CAPTURED BY CORSAIRS
"_What does it mean to them that somewhere men are free?_
_Naked and scourged and starved, they groan in slavery!_"
The rector had encouraged me to browse through his library. He said
that ministers should be well-read men. It was no hardship for me--I
was fond of books. One day, as I was reading "Hakluyt's Voyages," he
rushed into the room. His usually pale face was red and distorted from
excitement.
"David, I've news of your brother!" he cried. "I told you that there
was a Providence that safeguarded scapegraces! He's in Algiers. He's
been captured by pirates! They're holding him in slavery for ransom!"
"Humph," said the commodore, who had followed him into the room, "I
don't call that being guided by a special Providence!"
"Well," the rector said, "they might have killed him, or he might have
died of a fever in that pestilential country. Yes, I think Providence
is watching over him!"
The news had come in a bulky envelope that had been forwarded to Dr.
Eccleston by the State Department.
"Read that," cried the rector, tossing the letter into my lap, "and see
what becomes of lads who leave comfortable homes to sail the ocean!"
He lit his pipe and fell to brooding, while I gleaned from the roughly
scribbled epistle the story of Alexander's capture by Turkish corsairs.
That the Mediterranean Sea was infested by pirates Captain Stephens,
with whom Alexander sailed, well knew. But Cadiz lay outside of the
usual zone of the buccaneers, and the idea of danger from corsairs
scarcely entered the thoughts of the skipper and his men. Yet, on July
25, 1785, while the _Marie_ was passing Cape Saint Vincent, she was
pursued by a rakish lateen-sailed vessel. Despite desperate attempts
to outsail her pursuer, she was soon overtaken. Threatened by fourteen
ugly cannon, she awaited the approach of the stranger.
The _Marie_ was hailed in Spanish. Captain Stephens shouted in reply
the name and destination of his vessel. He had little doubt that he
would be allowed to proceed and was on the point of giving orders to
resume the voyage, when a crowd of seamen in Turkish dress appeared on
the deck of the vessel, which now was found to be an Algerine corsair.
The dark, bearded faces of the Moslems were forbidding enough, but when
the Mussulmans drew near with savage gestures and a wild brandishing of
weapons, the _Marie's_ men knew that either death or slavery awaited
them.
A launch thronged with Moors and Arabs, armed with pistols, scimeters,
pikes and spears, put out from the side of the zebec. They fired
several volleys that came dangerously close to the heads of the
American sailors, and threatened to slaughter the crew if they resisted.
Captain Stephens, when a pistol was held against his breast,
surrendered his ship. He and his crew were transferred to the
corsair, first having been stripped of all their clothes except their
undergarments. They were pricked and prodded until they reached the
forepart of the Algerine ship, where the commander, Rais Ibrahim,
a vicious-looking old Moor, who kept his hand on the pistol that
protruded from his sash as if his fingers itched to fire a bullet into
a Christian's body, repeated the threat of massacre if the captives
disobeyed his orders.
Captain Stephens, who spoke Spanish, went as far as was safe in
protesting against the seizure.
Rais Ibrahim, crying upon Allah to wipe out all Christians, replied
that the ships of Barbary were no longer limited by the Mediterranean
Sea. He declared that Algiers had made a peace with her ancient enemy
Spain and was free now to send her vessels through the Strait into the
Atlantic.
"Have you papers," he sneered, "showing that your country is paying
tribute to the Dey of Algiers? If your government has not purchased
immunity from attack by our corsairs, do not protest to me against your
capture, but rather blame your rulers for neglecting to follow the wise
example of the nations of Europe, who pay my lord the gold that he
demands!"
A Moslem crew was placed aboard the _Marie_, and she was sailed as a
prize into Algiers. There the prisoners found in captivity the crew of
the American ship _Dauphin_, under Captain Richard O'Brien, who, with
his mate, Andrew Montgomery, and five seamen, had been captured by an
Algerine corsair near Lisbon.
To announce to the city that he was approaching with a prize the Moslem
captain fired gun after gun. The Port Admiral came out in a launch to
examine the prize and prisoners so that he might make a report to the
Dey; the people on shore gathered at the wharves to gloat over the new
wealth that had come to the city; the barrooms became crowded with
revelers; everyone except the slaves rejoiced.
The captors were received by their relatives and friends on shore with
cheers and exultation. Estimates of the value of the prisoners and the
ship passed from one to another. The captives were given filthy rags
to cover their nakedness, and were marched through the streets between
rows of jeering infidels. Their destination was the palace of the Dey.
They were driven across the courtyard of the palace, where they entered
a hall. They then were pushed and prodded by their guards up five
flights of stairs, where they went through a narrow, dark entrance into
the Dey's audience room.
He sat, a dark, fat, greasy creature, upon a low bench that was covered
with cushions of embroidered velvet.
He viewed the Americans with great resentment.
"I have sent several times to your nation," he said through his
interpreter, a renegade Englishman, "offering to make peace with
them if they would satisfy my requirements. They have never sent me
a definite reply. Since they have treated me so disdainfully, I will
never make peace with them! As for you, Christian dogs, you shall eat
stones!"
The captives were driven from his presence and marched to the bagnio,
or prison, where they joined six hundred Christian slaves of various
nationalities--poor, broken-spirited fellows, weighed down with chains.
Their names were entered in the prison book; each of them was given a
blanket, a scanty supply of coarse clothing, and a small loaf of black,
sour bread. They slept on the floor, with a thin blanket between them
and the cold stones.
The next day each of them had a chain weighing about forty pounds
placed on him. One end was bound around the waist, and the other end
was fastened by a ring about the ankle. They were then assigned various
tasks for the government. The iron ring on their ankles, they learned,
was the badge of public service. Though it was a cruel weight, it
protected them from abuse by fanatical Moslems.
Some of the captives were employed at rigging and fitting out cruisers,
and in transporting cargoes and other goods about the city. Because of
the narrow streets the articles they moved could be carried only by
means of poles on their shoulders. If they bumped into a citizen they
were loudly cursed and beaten. The Dey was building a new mosque, and
many of the Christians were employed in transporting blocks of stone
from the wharf to the building. Four men were employed to move one
stone, and only the strongest could bear up under such a load. Some of
the captives were sent into the mountains to blast rocks. Under the
direction of Moslem overseers, who cruelly beat them on the slightest
excuse, the prisoners rolled rocks weighing from twenty to forty tons
down the mountain, where they were then hoisted on carts, drawn by
teams of two hundred or more slaves to a wharf two miles distant, where
the stones were placed on scows and carried across the harbor to be
fitted into a breakwater.
The prison, to which they returned after the labors of the day, was
an oblong, hollow square, three stories high. The ground floor was
composed of taverns that were kept by favored slaves who paid a goodly
sum for rent, as well as for the liquor they sold. In this way a few of
the slaves were able to earn enough money to purchase their freedom.
These taverns were so dark that lamps had to be kept burning even by
day. They were filled with Turks, Moors, Arabs and Christians, who
often became drunk and sang and babbled in every language.
The second and third floors were surrounded by galleries that led to
cell-like rooms in which the captives slept. These cells were four
deep to a floor, and hung one over the other like ships' berths. They
swarmed with vermin. The air was too foul to breathe. If any of the
captives rebelled--there was the bastinado! The culprit was thrown
down on his face; his head and hands were tied; an infidel sat on his
shoulders; his legs were held up to present the soles of his feet; and
two infidels delivered from one hundred to five hundred blows.
If a slave committed a very serious offense, he might be beheaded,
impaled, or burnt alive. For murdering a Mohammedan one slave was cast
off the walls of the city upon iron hooks fastened into the wall, where
he lingered in agony for many hours before he perished.
The worst danger the Christians faced was an insidious one--the plague.
In the hot, damp air of Africa a fever arises from decaying animal
substances, which is spread about by swarms of locusts. A person may
be attacked by only a slight fever, but he soon becomes delirious and
too weak to move. In five days his body begins to turn black and then
death comes. It is the black pestilence, and it attacks slaves and
rulers without choice. If it had not been for a hospital maintained by
Spanish priests, most of the captives would have died. As it was, many
Christians perished.
Murad came into our thoughts as we brooded over Alexander's plight. He
was still in Baltimore and still attended the chapel services. Did he
have influence enough, we asked, to obtain my brother's freedom?
The commodore had sworn that the Egyptian went to church only for
the purpose of ingratiating himself with Americans upon whom he had
designs. The rector had retorted that he could not allow himself to
suspect one of his flock of any but pure motives when entering the
house of God. He himself, I felt, disliked the man from the East, but
he concealed it well. Therefore, when Murad came to our door, the
rector invited him into the library and told him briefly what had
happened.
"I am heart-broken over it!" Murad exclaimed, gazing at me with his
great liquid eyes, "and I am helpless because I am no longer a follower
of Mohammed; yet your Government will surely be able to ransom your
brother and his comrades. I do not think their lives will be in danger
if your statesmen appropriate the money promptly. It's shocking, of
course, yet it's quite the usual thing to pay these ransoms. England,
Spain, France--all do it. You see, ever since the days when the Queen
of Sheba brought tribute to King Solomon, the Orientals have been
trained to look for gifts from foreigners who touch their shores."
The rector looked dismayed at this attempt to justify kidnapping by
the Scriptures. "It's time," he said, "for this western world to teach
those ruffians that blackmail is blackmail and that murder is murder!"
He fumbled with the envelope that had contained Alexander's letter. A
slip of paper slid out. He read to us this memorandum, written by my
brother:
_Amount of Ransom demanded by the Dey of Algiers for the Release of
American captives_
"Crew of ship _Dauphin_:
Algerine Sequins
Richard O'Brien, captain, ransom demanded 2,000
Andrew Montgomery, mate 1,500
Jacob Tessanoir, French passenger 2,000
Wm. Paterson, seaman 1,500
Philip Sloan 725
Peleg Lorin 725
John Robertson 725
James Hall 725"
"Crew of the Schooner _Marie_:
Algerine Sequins
Isaac Stephen, captain, ransom demanded 2,000
Alexander Forsyth, mate 1,500
George Smith, seaman 900
John Gregory 725
James Hermet 725"
"How much is 1,500 Algerine sequins?" I asked Murad.
"A sequin," he explained, "amounts to eight shillings sterling, so that
12,000 shillings will be required for Alexander, and 126,000 shillings
for the entire lot. There must be added to this sum 10 or 20 per cent
of the total as bribes to the Dey's officers, and as commission to
brokers. There are Jewish merchants over there whose chief business it
is to procure the release of captives--for a consideration!
"I know such a merchant in Algiers," Murad went on, "I shall write to
him to interest himself in the captives and to use his influence to see
that they are kindly treated. Perhaps he will be able to reduce the
amount of the ransom. When the money is raised, I shall be at your
service for negotiations."
He bowed himself out. The rector went to the window and stood staring
out after him. "It can't be," I heard him say, "and yet, if the
commodore heard what he said to me, he'd swear the fellow was an agent
for the corsairs!"