CAPTAIN PADDOCK ON THE COAST OF BARBARY
The veterans of the Revolution of ’76, who had won a war for freedom,
were still young men when American sailors continued to be bought and
sold as slaves for a few dollars a head on the farther side of the
Atlantic. It was a trade which had flourished during the colonial
period, and was unmolested even after the Stars and Stripes proclaimed
the sovereign pride and independence of this Union of States. Indeed,
while hundreds of American mariners were held in this inhuman bondage,
their Government actually sent to the Dey of Algiers a million dollars
in money and other gifts, including a fine new frigate, as humble
tribute to this bloody heathen pirate in the hope of softening his
heart.
It was the bitterest touch of humiliation that this frigate, the
_Crescent_, sailed from the New England harbor of Portsmouth, whose
free tides had borne a few years earlier the brave keels of John Paul
Jones’s _Ranger_ and _America_.
The Christian nations of Europe deliberately granted immunity to these
nests of sea-robbers in Algiers, Morocco, Tunis, and Tripoli in order
that they might prey upon the ships and sailors of weaker countries and
destroy their commerce. This ignoble spirit was reflected in a speech
of Lord Sheffield in Parliament in 1784.
“It is not now probable that the American States will have a very
free trade in the Mediterranean. It will not be to the interest of
any of the great maritime powers to protect them from the Barbary
States. If they know their interests, they will not encourage
the Americans to be ocean carriers. That the Barbary States are
advantageous to maritime powers is certain.”
It was not until 1803 that the United States, a feeble nation with a
little navy, resolved that these shameful indignities could no longer
be endured. While Europe cynically looked on and forbore to lend a
hand, Commodore Preble steered the _Constitution_ and the other ships
of his squadron into the harbor of Tripoli, smashed its defenses, and
compelled an honorable treaty of peace. Of all the wars in which the
American Navy had won high distinction, there is none whose episodes
are more brilliant than those of the bold adventure on the coast of
Barbary.
The spirit of it was typical of Preble, the fighting Yankee commodore,
who fell in with a strange ship one black night in the Straits of
Gibraltar. From the quarterdeck of the _Constitution_ he trumpeted a
hail, but the response was evasive, and both ships promptly manœuvered
for the weather gage.
“I hail you for the last time. If you don’t answer, I’ll fire into
you,” roared Preble. “What ship is that?”
“His Britannic Majesty’s eighty-four gun ship-of-the-line _Donegal_,”
came back the reply. “Send a boat on board.”
Without an instant’s hesitation the commodore thundered from his Yankee
frigate:
“This is the United States forty-four-gun ship _Constitution_, Captain
Edward Preble, and I’ll be damned if I send a boat aboard any ship.
Blow your matches, boys!”
Until the hordes of Moorish and Arab cutthroats and slavers were taught
by force to respect the flag flown by American merchantmen, there
was no fate so dreaded by mariners as shipwreck on the desert coast
of northern Africa. For a hundred and fifty years they risked the
dreadful peril of enslavement under taskmasters incredibly inhuman, who
lashed and starved and slew them. In the seventeenth century it was no
uncommon sight in the ports of Salem and Boston to see an honest sailor
trudging from house to house to beg money enough to ransom or buy his
shipmates held in Barbary.
The old records note many such incidents, as that in 1700:
Benjamin Alford and William Bowditch related that their friend
Robert Carver was taken nine years before a captive into Sallee,
that contributions had been made for his redemption, that the
money was in the hands of a person here, and that if they had the
disposal of it they could release Carver.
The expansion of American trade in far-distant waters which swiftly
followed the Revolution increased the number of disasters of this kind,
and among the old narratives of the sea that were written about 1800
no theme is more frequent, and few so tragic, as the sufferings of the
survivors of some gallant American ship which laid her bones among the
breakers of the African coast. These personal experiences, simply and
movingly written by some intelligent master or mate and printed as thin
books or pamphlets, were among the “best sellers” of their day when the
world of fact was as wildly romantic as the art of fiction was able to
weave for later generations.
Among these briny epics of the long ago is the story of Captain
Judah Paddock and his crew of the ship _Oswego_. She sailed from
Cork in March, 1800, for the Cape Verd Islands, to take on a cargo
of salt and hides and then to complete the homeward voyage to New
York. The _Oswego_ was a fast and able vessel of 260 tons, absurdly
small to modern eyes, and carried thirteen sailors, including boys.
After passing Cape Finisterre, Captain Paddock began to distrust his
reckoning because of much thick weather, but felt no serious concern
until the ship was fairly in the surf, which pounded and hammered her
hull with one tremendous blow after another.
Daylight disclosed what the old sea-songs called “the high coast of
Barbary” no more than a few hundred yards distant. The _Oswego_ was
beating out her life among the rocks, and it was time to leave her.
The boats were smashed in trying to land, and the only refuge was this
cruel and ominous shore, the barren wastes of sand and mountain, the
glaring sun, the evil nomads.
With a few bottles of water and such food as they could pack on
their backs, these pilgrims set out to trudge along the coast in the
direction of Mogador, where they hoped to find the protection of an
English consul. It was not an auspicious omen when they discovered a
group of roofless huts rudely built of stone, a heap of human bones,
and the broken timbers of a large frigate washed up by the tide. These
relics were enough to indicate the fate of a large company of seamen
who had been cast away in this savage region.
There were men of all sorts among these hapless refugees of the
_Oswego_, and most of them endured their hard lot with the patient
courage of the deep-water mariner. The cook, however, was an
exasperating rascal of an Irishman called Pat who had smuggled himself
aboard at Cork as a ragged stowaway, and he lost no time in starting
trouble on the coast of Barbary. In his pack was a bottle of gin, which
had passed the skipper’s inspection as water, and while on sentry duty
at night to watch for prowling Arabs, Pat got uproariously drunk and
fought a Danish foremast hand who was tippling with him. In the ruction
they smashed several precious bottles of water, and were too tipsy next
morning to resume the march.
The other sailors held an informal trial. This was their own affair,
and Captain Paddock’s protests were unheeded. Pat was so drunk that
he could not appear in his own defense, and the sentence was that his
share of the bread and water should be taken from him and he be left
behind to die. He was accordingly abandoned, blissfully snoring on
the sand, the empty gin bottle in his fist; but after a mile or so of
painful progress two of the men relented and listened to the captain’s
appeal. Back they went, and dragged Pat along, damning him bitterly and
swearing to kill him on the spot if he misbehaved again.
After three days the torments of thirst were severe, and the heat
blistered their souls. In the wreck of the _Oswego_ there was water in
barrels, plenty of it, and this was all that the fevered minds of most
of the sufferers could think of. Captain Paddock urged them to keep on
with him to the eastward a few days longer toward Mogador, but they
were ready to turn and struggle back to the ship, fifty miles, just
to get enough water to drink. It mattered not to them that they were
throwing away the hope of survival.
The captain was made of sterner stuff, and so they amiably agreed to
part company. A black sailor, Jack, stepped forward and said with
simple fidelity:
“Master, if you go on, I go, too.”
The other negro of the crew grinned at his comrade and exclaimed:
“If you go, Jack, I reckon I’s obliged to stand by.”
The scapegrace Pat, regarding the captain as his friend and protector,
also elected to stay with him.
So Captain Judah Paddock was left to toil onward with Black Sam and
Black Jack and the impossible Irish cook as his companions in misery
while the mate and the rest of the crew turned westward to find the
wreck of their ship. The parting scene has a certain nobility and
pathos, as the captain’s narrative describes it.
The generosity of my fellow sufferers ought not to pass by
unnoticed. To a man they agreed that we should have a larger
share of the water remaining than those returning to the ship.
Furthermore, they invited us to join them in taking a drink from
their own stock and at the conclusion, sailor-like, they proposed a
parting glass, also from their own bottles. All things arranged and
our packs made up, we took of each other an affectionate leave and
thus we separated. The expression of every man on this truly trying
occasion can never be erased from my memory as long as my senses
remain. Some of us could hardly speak the word _farewell_. We shook
hands with each other and silently moved in opposite directions.
Captain Paddock and his little party were captured by Arabs on the very
next day. He met them calmly, his umbrella under one arm, spy-glass
under the other, expecting instant death; but they were more intent
on plunder, and the four men were stripped of their packs and most of
their clothes in a twinkling. It was soon apparent that shipwrecked
sailors were worth more alive than dead, and they were hustled along by
their filthy captors, who gave them no more water and food than would
barely keep soul and body together.
The Arabs traveled in haste to reach the wreck of the _Oswego_ as a
rare prize to be gutted. When they arrived on the scene, another desert
clan, two hundred and fifty strong, had already swooped down and was in
possession. There was much yelling and fighting and bloodshed before
a truce was declared and the spoils were divided. Meanwhile Captain
Paddock found opportunity to talk with the mate of the _Oswego_ and the
band of sailors who had returned to the wreck just in time to be made
miserable captives. Presently Captain Paddock was dragged away from
them. This was, indeed, a last farewell, for of this larger party of
American castaways only one was ever heard of again.
Flogged and starved and daily threatened with death, Captain Judah
Paddock, Irish Pat, and the two black seamen were carried into the
desert until their captors came to a wandering community of a thousand
Bedouins, with their skin tents and camels and sheep and donkeys. Amid
the infernal clamor the Americans heard a voice calling loudly in
English:
“Where are they? Where are they? Where are the four sailors?” And then,
as Captain Paddock tells it,
A young man once white pressed through the crowd, burnt with the
sun, without hat or shoes, and his nakedness covered only with a
few rags. The first words spoken to us by this frightful looking
object were, “_Who are you? My friends! My friends!_”
I would have arisen to greet him but was too feeble. He sat down
at my side, the tears streaming from his eyes, while he gave an
account of himself. His name was George and he had been the steward
of a ship called the _Martin Hall_ of London, cast away upon that
coast more than a year before. Part of the crew had been marched
in a southeasterly direction to a place they called Elic, another
part had been carried to Swearah and there ransomed, and four of
them yet remained among the wandering Arabs who had been very cruel
to them. He had no doubt that some of the men had been murdered
because it was rumored that their owners could not find a ready
sale for them, or the prices offered were too small.
A few days after this, the chief of the tribe, Ahamed, came back from
a journey with two other lads of this same English crew. One was Jack,
a cabin boy of thirteen, and the other was named Lawrence, a year or
two older. Curiously enough, the English-born urchin, Jack, seemed
contented among these wild Bedouins, and was rapidly forgetting his
own people and the memories of childhood. These three youngsters from
the _Martin Hall_ had learned to speak Arabic quite readily, and they
informed Captain Paddock that all the white slaves were to be sold at
once and that bargaining had already begun.
The captain of the _Oswego_ and his two black seamen were held at very
high prices, and apparently there was no immediate market for them.
In this year of 1800 thrifty New England skippers and merchants were
piling up money in the African slave-trade, and there was logic in the
argument of Ahamed, the Bedouin chief:
“I do not wish to sell these two black men at any price. They are
used to our climate and can travel the desert without suffering.
They are men that you Christian dogs stole from the Guinea coast,
and you were going there to get more of them. You are worse than
the Arabs who enslave you only when it is God’s will to send you on
our coast.”
Captain Paddock confessed that never did he feel a reproach more
sensibly; that a great many wearing the Christian name did force away
from their homes and carry into perpetual slavery the poor African
negroes, and thereby did make themselves worse than the Arabs. The
English lads drove this truth home by secretly admitting to him
that their ship, the _Martin Hall_, had been engaged in the Guinea
slave-trade when wrecked on the coast of Barbary.
After much dickering with Ahamed, the captain agreed to purchase
freedom at the rate of forty dollars per head, in addition to two
looking-glasses, two combs, two pairs of scissors, a large bunch
of beads, and a knife, as soon as he and his companions should be
safely delivered at a friendly port. This price was not to include
any official ransom which the crafty Arabs might squeeze out of the
representatives of the British or American governments.
Several days of noisy haggling were necessary before Captain Paddock,
Irish Pat, and the three English boys were transferred to a new owner,
but the chief retained Black Sam and Black Jack, and his caravan moved
off to the mountains with them. “The looks of these poor fellows were
so dejected, it was painful to behold them,” wrote the skipper, and in
this forlorn manner vanished forever these two seamen of the _Oswego’s_
forecastle who had served with a cheerful fidelity and whose hearts
were as white as their skins were black.
The Arabs drifted into a region more fertile, where there was grain to
reap with sickles and grazing for the large flocks. The mariners were
kept at unremitting toil on the scantiest rations, and they became mere
skeletons; but their health bore up astonishingly well, and not one of
them died by the wayside. The irrepressible Pat came nearest to death
when he sang Irish songs and danced jigs for the Arab women, and so
delighted them that they fed him on porridge, or “stirabout,” as he
called it, until he swelled like a balloon.
That astute chieftain, Ahamed, reappeared on some important errand
of tribal conference, and again held discourse with Captain Paddock
concerning the ethics of the slave-trade. In his stately fashion he
declaimed:
“You say that if I were in your country, your people would treat
me better than I treat you. There is no truth in you; nothing but
lies. If I were there, I should be doomed to a life-time of slavery
and be put to the hardest labor in tilling your fields. You are
too lazy yourselves to work in your fields, and therefore you send
your ships to the negro coast, and in exchange for the worthless
trinkets with which you cheat those poor blacks, you take away
ship-loads of them to your country from which never one returns. We
pray earnestly to Almighty God to send Christians ashore here in
order that we may gain a little profit of the same kind, and God
hears our prayers and often sends us some good ships.”
It was this same masterful Bedouin, lord of the desert wastes, who
enlightened Captain Paddock as to what had befallen the frigate which
drove ashore where the _Oswego’s_ crew had discovered the sea-washed
timbers, the roofless huts of stone, and the heap of human bones. It
was a very large warship, French or British, and the crew of several
hundred men were able to land much property and to make shelters for
themselves before the Arabs found them. A small tribe went down to
despoil them of all their belongings, as was righteous and proper,
but the armed men-of-war’s-men fired upon the Arab visitors, who were
enraged at the resistance of these Christian dogs and fell upon them
furiously. Many were killed on both sides, and the Arabs, finding the
enemy so numerous and well disciplined, sent for help, and another
tribe went down to the sea.
It was a great fight, for the Christian sailors shot very straight and
often, and the Arabs were not able to close in with their long knives;
so a third tribe was summoned, and the command was turned over to
Ahamed. He said to Captain Paddock:
[Illustration: WRECK OF THE “GROSVENOR” ON THE COAST OF CAFFRARIA]
“At daylight I made signs to the infidel dogs to lay down their
arms upon which their camp seemed all in confusion. At the moment
we were preparing to attack them, they formed themselves in a
close body and began to march off eastward. We formed ourselves in
three divisions, according to the tribes, and the chief of each
tribe led his own men. We attacked them in front and in rear, and
after fighting a long time we killed half those dogs, and then the
remnant left alive laid down their arms. We now all dropped our
guns, and fell upon them with our knives, and every one of them was
killed, and the whole number we found to be five hundred.”
After several months of heartbreaking toil and hopes deferred, Ahamed
concluded to take the business in hand and to see what could be done
about getting rid of the captain and Pat and the three English boys at
a satisfactory profit. The harvests had been gathered, and the demand
for labor was not urgent. Ahamed had been greatly pestered by a hag of
a sister who was anxious to get her hands on a looking-glass, comb, and
scissors which had been mentioned as part of the bargain.
Accordingly they set out for the coast with Ahamed in charge of a
small escort, all mounted on good Arab horses, the captives tortured
by uncertainty, for “avarice was the ruling passion of our owners,”
says Captain Paddock, “and if they could have obtained as much money by
putting us to death as by selling us, I verily believe they would not
have hesitated to kill us on the spot, for of humane feelings toward
Christians they were completely devoid.”
Near the coast they met two horsemen, who halted to discuss conditions
in the slave-marts, much as modern salesmen meet in the lobby of a
hotel. One of these pilgrims advised Ahamed to stay away from Swearah,
telling him:
“It is not best to carry them there. At Elic the Jews will give
more for them than the consul at Swearah will pay as ransom.
Besides, the plague has been killing so many people that you ought
to keep these Christian slaves until the next harvest, when there
will be a great scarcity of labor.”
This advice seemed plausible until Ahamed encountered two acquaintances
afoot, one of them a very bald old man, who held an opinion quite the
contrary, explaining:
“In Elic the plague still rages, and if you carry your Christian slaves
there, they may all die before you get rid of them. And just now they
would not fetch enough to reward you for the trouble of taking them
there.”
Evidently perplexed, Ahamed changed the course of his journey, to the
dismay of Captain Paddock, who feared that he was to be conveyed into
the interior of Barbary, beyond all chance of salvation. In a walled
town Ahamed met his own brother, who was also a tribal chief, and for
once the wretched captives were given enough to eat.
“Dear brother of mine,” was Ahamed’s greeting. “I am bound off to
find a market for these vile Christians, who have been complaining
incessantly of hunger. And I promised that they should have an
abundance of victuals upon their arrival here.”
The brother gravely assented, and his hospitality was so sincere that
when one of his wives failed to cook sufficient stew for the evening
meal he felled her with a club and proceeded to beat her to death by
way of reproof.
“I will see if my orders cannot be obeyed,” he remarked to Ahamed, who
viewed it as no affair of his.
An exchange of gossip persuaded Ahamed to seek the little Moorish
seaport of Saint Cruz, or Agadir, and try to dispose of them to the
best advantage. Four months after the wreck of the _Oswego_, Captain
Judah Paddock beheld a harbor and ships riding at anchor. The governor
of Agadir, a portly, courteous Moor, commanded Ahamed to take his
captives to Mogador without delay and deliver them up to the British
consul. To Captain Paddock he declared:
“These Arabs are a set of thieves, robbers, and murderers, and from
time immemorial they have been at war with the Moors and with all
others within their reach. If there is any more trouble, I will keep
you here a few days, when I shall be going myself to Mogador.”
The warlike Ahamed was somewhat abashed by this reception, but he made
great haste to obey the governor’s decree. Mounted on camels, the party
crossed the mountain trails, and then halted to consider breaking
back into the desert with the captives and seeking a more auspicious
market for them. Ahamed regretted that he had not sold them before he
foolishly strayed into the clutches of the accursed Moorish governor
of Agadir. More than likely there would be no ransom forthcoming at
Mogador.
In the nick of time another Moorish gentleman strolled into the little
walled mountain town where they tarried for the night, and demanded to
know what was going on. To him Ahamed sourly vouchsafed:
“These be Christians whom God in His goodness cast upon our coast. We
bought them on the edge of the great desert from a tribe which had
taken them from the wreck. We had intended to carry them on to Mogador,
but to-day we have heard that the consul has no money to buy Christians
with.”
The Moor suggested that Captain Paddock dictate a letter to the British
consul at Mogador, naming a ransom price of four hundred dollars each,
which message could be sent on ahead of Ahamed, who might then await a
reply before venturing into the city. The messenger galloped away on a
spirited steed, but, alas! he soon came galloping back, having met a
friend on the road who read the letter and swore that it would not do
at all.
Captain Paddock was in the depths of despair when the friendly Moor
came to the rescue with another plan. The American captain should be
his own messenger into Mogador, with Ahamed and an escort to guard
against escape, while the other sailors were held in the mountains as
hostages.
This idea was favorably received, and after a wearisome journey Captain
Judah Paddock rode into Mogador to find the British consul. When he
entered the flat-roofed stone building above which flew the red cross
of St. George, six or eight hearty-looking English sailors rushed
forward to welcome him as a shipwrecked seamen. They were survivors
of the _Martin Hall_, “and when I told them that three of their crew
were with my party,” relates Captain Paddock, “their joy was loud and
boisterous. One lusty son of Neptune ran to the consul’s door, shouting:
“‘Mr. Gwyn, Mr. Gwyn, an English captain is here from the Arab coast,
and the Arabs with him!’”
The consul, an elderly man, hastened out in his shirt and breeches, for
the hour was early in the morning, and to him Captain Paddock explained
that he was really an American shipmaster whose only chance of rescue
had been in calling himself an Englishman. Mr. Gwyn invited him to sit
down to breakfast, and tactfully explained that there was supposed
to be an American consular agent in Mogador, but the incumbent just
then was a Genoese who spoke no English, and had been bundled aboard
an outward-bound ship by command of the Emperor of Morocco, who had
conceived a dislike for him. Mr. Gwyn went on to break the news that he
had no funds with which to ransom captive sailors and that the nearest
official resource would be the American consul-general at Tangier.
At this Ahamed was for dragging his slaves back to the desert, but the
kindly Mr. Gwyn had no intention of permitting it, and he introduced
Captain Paddock to a firm of British merchants, the brothers William
and Alexander Court, who promptly offered to pay the amounts stipulated
and to trust to the American government for repayment.
It then transpired that even after paying the price to the Arab tribes
for the recovery of such shipwrecked waifs as these, it depended upon
the whim and the pleasure of the Emperor of Morocco whether they should
be allowed to go home from Barbary. He had been known to hold Christian
wanderers as prisoners until it suited him to issue a special edict or
passport of departure.
While dining at the house of a British resident in Mogador, Captain
Paddock met a Jewish merchant recently returned from the Sahara coast
who told a yarn which brought a gleam of humor into the bitter
experience of the castaways. He had got wind of a shipwreck and posted
off to the scene on the chance of a speculation. At the _Oswego_ he
found two or three hundred Arabs industriously despoiling the hulk of
the ship. She had no cargo in her when she went ashore, being merely
ballasted with Irish earth. The Arabs reasonably deduced that this
stuff must be valuable or a ship would not be laden with it, and
although they were unable to comprehend what it was, they thriftily
proceeded to salvage every possible pound of it.
They requested the Jewish merchant to examine the treasure which had
cost them much labor, as they had been compelled to dive for most
of it. Every Arab had been carefully allotted his rightful share in
order to prevent quarreling and bloodshed, and it was guarded in a
little heap inside his tent. They were greatly mortified, the merchant
recounted, when he laughed and told them the ballast was worth no more
than the sand upon which they stood.
Ahamed returned to the mountain stronghold and fetched to Mogador
the other mariners who were held as hostages awaiting the tidings of
ransom. The little British lad called Jack had no desire to leave
Barbary. He promptly ran away from Mr. Gwyn and the consulate and lived
with Moorish friends in Mogador and even paraded an adopted father.
Much distressed, Captain Paddock consulted the Moorish governor, who
replied as follows:
You shall have all the indulgence that our laws permit, which is
this: examine the boy in my presence from day to day, for three
successive days, and if you can within that time persuade him
to return to the Christian religion, you may receive him back.
Otherwise, as he has voluntarily come among us and gone through our
ceremonies, we are in duty bound to retain him.
The apostate sea urchin of the _Martin Hall_ was accordingly examined
in Arabic, and declared that he loved his adopted father, that he had
become a Mohammedan, and would never change from it. Asked the reason,
he said he liked this religion much better, because all Christians were
to be eternally damned while a Mohammedan should see God and be saved.
He repeated the long prayer of Ramadan in Arabic without stumbling
over a word, and was otherwise so proficient in the new faith that
the governor’s verdict favored his plea. There was great rejoicing
in Mogador over this conversion, and a procession of true believers
escorted young Jack through the narrow streets.
Captain Judah Paddock waited in Mogador until the word came from
the imperial palace in Fez that granted him the decree of liberty
for himself and any of his men who should be detained elsewhere in
Barbary. Soon after this an English brig stood into the harbor, but
there was no room for passengers in her, and Captain Paddock lingered
in tedious exile until a Portuguese schooner came in from Lisbon. Pat,
the Irish cook, refused to leave Mogador, but the reasons had nothing
to do with religion. He told his skipper that the mate and the men
of the _Oswego_ had sworn to kill him wherever they should cross his
hawse, afloat or ashore, and if any of them were lucky enough to escape
from Barbary, his life would not be worth a candle. He had discovered
another Irishman in Mogador who was teaching him the cooper’s trade,
and the Moorish girls were very fond of his songs and his jig-steps.
From Lisbon Captain Paddock sailed homeward bound in the good ship
_Perseverance_ of Baltimore, and set foot on his native soil in
November, almost a year after his disaster on the coast of Barbary. By
invitation he called to see the Secretary of State, John Marshall, and
told his story, besides filing the documents in the case.
Four years later than this he was walking through Water Street in New
York when he met John Hill, one of the sailors of the ill-fated crew
of the _Oswego_. He was the sole survivor of the party of the mate and
a dozen men who had been carried away from the wreck into the Barbary
desert. He had been sold separately, and often resold by one owner and
another, so that he had heard never a word of his companions, who had
been scattered among the wandering tribes of the desert.
He had chanced to meet and talk with one other Christian slave, a
sailor from an American schooner out of Norfolk who had swum ashore on
a spar when the vessel stranded, and was the only man saved. Seaman
John Hill of the _Oswego_ and this poor derelict from Norfolk had
comforted each other for a little spell, and then they were parted.
Hill had finally disguised himself as an Arab, and after a series of
wonderful escapes and adventures had managed to reach Agadir, where
he was promptly sold to a Jew, who kept him at hard labor for twelve
months before the American consul-general heard of his plight and
obtained his release.
In concluding his narrative, Captain Judah Paddock ventured this
opinion, which was, no doubt, the truth:
“All that I was able to learn while a slave in Barbary confirmed my
belief that many unfortunate mariners have been wrecked on that shore
and there perished, who were supposed by their relatives and friends to
have foundered at sea.”
Another story, well known in its day, was that of Captain James Riley
of the American brig _Commerce_ which was lost on the Barbary coast
in 1815. The torments of his crew while in the hands of their Arab
captors are really too dreadful to describe in detail. Captain Riley,
a herculean sailor weighing more than two hundred pounds, was a mere
skeleton of ninety pounds when he gained his liberty at Tangier, but he
recovered to command other ships and lived to a ripe old age. His soul
wrung with the memories of the experience, he wrote:
“Not less than six American vessels are known to have been lost
on this part of the coast since the year 1800, besides numbers of
English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc., which are also known to
have been wrecked there, and no doubt many other vessels that never
have been heard from,--but it is only Americans and Englishmen that
are ever heard from after the first news of the shipwreck. The
French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian governments, it is said,
seldom ransom their unfortunate shipwrecked subjects, and they are
thus doomed to perpetual slavery and misery,--no friendly hand
is ever stretched forth to relieve their distresses and to heal
their bleeding wounds, nor any voice of humanity to soothe their
bitter pangs,--till worn out with sufferings indescribable they
resign their souls to the God who gave them, and launch into the
eternal world with pleasure, as death is the only relief from their
miseries.”
Farther to the southward on this African coast was the land of the
black folk, and toward the Cape of Good Hope lay the country of the
Kafirs, against whom the Boer settlers waged a war of extermination.
All white men looked alike to these savage warriors, and it ill befell
the ship that was cast away among them. There are scenes in the
wreck of the _Grosvenor_, East Indiaman, lost on the Kafir coast in
1782, that are distinguished for haunting pathos and somber tragedy.
It was a large ship’s company, with a total number of one hundred
and thirty-five men, women, and children, and no more than a dozen
survivors succeeded in reaching the Dutch settlements after four months
of terrible suffering.
All the rest were killed or died or were missing, and among those who
vanished in the jungle were the captain and his party, with which were
most of the women and children. There was no trace of these English
women until a Colonel Gordon explored the country of the Kafir tribes
in 1788, and there met a native who said that a white woman dwelt among
his black people. “She had a child,” related the informant, “which she
frequently embraced, and wept bitterly.”
Bad health compelled Colonel Gordon to return homeward, but he promised
to reward the native if he would carry a letter to the white woman,
and he accordingly wrote in French, Dutch, and English, desiring that
some sign, such as a burnt stick or any other token, might be sent
back to him, and he would make every exertion to rescue her. The Kafir
undertook the mission with eagerness, but nothing more was ever heard
of him. An account of the wreck of the _Grosvenor_ written before 1812
stated:
“It is said by officers who have resided at the Cape that a general
belief prevailed of the existence of some of the unfortunate
females who survived the wreck. It was surmised that they might
have it in their power to return and leave the Kaffirs but,
apprehending that their place in society was lost and that they
should be degraded in the eyes of their equals after spending so
great a portion of their lives with savages who had compelled them
to a temporary union, they resolved not to forsake the fruits of
that union and therefore abode with the chiefs who had protected
them.”
In 1796 the American ship _Hercules_, Captain Benjamin Stout, was
wrecked on this same coast where the _Grosvenor_ had been lost. These
castaways were more fortunate, for the Kafirs and the Boers happened to
be at peace, and they made their way to the outlying farms of the white
pioneers in the Hottentot country. Captain Stout wrote the story of his
adventures, and a stirring yarn it is, but the reference of particular
interest just here is as follows:
This being, as I conceived, at no great distance from the spot
where the _Grosvenor_ was lost in 1782, I inquired whether any of
the natives remembered such a catastrophe. Most of them answered
in the affirmative and, ascending one of the sand hills, pointed
to the place where the _Grosvenor_ had suffered. I then desired
to know whether they had received any certain accounts respecting
the fate of Captain Coxon who was proceeding on his way to the
Cape with a large party of people, including several men and women
passengers that were saved from the wreck.
They answered that Captain Coxon and the men were slain. One of the
chiefs having insisted on taking two of the white ladies to his
kraal, the captain and his officers resisted and not being armed
were immediately destroyed. The natives at the same time gave me
to understand that at the period when the _Grosvenor_ was wrecked
their nation was at war with the colonists, and as Captain Coxon
and his crew were whites they could not tell but they would assist
the colonists.
The fate of the unfortunate English ladies gave me so much
uneasiness that I most earnestly requested the natives to tell me
all they knew of the situation, whether they were alive or dead,
and if living what part of the country they inhabited. They replied
with much apparent concern that one of the ladies had died a short
time after her arrival at the kraal, but they understood that the
other was living and had several children by the chief. “Where she
is now, we know not,” said they.
There was evidence of an earlier mystery of this mournful kind
when the _Doddington_ was wrecked on a rock in the Indian Ocean in
1755. Her crew built a boat in which they coasted along Natal, and
while ashore in search of food and water, “the English sailors were
extremely surprised to find among these savages, who were quite black,
with woolly hair, a youth apparently twelve or fourteen years of
age, perfectly white, with European features, fine, light hair, and
altogether different from the natives of this country, although he
spoke only their language. The people of the _Doddington_ remarked that
he was treated as a servant, that the savages sent him on their errands
and sometimes did not allow him to eat with them, but that he waited
until the end of the repast before making his own.”