis Cottington (whom Sir R. L. Playfair calls Cotting_ham_). A good many errors in the _Scourge of Christendom_ are due to careless copying of unacknowledged writers: such as calling Joshua Bushett of the Admiralty, "Mr. Secretary Bushell," or Sir John Stuart, "Stewart," or eight bells "eight boats," or Sir Peter Denis, "Sir Denis," or misreckoning the ships of Sir R. Mansell's expedition, or turning San Lucar into "St. Lucas."

[72] _Several Voyages_, 58-65.

[73] This brief account of Cervantes' captivity is abridged from my friend Mr. H. E. Watts's admirable Life, prefixed to his translation of _Don Quixote_. The main original authority on the matter is Haedo, who writes on the evidence of witnesses who knew Cervantes in Algiers, and who one and all spoke with enthusiasm and love of his courage and patience, his good humour and unselfish devotion (Watts, i. 76, 96).

[74] _Don Quixote_, I., chap. xl. (Watts): "Every day he hanged a slave; impaled one; cut off the ears of another; and this upon so little animus, or so entirely without cause, that the Turks would own he did it merely for the sake of doing it, and because it was his nature."

[75] H. E. Watts, _Life of Cervantes_, prefixed to his translation of _Don Quixote_, i. 96.

[76] _Histoire de Barbarie et de ses Corsaires_, par le R. P. Fr. Pierre Dan, Ministre et Superieur du Convent de la Sainte Trinite et Redemption des Captifs, fonde au Chasteau de Fontaine-bleau, et Bachelier en Theologie, de la Faculte de Paris.

A Paris, chez Pierre Rocolet, Libraire et Imprimeur ord^{re} du Roy, au Palais, aux Armes du Roy et de la Ville. Avec Privilege de sa Majeste. 1637.

[77] _Several Voyages to Barbary_, second ed., Lond., 1736.

XIX.

THE ABASEMENT OF EUROPE.

16th to 18th Centuries.

It is not too much to say that the history of the foreign relations of Algiers and Tunis is one long indictment, not of one, but of all the maritime Powers of Europe, on the charge of cowardice and dishonour. There was some excuse for dismay at the powerful armaments and invincible seamanship of Barbarossa or the fateful ferocity of Dragut; but that all the maritime Powers should have cowered and cringed as they did before the miserable braggarts who succeeded the heroic age of Corsairs, and should have suffered their trade to be harassed, their lives menaced, and their honour stained by a series of insolent savages, whose entire fleet and army could not stand for a day before any properly generalled force of a single European Power, seems absolutely incredible, and yet it is literally true.

Policy and pre-occupation had of course much to say to this state of things. Policy induced the French to be the friends of Algiers until Spain lost her menacing supremacy; and even later, Louis XIV. is said to have remarked, "If there were no Algiers, I would make one." Policy led the Dutch to ally themselves with the Algerines early in the seventeenth century, because it suited them to see the lesser trading States preyed upon. Policy sometimes betrayed England into suffering the indignities of subsidizing a nest of thieves, that the thieving might be directed against her enemies. Pre-occupation in other struggles--our own civil war, the Dutch war, the great Napoleonic war--may explain the indifference to insult or patience under affront which had to be displayed during certain periods. But there were long successions of years when no such apology can be offered, when no cause whatever can be assigned for the pusillanimity of the governments of Europe but sheer cowardice, the definite terror of a barbarous Power which was still believed to possess all the boundless resources and all the unquenchable courage which had marked its early days.

Tunis as much as Algiers was the object of the servile dread of Europe. The custom of offering presents, which were really bribes, only died out fifty years ago, and there are people who can still remember the time when consuls-general were made to creep into the Bey's presence under a wooden bar.[78] One day the Bey ordered the French consul to kiss his hand; the consul refused, was threatened with instant death, and--kissed it (1740). When in 1762 an English ambassador came in a King's ship to announce the accession of George III., the Bey made the same order, but this time it was compromised by some of the officers kissing his hand instead of their chief. Austria was forced to sue for a treaty, and had to pay an annual tribute (1784). The Danes sent a fleet to beg leave to hoist their flag over their consulate in Tunis: the Bey asked fifteen thousand sequins for the privilege, and the admiral sailed away in despair. After the Venetians had actually defeated the Tunisians several times in the war of 1784-92, Venice paid the Bey Hamuda forty thousand sequins and splendid presents for the treaty of peace. About the same time Spain spent one hundred thousand piastres for the sake of immunity from piracy; and in 1799 the United States bought a commercial treaty for fifty thousand dollars down, eight thousand for secret service, twenty-eight cannon, ten thousand balls, and quantities of powder, cordage, and jewels. Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and the United States were tributaries of the Bey!

Yet we have it on the authority of the Redemptionist Fathers, who were not likely to underestimate their adversaries, that in 1719 the Algerines who, "among all the Barbary maritime Powers are much the strongest," had but twenty-five galleons of eighteen to sixty guns, besides caravels and brigantines; and it appears they were badly off for timber, especially for masts, and for iron, cordage, pitch, and sails. "It is surprising to see in what good condition they keep their ships, since their country affords not wherewithal to do it.... When they can get new timber (brought from Buj[=e]ya) sufficient to make a ship's bottom-parts, they finish the remainder with the ruins of prize vessels, which they perfectly well know how to employ to most advantage, and thus find the secret of making very neat new ships and excellent sailers out of old ones."[79] Still twenty-five small frigates were hardly a big enough bugbear to terrify all Europe, let them patch them never so neatly. Nevertheless, in 1712, the Dutch purchased the forbearance of these twenty-five ships by ten twenty-four pounders mounted, twenty-five large masts, five cables, four hundred and fifty barrels of powder, two thousand five hundred great shot, fifty chests of gun barrels, swords, &c., and five thousand dollars. Being thus handsomely armed, the Algerines naturally broke the treaty in three years' time, and the Dutch paid even more for a second truce. So flourished the system of the weak levying blackmail upon the strong.[80]

The period of Europe's abasement began when the Barbary Corsairs were recognized as civilized states to be treated with on equal terms: that is to say, when consuls, ambassadors, and royal letters began to arrive at Tunis or Algiers. This period began soon after Doria's disastrous campaign at Jerba, when the battle of Lepanto had destroyed the prestige of the Ottoman navy, but increased if possible the terror of the ruthless Corsairs. No really serious attempt was made to put down the scourge of the Mediterranean between 1560 and Lord Exmouth's victory in 1816. For nearly all that time the British nation, and most of the other maritime states, were represented at Algiers and Tunis by consular agents. Master John Tipton was the first Englishman to become consul anywhere, and he was consul at Algiers, first appointed by the newly-formed Turkey Company about 1580, and in 1585 officially named consul of the British nation by Mr. Harebone, the ambassador of England at the Sublime Porte. The records of the long succession of consuls, and agents, and consuls-general, that followed him are a title-roll of shame. The state of things at almost any point in this span of two hundred and thirty years may be described in few words. A consul striving to propitiate a sullen, ignorant, common soldier, called a Dey; a Christian king, or government, submitting to every affront put upon his representative, recalling him after mortal insult, and sending a more obsequious substitute with presents and fraternal messages; and now and then a King's ship, carrying an officer of the King's navy, or an ambassador of the King's Council, irresolutely loitering about the Bay of Algiers trying to mollify a surly despot, or perhaps to experiment in a little meaningless bluster, at which the Dey laughs in his sleeve, or even openly, for he knows he has only to persevere in his demands and every government in Europe will give in. Consuls may pull down their flags and threaten war; admirals may come and look stern, and even make a show of a broadside or two; but the Dey's Christian Brother of St. James's or the Tuileries--or their ministers for them--have settled that Algiers cannot be attacked: so loud may he laugh at consul and man-of-war.

To attempt to trace in detail the relations of the Pashas, Deys, and Beys of the three Barbary States, and the Sher[=i]fs of Morocco, with the various European Powers, would be a task at once difficult and wearisome. Those with England will be quite sufficient for the purpose, and here, in regard to Algiers, we have the advantage of following the researches of the Agent and Consul-General there, Sir R. Lambert Playfair, who in his _Scourge of Christendom_,[81] has set forth the principal incidents of British relations with the Dey in great detail, and has authenticated his statements by references to official documents of unimpeachable veracity. The facts which he brings to light in a volume of over three hundred pages can here of course be but slightly touched upon, but the reader may turn to his interesting narrative for such more particular information as space excludes from these pages.

The general results arrived at from a study of Sir Lambert Playfair's researches are painful to English self-respect. It is possible that our consuls were not always wisely chosen, and it was a vital defect in our early consular system that our agents were allowed to trade. Mercantile interests, especially in a Corsair state, are likely to clash with the duties of a consul. Some consuls, moreover, were clearly unfitted for their posts. Of one it is recorded that he drank to excess; another is described as "a litigious limb of the law, who values himself upon having practised his talents in that happy occupation with success, against every man that business or occasion gave him dealings with;" a third is represented as "sitting on his bed, with his sword and a brace of pistols at his side, calling for a clergyman to give him the Sacraments that he may die contented." Still, in the long list of consuls, the majority were honourable, upright men, devoted to their country, and anxious to uphold her interests and rights. How were they rewarded? If their own government resented a single act of the ferocious monster they called the Dey--who was any common Janissary chosen by his comrades[82]--the consul went in fear of his life, nay, sometimes was positively murdered. If he was a strong-minded, courageous man, and refused to stoop to the degradation which was expected of him at the Dey's palace, he could not reckon on support at home; he might be recalled, or his judgment reversed, or he might even pull down the consular flag only to see it run up again by a more temporising successor, appointed by a government which had already endorsed his own resistance. He might generously become surety for thousands of pounds of ransoms for English captives, and never receive back a penny from home. Whatever happened, the consul was held responsible by the Algerines, and on the arrival of adverse news a threatening crowd would surround his house. Sometimes the consul and every Englishman in Algiers would be seized and thrown into prison, and their effects ransacked, and never a chance of restitution. Many were utterly ruined by the extortions of the Dey and governors. Heavy bribes--called "the customary presents"--had to be distributed on the arrival of each fresh consul; and it is easy to understand that the Dey took care that they did not hold the office too long. The government presents were never rich enough, and the unlucky consul had to make up the deficit out of his own pocket. The Dey would contemptuously hand over a magnificently jewelled watch to his head cook in the presence of the donor; and no consul was received at the Palace until the "customary presents" were received. The presence of a remonstrating admiral in the bay was a new source of danger; for the consul would probably be thrown into prison and his family turned homeless into the streets, while his dragoman received a thousand stripes of the bastinado. When the French shelled Algiers in 1683, the Vicar Apostolic, Jean de Vacher, who was acting as consul, and had worked untiringly among the poor captives for thirty-six years, was, by order of Mezzomorto, with many of his countrymen, blown from the cannon's mouth;[83] and the same thing happened to his successor in 1688, when forty-eight other Frenchmen suffered the same barbarous death. The most humiliating etiquette was observed in the Dey's court: the consul must remove his shoes and sword, and reverently kiss the rascal's hand. The Hon. Archibald Campbell Fraser, in 1767, was the first consul who flatly refused to pay this unparalleled act of homage, and he was told, in a few years, that the Dey had no occasion for him, and he might go--as if he were the Dey's servant. "Dear friend of this our kingdom," wrote that potentate to H. M. George III. of England, "I gave him my orders,--and he was insolent!" Mr. Fraser went, but was sent back to be reinstated by a squadron of His Majesty's ships. Admiral Sir Peter Denis sailed into Algiers Bay, and having ascertained that the Dey would not consent to receive Mr. Fraser again, sailed out again. His Majesty's Government expressed themselves as completely satisfied with the admiral's action, and resolved to leave the Dey to his reflections. Finally, in the very next year, King George accepts his friend of Algiers' excuses, and appoints a new consul, specially charged "to conduct himself in a manner agreeable to you." The nation paid a pension of L600 a year to Mr. Fraser as indemnity for its Government's poltroonery.

Every fresh instance of submission naturally swelled the overweening insolence of the Deys. A consul had a Maltese cook: the Dey objected to the Maltese, and took the man by force from the consul's house and sent him away in irons. If the consul objected, he might go too. When Captain Hope, of H.M.S. _Romulus_, arrived at Algiers, he received no salute; the consul was ordered to go aboard, leaving his very linen behind him; and frigate and consul were ordered out of the harbour. Consul Falcon, so late as 1803, was arrested on a trumped-up charge, and forcibly expelled the city: truly Consul Cartwright might describe the consular office of Algiers as "the next step to the infernal regions." In 1808, merely because the usual tribute was late, the Danish consul was seized and heavily ironed, made to sleep in the common prison, and set to labour with the slaves. The whole consular body rose as one man and obtained his release, but his wife died from the shock. A French consul about the same time died from similar treatment.

Were all these consuls maltreated for mere obstinacy about trifles? The records of piracy will answer that question. So early as 1582, when England was at peace with the Porte (and as she continued to be for 220 years), gentlemen of good birth began to find a voyage in the Mediterranean a perilous adventure. Two Scottish lairds, the Masters of Morton and Oliphant, remained for years prisoners at Algiers. Sir Thomas Roe, proceeding to his post as ambassador at Constantinople, said that unless checked the Algerine pirates will brave even the armies of kings at sea, and endanger the coasts [which would have been no new thing], and reported that their last cruise had brought in forty-nine British vessels, and that there would soon be one thousand English slaves in Algiers: the pirates were even boasting that they would go to England and fetch men out of their beds, as it was their habit to do in Spain. And indeed it was but a few years later that they sacked Baltimore in County Cork, and literally carried out their threat. The Corsairs' galleons might be sighted at any moment off Plymouth Hoe or Hartland Point, and the worthy merchants of Bristol, commercial princes in their way, dared not send their richly laden bottoms to sea for fear of a brush with the enemy.

The Reverend Devereux Spratt was captured off Youghal as he was crossing only from Cork to Bristol, and so distressed was the good man at the miserable condition of many of the slaves at Algiers, that when he was ransomed he yielded to their entreaties and stayed a year or two longer to comfort them with his holy offices.[84] It was ministrations such as his that were most needed by the captives: of bodily ill-treatment they had little to complain, but alienation from their country, the loss of home and friends, the terrible fate too often of wife and children--these were the instruments of despair and disbelief in God's providence, and for such as were thus tormented the clergyman was a minister of consolation. In the sad circle of the captives marriages and baptisms nevertheless took place, and some are recorded in the parish register of Castmell, Lancashire, as having been performed in "Argeir" by Mr. Spratt.

Matters went from bad to worse. Four hundred British ships were taken in three or four years before 1622. Petitions went up to the Houses of Parliament from the ruined merchants of the great ports of England. Imploring letters came in from poor Consul Frizell, who continued to plead for succour for twenty years, and then disappeared, ruined and unaided. Touching petitions reached England from the poor captives themselves,--English seamen and captains, or plain merchants bringing home their wealth, now suddenly arrested and stripped of all they possessed: piteous letters from out the very bagnios themselves, full of tears and entreaties for help. In the fourth decade of the seventeenth century there were three thousand husbands and fathers and brothers in Algerine prisons, and it was no wonder that the wives and daughters thronged the approaches to the House of Commons and besieged the members with their prayers and sobs.