freedom to sail the seas unmolested, and permitting renegades to return
to their old faith and obtain their liberty on certain conditions. But
captives continued to be taken by the corsairs as of old: "Shall a
Moslem," asked one of the sultans, "be a slave to his word, like a dog
of a Christian?" In 1800 Muley Suliman agreed with Spain for a
reciprocal interchange of captives, and similar contracts were entered
into with other powers. In 1817, acting under _force majeure_, Suliman
was compelled to disarm his war vessels, and promise to put an end to
this atrocious system, that had lasted too long. But although piracy was
no longer officially recognized, it did not wholly cease. Whether the
Sultan connived at the infraction of treaty, or whether the inhabitants
of the Riff shore acted independently of him, merchant vessels
continued to be boarded and taken and the crew enslaved.
In 1828 the English established a blockade of the Morocco coast in
retaliation for the continuance of these outrages, and in 1829 the
capture of an Austrian vessel by pirates led to the bombardment of the
ports of Tetuan, Azila, Rabat, and Sallee. At length the insolence of
the Moorish corsairs led to the Spanish war of 1859-60, which taught
the Moors a salutary lesson.
In 1856 Sir John Drummond-Hay succeeded in recovering some captives,
and in exacting an assurance that similar conduct should not recur.
But although attacks by piratical ships on the high seas were brought
to an end, wrecking was pursued with zest and impunity. Any vessel
that was cast upon the coast was regarded as a legitimate prize, and
its crew who came ashore were carried into the interior and enslaved.
In this way Riley, Adams, and Puddock were able to write their
experiences, on their escape from captivity.
Sir Arthur Brook in 1831 wrote that "the country Moors on all parts of
the coast are constantly on the look out for Christians, and instantly
make prisoners of all who have either landed accidentally or have been
shipwrecked. Parties that are occasionally formed, as ours was, to
visit Cape Spartel are even subject to this, and in one recent
instance the lady of the English Vice-Consul, who had strolled to a
short distance out of sight of the guard that attended her, was on the
point of being made a prisoner by a body of natives who surrounded her
and her party, thinking they were alone, until undeceived by the
timely appearance of the escort."
A visitor to the Riviera will see the little towns and villages walled
up, and with strong gateways and towers. They were protections
against Algerine and Moroccan corsairs, who would land and raid the
coast for captives; and there are old men still living who had heard
from their fathers piteous stories of their being taken and carried
off into bondage and cruel slavery in Africa.
There are still, and there have been in the past, numerous Europeans who
have been renegades, and have lent their wits and experience to the
Moors, but they are nearly all scoundrels of the worst description,
_forçats_ who have escaped from the prisons in Spain or Algiers, and
other vagabonds unable to show their faces in Europe. Dr. Brown writes:
"I know of no British renegade--the last and the most respectable of the
order, a Scotchman, who lived at Rabat, much esteemed for his
intelligence and honourable conduct, having died two years ago. Were the
history of these turncoats fully known, the story of their lives would
be a curious chapter in the annals of human nature. One of the most
romantic of these tales was that of an old white-bearded man who, when
the French military commission first entered Fez in 1877, was seen
silently and sad-eyed, supported by two attendants, contemplating a
uniform with which in days gone by he was very familiar. This aged
renegade was known as Abd-er-Rhuman; but his christened name was Count
Joseph de Saulty, formerly a lieutenant of engineers in the army of
Algeria. In a weak moment he eloped with the commandant's wife, and
remained in Tunis until she died. Then, becoming painfully anxious of
the grave position in which he was placed as a deserter from the
colours, he passed into Morocco, changed his faith, and as a military
adviser of the then Sultan rose high in the imperial favour. He died in
1881, and is buried at the gates of Fez, though so thoroughly did he
put the past behind him, that his son, now occupying a high position in
the Court, is entirely ignorant of any language except Arabic. Another
renegade of note was the English officer still remembered as Inglis
Bashaw under whom Muley-el-Hassan, the present Sultan, learned the art
of war, and who was the first individual to impart anything like
discipline to the Moroccan army. Why he came to Morocco is not known,
and so jealously was his identity kept dark, that in a recent work by
the Viscount de la Montonère his real name is declared to be unknown. At
this date there can be no reason for concealing that it was Graham; and
I have been told by those who have every reason to know that, like so
many others who incur the jealousy of the Moorish dignitaries, he died
of poison."
The time of Morocco piracy is at an end, but that on land there are
still captures has been of late years but too evident--the last being
the capture of Sir Hugh Maclean.
But to return to Thomas Pellow.
After several ineffectual attempts at escape, and after incurring
hairbreadth escapes, Pellow succeeded eventually in making his way to
Gibraltar. But even there he was not safe. A Jew, agent for the Sultan
of Morocco, claimed him, and demanded that he should be surrendered,
as a Mussulman and as a subject of the Moorish Sultan. But General
Field-Marshal Joseph Sabine, then Governor of Gibraltar, answered
peremptorily that, as an English-born subject, he was an Englishman,
and could not be surrendered. He went on board a vessel for England
and reached Deptford, "and going on shore, directly to the church,
returned public thanks to God for my safe arrival in Old England."
He remained in Deptford, very kindly received by a brother Cornishman,
William Jones, and there, finding no vessel bound for Falmouth, he went
to London and thence embarked on board a vessel commanded by Captain
Francis, who readily offered him a passage to Truro.
He landed at Falmouth. The news of his coming had spread. "My father's
house was almost quite at the other end of the town. I was, before I
could reach it, more than an hour; for notwithstanding it was almost
dark, I was so crowded by the inhabitants that I could not pass through
them without a great deal of difficulty--every one bidding me welcome
home, being all very inquisitive with me if I knew them, which, indeed I
did not, for I was so very young at my departure, and my captivity and
the long interval of time had made so very great an alteration on both
sides, that I did not know my own father and mother, nor they me; and
had we happened to meet at any other place without being preadvised,
whereby there might be an expectation or natural instinct interposing,
we should no doubt have passed each other, unless my great beard might
have influenced them to inquire further after me."
He returned to Penryn on the 15th October, 1738, his birthday.
His narrative concludes with a touching account of his gratitude to
God for having brought him back, and an expression of his earnest
desire to serve God truly all the rest of his days upon earth.
THE ORIGIN OF THE ROBARTES
FAMILY
Colonel Symonds, who accompanied Charles I when he was in the West,
says in his diary: "A gentleman of the county told me the original of
the Lord Roberts his family. His great-grandfather was servant to a
gentleman of this county--his hynd. Afterwards lived in Truro, and
traded in wood and fferzen--got an estate of 5 to £600. His son was so
bred, and lived there too, putt out his money, and his debtors paid it
him in tynn. He engrossing the sale of tyn, grew to be worth many
thousands--£30,000. His son was squeezed by the Court in King James
his time of £20,000, so was made a Baron, and built the house of
Lanhydrock, now the seat of Lord Roberts" (pp. 45, 46). The hind, who
founded the family, and sold wood and furze for the tin smelting, was
Richard Roberts of Truro, who married Joan Geffrey of S. Breage, and
died in 1593. His son, who continued the wood store and got paid in
tin, was John Roberts, who married Philippa, daughter of John
Gaverigan, of a very ancient family. He died in 1615.
Before the introduction of coal in tin smelting, the fuel employed was
peat, furze, i.e. gorse that produced a quick, fierce blaze, and wood.
Rapidly the trees in Cornwall were disappearing, as the produce of tin
ore became greater, and the lack of the necessary fuel was becoming a
serious impediment.
[Illustration: The Right Hon^{bl.} John Earle of RADNOR: Baron Roberts
of Truro; & L^d. PRESIDENT of His Ma^{ties} most Hon^{ble}. Privy
Council. Año·1683]
Carew, speaking of the woods in Cornwall, when he compiled his Survey,
says that in the west of the county they were scarce, and the few that
were preserved were principally employed in making charcoal for the
blowing-houses. "This lacke," he adds, "they supply either with
steam-coal from Wales, or dried turfes, some of which are also
converted into coal to serve the tinners' turne."
From the charters of King John and Edward I we learn that power was
granted to the tinners to take turf and wood where they could for the
purpose of smelting the ore; but as the woods disappeared, and the
turf was being used up in the neighbourhood of the works, they could
not travel to great distances to procure the needful fuel. Richard
Roberts saw his opportunity and seized it. He made contracts with the
owners of coppices and furzy downs and peat bottoms, and gathered his
supplies in one great store at Truro. He did more--he obtained coals
from Wales, and sold to the mining adventurers at a handsome profit to
himself, thus saving them the waste of time in wandering about
obtaining fuel where they could. Thus he laid the foundations of a
business that was largely increased by his son John. But this latter
embarked on another branch of money-making. He lent cash to the
adventurers in the mines. "As poor as a tinner" was a proverbial
expression in Cornwall, and "a tinner is never broke till his back is
broke." But if the working miner remained poor, the moneylender waxed
wealthy on the miners' work.
Carew observes that the parishes in which the tin was worked were in a
"meaner plight of wealth" than those which were agricultural. Vast
amounts of tin were raised, but little of the profit stuck to the
hands of the toilers in the mines.
Tinning was not carried on by large companies, but by small men; three
or four would combine to take a set. They cut four turves at the
bounds, paying a certain sum down to the Duchy or to the private owner
of the land, as rent; and also owing a toll of the tin raised to the
proprietor of the land. These small men were without capital, and they
were constrained to borrow of Roberts, and he let them have the
requisite money at a rate of interest we should consider extortionate.
Queen Elizabeth was unable to borrow money of the estates of Holland
under 25 per cent, and we may judge what would be the rate of interest
demanded by the usurer of the working miner.
But that was not all. The miner did not pay the interest in cash, but
in tin, and tin at the value pretty arbitrarily laid down by the
moneylender, so that he had the adventurer in two ways. Nor was this
indeed all. He often advanced to the miner not cash alone, but the
tools for his trade, the timber for shoring up the shafts, and the
machinery, such as it was, for pumping the water out of the mines.
There was an additional means of getting money, and also of acquiring
lands. Carew gives us a curious account of the manner in which the
London merchants of his time took advantage of any want of money
Cornish gentry in London might experience in order to defray their
expenses there, by binding them to furnish tin for money advanced, at
great ultimate loss to the Cornish men. They also had their agents in
Cornwall, who advanced money to the needy tinners, partly in wares and
partly in money, upon agreement that they should furnish certain
quantities of tin at the next coinage, by which the tinners
experienced great loss.
With regard to the loans to the adventurers, Roberts possessed the
inestimable advantage of being on the spot, and so prepared to supply
them with the fuel and the capital they needed. But there were Cornish
gentry who wanted to go to London, and desired loans to cover their
expenses in town. They went to Roberts: he furnished the supplies. As
may be well expected, these gentry did not make money in London, they
became greatly impoverished there, and Roberts, we may infer, was able
to take their estates, or large slices out of them, on the security of
which he had made the advances.
How hard the work of the poor tinners was, on whom the usurers preyed,
we learn from Carew. "In most places," he says, "their toyle is so
extream, as they cannot endure it above four hours a day, but are
succeeded by spels; the residue of the time they weare out at coytes,
kayles, or like idle exercises."
Richard Roberts, the son of John, amassed great wealth, and was
knighted 11 November, 1616. At this time he was threatened with
prosecution by the Privy Seal for usury, and he only escaped trial by
paying a bribe of £12,000. He bought a baronetcy of James I in 1621,
and was created Baron Truro in 1625. One of the charges brought
against Buckingham, when impeached in the House of Commons, was that
he had received a bribe of £10,000 from Richard Roberts for
negotiating for him his elevation to the Barony of Truro. This is
confirmed by the deposition of Roberts himself (_Calendar State
Papers_, 1677-8, p. 220; cf. 1625-6, p. 298).
Richard Roberts married Frances, daughter of John Hender of Botreux
Castle or Boscastle, a co-heiress, and died in 1634. He was evidently a
very shrewd and grasping man, and particularly desirous of pushing ahead
and obtaining a position to which his only claim was wealth. By the
marriages of father and son, the very plebeian family of Roberts brought
strains of gentle blood into the veins of their descendants. He it was
who built the stately mansion of Lanhydrock. He died 19th April, 1634,
but was not buried at Lanhydrock till July 4th in the same year.
His son and heir John Roberts, second Baron Truro, was sent to be
educated at Exeter College, Oxford. He entered as Gentleman Commoner
in 1625, when aged seventeen, the year of his mother's death. At
college, according to Wood, he "sucked in evil principles both as to
Church and State."
By his marriage with the Lady Lucy, daughter of Robert Rich, Earl of
Warwick, he became allied to the leaders of the opposition among the
peers, and during the Long Parliament his vote was almost always given
with the popular party among the Lords. He was appointed Lord
Lieutenant of Cornwall in 1642, and became colonel of a regiment of
foot in the army of Lord Essex. He fought at Edgehill, and commanded a
brigade in the battle of Newbury. In 1644 he held the position of
Field Marshal in the army of Essex, and he was with him in the west
when he advanced further into Cornwall, getting into a position which
eventually led to a humiliating defeat, among a population fanatically
affected to the Royal side.
The King with Prince Maurice was in full pursuit, driving him into a
corner, the narrow extremity of Cornwall. The King was now joined by
Sir Richard Grenville with Cornish levies, cutting off some of the
Parliamentarian foraging parties. But the sea as yet was open, and the
Earl of Warwick, who attended the motions of the army, was off the
coast. "It was therefore now resolved to make Essex's quarters yet
straiter, and to cut off even his provisions by sea, or a good part
thereof." Fowey was in the possession of Essex, "and it was
exceedingly wondered at by all men, that he being so long possessed of
Foy, did not put strong guards into the place, by which he might have
prevented his army's being brought into these extreme necessities."
Sir Richard Grenville possessed himself of Lanbetherick, a strong
house belonging to Lord Roberts, and lying between the Parliamentarian
army and the little harbour, and Sir Jacob Astley made himself master
of View Hall, which was opposite to Fowey, and then cut off supplies
from reaching the camp of Essex.
For eight or ten days the armies lay inactive, and then Charles drew
closer the toils in which the hostile army was held. He drove them
from a rising ground called Beacon Hill, and immediately raised a
square work on it, and placed there a battery that threw a plunging
fire into their quarters. Then Goring was sent with the greatest part
of the royal horse, and fifteen hundred foot, to S. Blazey, to drive
the enemy yet closer together, and to cut off the provisions they
received from that direction. The dashing, daring Goring executed his
commission with complete success, and the Parliamentarians were
reduced to that small strip of land that lay between the river Fowey
and that of S. Blazey, which was not above two miles in breadth and
little more in width, and which had already been eaten bare by the
cavalry. The destruction of the whole army now appeared inevitable;
but through the carelessness of Goring, one dark night all the horse
of the enemy were allowed to slip unperceived through the lines, on
the night of the 30th and 31st August, 1644, and the Earl of Essex
with Lord Roberts and many of his officers fought his way to the shore
near the mouth of the Fowey, and there they embarked on board a ship
which Warwick had sent round, and sailed away to Plymouth on September
1st, leaving the foot, cannon, and ammunition to the care of the
gallant Skippon, who had nothing left for it but to make the best
capitulation he could. Essex left Roberts in command at Plymouth,
which he successfully defended against the attacks made during the
ensuing months, and his popularity is attested by the petitions made
by the Plymothians that he might be left in command of the town.
Lord Roberts must have suffered considerably in the Civil War, for his
estates were alienated from him and granted by the King to Sir Richard
Grenville, whilst his home of Lanhydrock was occupied by the Royalists,
and his children were detained from him. He was a staunch Presbyterian,
hating Prelacy, believing in exclusive salvation, the perquisite of
those who believed in Calvin, and he had no love for the Independents.
Since 1643 an assembly for the regulation of religion had been sitting
at Westminster. It had substituted Presbyterianism for the Episcopacy,
as the established religion of England, and had abolished the Prayer
Book and issued in its stead a book called the Directory. These
changes had been confirmed by Parliament. But this settlement of the
religious question was quite contrary to the views of the Army, which
was mainly--at all events that portion commanded by Cromwell in the
North--composed of Independents.
Sir Harry Vane, Oliver Cromwell, Nathaniel Fiennes, and Oliver St.
John, the solicitor-general, were regarded as their leaders.
Dissentions broke out in the House of Commons; Cromwell and Lord
Manchester cast imputations on each other. Cromwell desired to remodel
the Army, of which the House of Commons had already become
suspicious, and how to effect this project was the difficulty, and his
object could only be attained by a circuitous course. At his instance
a committee was chosen to frame what was called the "Self-denying
Ordinance," by which the members of both Houses were excluded from all
civil and military employments, except a few offices which were
specified. After a great debate, the Ordinance passed both Houses
(April 3rd, 1645), and Essex, Warwick, Manchester, Denbigh, Roberts,
and many others resigned their commands, and received the thanks of
Parliament for their past services.
Lord Roberts's zeal for the cause rapidly cooled. He and Essex both
protested against the passing of the Ordinance on March 13th, 1646,
that made the new Presbyterian Established "Church" subordinate to
Parliament.
On January 3rd, 1648, it was passed in both Houses that thenceforth no
addresses should any more be sent to the King; he was virtually
dethroned, and the whole constitution was formally overthrown; and by
orders from the Army the King was shut up in close confinement, his
servants removed, and his correspondence with his friends prevented.
When the Army threatened to intervene, Roberts deemed it his most
prudent course to absent himself from the House of Lords, and suffer
the act to pass.
He took no part in the trial of the King, and after the execution of
Charles withdrew from further share in public affairs. He was,
however, not hostile to the Protectorate, and at the Installation of
the Protector he suffered his son to be in his train.
At the Restoration he was received into favour, and became a Privy
Councillor, and was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland, and Lord Keeper
of the Privy Seal in May, 1661. In July, 1679, he was created
Viscount Bodmin and Earl of Radnor.
With the latter part of his life we have no concern, as this article
has to do only with the rise of the family of Roberts to an Earldom
from a store of wood and furze, and the sordid desk of an usurer.
Pepys, in his _Diary_, describes him as "a very sober man," and
Clarendon as "a sullen, morose man, intolerably proud," and as having
a "dark countenance," and Burnet as a "sullen and morose man." He died
July 17th, 1685. His son Robert seems to have deemed it expedient to
differentiate his family name from the thousands of Roberts's in
humble life, by the alteration of the spelling of the name, by the
transfer of the _e_ and the addition of an _a_, and the vulgar Roberts
bloomed into Robartes.
The motto assumed by the first Lord Roberts, "quæ supra" expressed the
sincere aspiration of the man, who was certainly sincere in seeking
"those things which are above," as the guiding principle of his life.
The Robartes or Roberts family became extinct in the male line in
1757; but Mary Vere Robartes, daughter of the Hon. Russell Robartes,
married Thomas Hunt, of Mollington, and left issue Thomas Hunt, who
had an only child, Anna Maria, who married Charles Reginald Agar,
third son of James, Viscount Clifden, and carried the wealth of the
Robartes family into that of Agar; and in 1822 Thomas James Agar, her
son, assumed the name and arms of Robartes, and was created Baron
Robartes of Lanhydrock and Truro in 1869. The descent is, however, so
remote and through females, that the present family can hardly be
considered to represent the original Robertes or Roberts stock.
THEODORE PALEOLOGUS
In the church of Landulph is a small brass attached to the wall that
bears the following inscription: "Here lyeth the body of Theodore
Paleologus, of Pesaro in Italye, descended from y^e Imperyal lyne of y^e
last Christian emperors of Greece, being the sonne of Camillio, y^e
sonne of Prosper, the sonne of Theodoro, the sonne of John, y^e sonne of
Thomas, second brother of Constantius Paleologus, the 8^{th} of that
name, and last of y^e lyne y^t rayned in Constantinople until subdued by
the Turks, who married w^t Mary, y^e daughter of William Balls, of
Hadlye in Souffolke, Gent., and had issue 5 children, Theodore, John,
Ferdinando, Maria, and Dorothy; and departed this life at Clyfton, y^e
21^{st} of Jan^y 1636." Above the inscription are the imperial arms of
the empire of Byzantium--an eagle displayed with two heads, the two legs
resting upon two gates; the imperial crown over the whole, and between
the gates a crescent, for difference as second son.