_THE PETTY PIRATES._
XV.
THE GENERAL OF THE GALLEYS.
16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries.
The age of the great Corsairs may be said to have ended with the
battle of Lepanto, which sounded the knell of the naval supremacy of
the Ottomans. It is true that they seemed to have lost little by Don
John's famous victory; their beard was shorn, they admitted, but it
soon grew again:--their fleet was speedily repaired, and the Venetians
sued for peace. But they had lost something more precious to them than
ships or men: their prestige was gone. The powers of Christendom no
longer dreaded to meet the invincible Turk, for they had beaten him
once, and would beat him again. Rarely after this did an Ottoman fleet
sail proudly to work its devastating way along the coasts of Italy.
Small raids there might be, but seldom a great adventure such as
Barbarossa or Sin[=a]n led. Crete might be besieged for years; but the
Venetians, pressed by land, nevertheless shattered the Turkish ships
off the coast. Damad 'Ali might recover the Morea, and victoriously
surround the shores of Greece with his hundred sail; but he would not
venture to threaten Venice, to lay siege to Nice, to harry Naples, or
attack Malta. The Turks had enough to do to hold their own in the
Black Sea against the encroaching forces of Russia.
Deprived of the protection which the prestige of the Turks had
afforded, the Barbary Corsairs degenerated into petty pirates. They
continued to waylay Christian cargoes, to ravish Christian villages,
and carry off multitudes of captives; but their depredations were not
on the same grand scale, they robbed by stealth, and never invited a
contest with ships of war. If caught, they would fight; but their aim
was plunder, and they had no fancy for broken bones gained out of mere
ambition of conquest.
Ochiali was the last of the great Corsairs. He it was who, on his
return to Constantinople after the fatal October 7, 1571, cheered the
Sultan with the promise of revenge, was made Captain-Pasha, and sailed
from the Bosphorus the following year with a fleet of two hundred and
thirty vessels, just as though Lepanto had never been fought and lost.
He sought for the Christian fleets, but could not induce them to offer
battle. His operations in 1574 were limited to the recapture of Tunis,
which Don John had restored to Spain in 1573. With two hundred and
fifty galleys, ten _mahons_ or galleasses, and thirty caramuzels, and
supported by the Algerine squadron under Ahmed Pasha, Ochiali laid
siege to the Goletta, which had owned a Spanish garrison ever since
the conquest by Charles V. in 1535. Cervellon defended the fort till
he had but a handful of men, and finally surrendered at discretion.
Then Ochiali disappeared from the western seas; he fought for his
master in the Euxine during the Persian War, and died in 1580, aged
seventy-two, with the reputation of the most powerful admiral that had
ever held sway in the Golden Horn.
[Illustration: TUNIS IN 1573.
(_From a Map in the British Museum._)]
We have not closely followed the succession of the Pashas or
Beglerbegs of Algiers, because more important affairs absorbed the
whole energies of the Turkish galleys, and the rulers on land had
little of consequence to do. Ochiali was the seventeenth pasha of
Algiers, but of his predecessors, after the deaths of Ur[=u]j and
Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n Barbarossa, few attained special eminence. Hasan the
son of Barbarossa took part in the siege of Malta, S[=a]lih Reis
conquered Fez and Buj[=e]ya; but the rest were chiefly occupied with
repressing internal dissensions, fighting with their neighbours, and
organizing small piratical expeditions. After Ochiali had been called
to Stambol as Captain-Pasha, in 1572, when he had been Pasha of
Algiers for four years, nine governors succeeded one another in
twenty-four years. At first they were generally renegades: Ramad[=a]n
the Sardinian (1574-7), Hasan the Venetian (1577-80 and 1582-3),
Ja'far the Hungarian (1580-2), and Memi the Albanian (1583-6),
followed one another, and (with the exception of the Venetian) proved
to be wise, just, and clement rulers. Then the too usual practice was
adopted of allotting the province to the highest bidder, and rich but
incompetent or rascally Turks bought the reversion of the Pashalik.
The reign of the renegades was over; the Turks kept the government in
their own hands, and the _role_ of the ex-Christian adventurers was
confined to the minor but more enterprising duties of a Corsair reis
or the "general of the galleys." The Pashas, and afterwards the Deys,
with occasional exceptions, gave up commanding piratical expeditions,
and the interest of the history now turns upon the captains of
galleys.
Piracy without and bloodshed and anarchy within form the staple of the
records. Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers showed very similar symptoms.
Tripoli was the least powerful, and therefore the least injurious;
Algiers dominated the Western Mediterranean and to a considerable
extent the Atlantic; Tunis, less venturesome, but still formidable,
infested the Eastern Mediterranean, and made the passage of Malta and
the Adriatic its special hunting grounds. At Tunis thirty Deys,
appointed by the Sublime Porte, succeeded one another from 1590 to
1705--giving each an average reign of less than four years. Most of
them were deposed, many murdered, and one is related on credible
authority to have been torn to pieces and devoured by the enraged
populace. In 1705 the soldiery, following the example of Algiers,
elected their own governor, and called him Bey; and the Porte was
obliged to acquiesce. Eleven Beys followed one another, up to the
French "protectorate." The external history of these three centuries
is made up of lawless piracy and the levying of blackmail from most of
the trading powers of Europe, accompanied by acts of insufferable
insolence towards the foreign representatives; all of which was
accepted submissively by kings and governments, insomuch that William
III. treated a flagrant Corsair, 'Ali Reis, who had become Dey, with
the courtesy due to a monarch, and signed himself his "loving friend."
The earliest English treaty with Tunis was dated 1662; many more
followed, and all were about equally inefficacious. Civil anarchy,
quarrels with France, and wars with Algiers, generally stopped "by
order" of the helpless Porte, fill up the details of this
uninteresting canvas.
Precisely the same picture is afforded by the modern annals of
Algiers. Take the Deys at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
Hasan Ch[=a]wush was deposed in 1700, and succeeded by the Aga of the
Sip[=a]his, Mustafa, nicknamed _Bogotillos_ or "Whiskerandos," who,
though something of a coward, engaged in two successful campaigns
against Tunis and one with Morocco, until he had the misfortune to
find the bow-string round his throat in 1706. Uzeyn Kh[=o]ja followed,
and Oran fell during his one year's reign, after which he was banished
to the mountains, and died. Bekt[=a]sh Kh[=o]ja, the next Dey, was
murdered on his judgment-seat in the third year of his reign. A fifth
Dey, Ibrah[=i]m Deli, or "the Fool," made himself so hated by his
unconscionable licentiousness that he was assassinated, and his
mutilated body exposed in the street, within a few months, and 'Ali,
who succeeded in 1710, by murdering some three thousand Turks,
contrived to reign eight years, and by some mistake died in his bed.
The kingdom of Morocco is not strictly a Barbary state, and its
history does not belong to this volume Nevertheless, the operations
of the Morocco pirates outside the Straits of Gibraltar so closely
resemble those of the Algerine Corsairs within, that a few words about
them will not be out of place. At one time Tetw[=a]n, within the
Straits, in spite of its exposed haven, was a famous place for rovers,
but its prosperity was destroyed by Philip II. in 1564. Ceuta was
always semi-European, half Genoese, then Portuguese (1415), and
finally Spanish (1570 to this day). Tangiers, as the dowry of Charles
II.'s Queen, Catherine of Portugal, was for some time English
territory. Spanish forts at Penon de Velez de la Gomera and Alhucemas,
and Portuguese garrisons, repressed piracy in their vicinity; and in
later times Sal[=e] was perhaps the only port in Morocco that sent
forth buccaneers. Reefs of rocks and drifts of sand render the west
coast unsuitable for anchorage, and the roads are unsafe when the wind
is in the south-west. Consequently the piracy of Sal[=e], though
notorious and dreaded by merchantmen, was on a small scale; large
vessels could not enter the harbour, and two-hundred-ton ships had to
be lightened before they could pass the bar. The cruisers of Sal[=e]
were therefore built very light and small, with which they did not
dare to attack considerable and well-armed ships. Indeed, Capt.
Delgarno and his twenty-gun frigate so terrified the Sal[=e] rovers,
that they never ventured forth while he was about, and mothers used to
quiet naughty children by saying that Delgarno was coming for them,
just as Napoleon and "Malbrouk" were used as bugbears in England and
France. There was not a single full-sized galley at Sal[=e] in
1634, and accounts a hundred years later agree that the Sal[=e]
rovers had but insignificant vessels, and very few of them, while
their docks were practically disused, in spite of abundance of timber.
In the latter part of the eighteenth century there seems to have been
an increase in the depredations of the Sal[=e] pirates, which probably
earned them their exaggerated reputation. At that time they had
vessels of thirty and thirty-six guns, but unwieldy and badly built,
with which they captured Provencal ships and did considerable
mischief, till the Chevalier Acton in 1773, with a single Tuscan
frigate, destroyed three out of their five ships. About 1788 the whole
Morocco navy consisted of six or eight frigates of two hundred tons,
armed with fourteen to eighteen six-pounders, and some galleys. The
rovers of Sal[=e] formed at one time a sort of republic of pirates,
paying the emperor a tithe of prize-money and slaves, in return for
non-interference; but gradually the Government absorbed most of the
profits, and the trade declined, till the emperors, in return for rich
presents, concluded treaties with the chief maritime Powers, and to a
large extent suppressed piracy.[51]
[Illustration: SAL[=E] IN 1637.
(_From a Map in the British Museum._)]
Turning from the monotonous records of internal barbarism, the more
adventurous side of Algerine history claims a brief notice. Among the
captains who continued to make the name of Corsair terrible to
Christian ears, Mur[=a]d Reis holds the foremost place; indeed, he
belongs to the order of great Corsairs. There were several of the
name, and this Mur[=a]d was distinguished as the Great Mur[=a]d. He
was an Arnaut or Albanian, who was captured by an Algerine pirate at
the age of twelve, and early showed a turn for adventure. When his
patron was engaged at the siege of Malta in 1565, young Mur[=a]d gave
him the slip, and went on a private cruise of his own, in which he
contrived to split his galleot upon a rock. Undeterred by this
misadventure, as soon as he got back to Algiers he set out in a
brigantine of fifteen banks, and speedily brought back three Spanish
prizes and one hundred and forty Christians. He was with Ochiali when
that eminent rover seized Saint-Clement's galleys, and was with
difficulty restrained from anticipating his admiral in boarding the
_St. Ann_. He soon gained the reputation of a Corsair of the first
water, and "a person, who, for our sins, did more harm to the
Christians than any other." In 1578, while cruising about the
Calabrian coast with eight galleots in search of prey, he sighted the
_Capitana_ of Sicily and a consort, with the Duke of Tierra Nuova and
his retinue on board. After a hot pursuit the consort was caught at
sea; the flagship ran on shore; the Duke and all the ship's company
deserted her; and the beautiful vessel was safely brought into Algiers
harbour. In 1585 Mur[=a]d ventured out into the Atlantic out of sight
of land, which no Algerine had ever dared to do before, and picking up
a reinforcement of small brigantines at Sal[=e], descended at daybreak
upon Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands, sacked the town without
opposition, and carried off the governor's family and three hundred
captives. This done, he unblushingly ran up a flag of truce, and
permitted the Count and the chief families to come on board and buy
back their relations. In 1589, after picking up a stray trader or two,
he fell in with _La Serena_, a galley of Malta, which had a Turkish
prize in tow. Far from shirking a conflict with so formidable an
antagonist, Mur[=a]d gave hot pursuit with his single galleot, and
coming up with the _Serena_, boarded and mastered her in half an hour.
Then, after stopping to arrest the misdoings of a Majorcan pirate, who
was poaching on his own private manor, the Corsair carried his prizes
into Algiers, where he was honourably mounted on the Pasha's own horse
and escorted in triumph to the Palace by a guard of Janissaries. In
1594, when he had attained the dignity of "General of the Algerine
Galleys," Mur[=a]d, with four galleots, encountered two Tuscan galleys
off Tripoli; lowering the masts of two of his galleots, so that they
should escape observation, he towed them behind the other two, and
when the Tuscans had drawn near in full expectation of a couple of
prizes, he loosed the vessels astern, and with all four bore down upon
the enemy; both galleys were taken, and the Florentine knights and
soldiers were chained to the oars in place of the Turks who had lately
sat there.[52]
No more typical example of the later sort of pirate can be cited than
'Ali Pichinin, General of the Galleys and galleons of Algiers in the
middle of the seventeenth century. This notable slaver, without
Barbarossa's ambition or nobility, possessed much of his daring and
seamanship. In 1638, emboldened by the successes of the Sultan
Mur[=a]d IV. against the Persians, 'Ali put to sea, and, picking up
some Tunisian galleys at Bizerta, set sail with a squadron of sixteen
for the east coast of Italy. He sacked the district of Nicotra in
Apulia, carrying off great spoils and many captives, not sparing even
nuns; and then scoured the Adriatic, took a ship in sight of Cattaro,
and picked up every stray vessel that could be found.
Upon this a strong Venetian squadron, under Marino Capello, sallied
forth, and compelled the Corsairs to seek shelter under the guns of
the Turkish fortress of Valona in Albania. In spite of the peace then
subsisting between Venice and the Porte, Capello attacked, and the
fortress naturally defended, the refugees. The Corsairs were obliged
to land, and then Capello, carried away by his zeal, and in
contravention of his orders, sent in his galleots and, after a sharp
struggle, towed away the whole Barbary squadron, leaving 'Ali and his
unlucky followers amazed upon the beach. For this bold stroke Capello
was severely reprimanded by the Senate, and the Porte was consoled for
the breach of treaty by a _douceur_ of five hundred thousand ducats:
but meanwhile the better part of the Algerine galley-fleet had ceased
to exist, and owners and captains were bankrupt. It was small
consolation that in the same summer an expedition to the north,
piloted by a renegade from Iceland, brought back eight hundred of his
unfortunate countrymen to exchange the cold of their native land for
the bagnios of Algiers.
In 1641, however, the Corsairs had recovered from their losses, and
'Ali Pichinin could boast a fleet of at least sixty-five vessels, as
we have it on the authority of Emanuel d'Aranda, who was his slave at
the time. The wealth and power of the General of the Galleys were then
at their zenith. Six hundred slaves were nightly locked up in his
prison, which afterwards was known as the Khan of 'Ali Pichinin, and
in Morgan's time was noted for its grape vines, which covered the
walls and fringed the windows with the luscious fruit up to the top
storey. The son of a renegade himself, he liked not that his followers
should turn Turk upon his hands; which "was but picking his pocket of
so much money to give a disciple to Mohammed, for whom he was remarked
to have no extraordinary veneration. He had actually cudgelled a
Frenchmen out of the name of Mustafa (which he had assumed with a
Turkish dress) into that of John, which he would fain have renounced.
His farms and garden-houses were also under the directions of his own
Christians. I have heard much discourse of an entertainment he once
made, at his garden, for all the chief Armadores and Corsairs, at
which the Pasha was also a guest, but found his own victuals, as
fearing some foul play; nothing of which is ill taken among the Turks.
All was dressed at town in the general's own kitchen, and passed
along from hand to hand by his slaves up to the garden-house, above
two miles' distant, where as much of the victuals as got safe thither
arrived smoking hot, as they tell the story."[53] A good part,
however, disappeared on the road, since, in Corsair's phrase, "the
Christian slaves wore hooks on their fingers," and the guests went
nigh to be starved. 'Ali's plan for feeding his slaves was
characteristic. He gave them no loaves as others did, but told them
they were indeed a sorry set of scoundrels, unworthy of the name of
slaves, if, during the two or three hours of liberty they enjoyed
before sunset, they could not find enough to keep them for a day. His
bagnios used to be regular auction-rooms for stolen goods, and were
besieged by indignant victims, who were reproached for their
carelessness, and made to re-purchase their own valuables: in fine,
'Ali Pichinin "has the honour of having trained up the cleanest set of
thieves that were anywhere to be met with." Once a slave found a
costly ring of the general's, and restored to him without price: for
which "unseasonable piece of honesty" 'Ali gave him half a ducat, and
called him a fool for his pains; the ring was worth his ransom.
Another time, a slave bargained to sell to an ironmaster the general's
anchor from out of his own galley: when discovered, he was commended
for his enterprising spirit, and told he was fit to be a slave, since
he knew how to gain his living. This slave-dealer had a genius for
wheedling the truth out of captives; he was so civil and sympathizing
when a new prize was caught, so ready with his "Count" and "my
lord" to plain gentlemen, and his "your Eminence" to simple clergymen,
that they soon confided in him, revealed their rank, and had their
ransom fixed: but, to do him justice, he kept his word, and once
promised the release was certain: "My word is my word," he would say.
[Illustration: FIGHT OF THE "MARY ROSE" WITH ALGERINE PIRATES, 1669.
(_Ogilby's Africa, 1670._)]
He was a man of very free views in religion. Once he asked a Genoese
priest to tell him candidly what would become of him; "frankly," said
Father Angelo, "I am persuaded that the devil will have you;" and the
response was cheerfully accepted. Another time it was a devout Moslem
sheykh who begged 'Ali to give him a Christian slave to kill, as he
did not feel that he had offered any sufficiently pleasing sacrifice
to the prophet Mohammed. 'Ali unchained the stroke-oar of his galley,
a muscular Spaniard, and armed him at all points, and sent him to be
killed by the holy man. "This Christian," shrieked the good sheykh,
running as hard as he could, "looks as if he rather wanted to kill me
than to be killed himself." "So is it," said 'Ali, "that you are to
merit the prophet's favour. Thus it is that Christians are to be
sacrificed. Mohammed was a brave, generous man, and never thought it
any service done him to slaughter those who were not able to defend
themselves. Go; get yourself better instructed in the meaning of the
Koran." He was a thorough Corsair, with the rough code of honour, as
well as the unprincipled rascality of the sea-rover.
FOOTNOTES:
[51] See John Windus, _Journey to Mequinez_ (Lond., 1735), describing
the embassy of Commodore Stewart to Morocco, in 1721, when two hundred
and ninety-six English slaves were freed, and a treaty repudiating
piracy and the right of search was concluded. Capt. John Braithwaite's
_History of the Revolutions in Morocco_ (1729) includes a journal of
events and observations made during Mr. Russell's mission in 1728.
Sal[=e] is described at pp. 343 ff. See also Chenier, _Present State of
the Empire of Morocco_ (Eng. transl., 1788). Chenier was French Consul
from 1767: the original work is entitled _Recherches historiques sur
les Maures_.
[52] Morgan, 557-9, 588, 597, 607.
[53] Morgan, 674.
XVI.
GALLEYS AND GALLEY SLAVES.
16th Century.
"The Corsairs," says Haedo, "are those who support themselves by
continual sea-robberies; and, admitting that among their numbers some
of them are natural Turks, Moors, &c., yet the main body of them are
renegadoes from every part of Christendom; all who are extremely well
acquainted with the Christian coasts." It is a singular fact that the
majority of these plunderers of Christians were themselves born in the
Faith. In the long list of Algerine viceroys, we meet with many a
European. Barbarossa himself was born in Lesbos, probably of a Greek
mother. His successor was a Sardinian; soon afterwards a Corsican
became pasha of Algiers, then another Sardinian; Ochiali was a
Calabrian; Ramad[=a]n came from Sardinia, and was succeeded by a
Venetian, who in turn gave place to a Hungarian, who made room for an
Albanian. In 1588 the thirty-five galleys or galleots of Algiers were
commanded by eleven Turks and twenty-four renegades, including nations
of France, Venice, Genoa, Sicily, Naples, Spain, Greece, Calabria,
Corsica, Albania, and Hungary, and a Jew. In short, up to nearly the
close of the sixteenth century (but much more rarely afterwards) the
chiefs of the Corsairs and the governors were commonly drawn from
Christian lands. Some of them volunteered--and to the outlaws of
Europe the command of a Barbary galley was perhaps the only congenial
resort;--but most of them were captives seized as children, and torn
from their homes in some of the Corsairs' annual raids upon Corsica
and Sardinia and the Italian or Dalmatian coasts. Most of such
prisoners were condemned to menial and other labour, unless ransomed;
but the bolder and handsomer boys were often picked out by the
penetrating eye of the reis, and once chosen the young captive's
career was established.
"While the Christians with their galleys are at repose, sounding their
trumpets in the harbours, and very much at their ease regaling
themselves, passing the day and night in banqueting, cards, and dice,
the Corsairs at pleasure are traversing the east and west seas,
without the least fear or apprehension, as free and absolute
sovereigns thereof. Nay, they roam them up and down no otherwise than
do such as go in chase of hares for their diversion. They here snap up
a ship laden with gold and silver from India, and there another richly
fraught from Flanders; now they make prize of a vessel from England,
then of another from Portugal. Here they board and lead away one from
Venice, then one from Sicily, and a little further on they swoop down
upon others from Naples, Livorno, or Genoa, all of them abundantly
crammed with great and wonderful riches. And at other times carrying
with them as guides renegadoes (of which there are in Algiers vast
numbers of all Christian nations, nay, the generality of the Corsairs
are no other than renegadoes, and all of them exceedingly well
acquainted with the coasts of Christendom, and even within the land),
they very deliberately, even at noon-day, or indeed just when they
please, leap ashore, and walk on without the least dread, and advance
into the country, ten, twelve, or fifteen leagues or more; and the
poor Christians, thinking themselves secure, are surprised unawares;
many towns, villages, and farms sacked; and infinite numbers of souls,
men, women, children, and infants at the breast, dragged away into a
wretched captivity. With these miserable ruined people, loaded with
their own valuable substance, they retreat leisurely, with eyes full
of laughter and content, to their vessels. In this manner, as is too
well known, they have utterly ruined and destroyed Sardinia, Corsica,
Sicily, Calabria, the neighbourhoods of Naples, Rome, and Genoa, all
the Balearic islands, and the whole coast of Spain: in which last more
particularly they feast it as they think fit, on account of the
Moriscos who inhabit there; who being all more zealous Mohammedans
than are the very Moors born in Barbary, they receive and caress the
Corsairs, and give them notice of whatever they desire to be informed
of. Insomuch that before these Corsairs have been absent from their
abodes much longer than perhaps twenty or thirty days, they return
home rich, with their vessels crowded with captives, and ready to sink
with wealth; in one instant, and with scarce any trouble, reaping
the fruits of all that the avaricious Mexican and greedy Peruvian have
been digging from the bowels of the earth with such toil and sweat,
and the thirsty merchant with such manifest perils has for so long
been scraping together, and has been so many thousand leagues to fetch
away, either from the east or west, with inexpressible danger and
fatigue. Thus they have crammed most of the houses, the magazines, and
all the shops of this Den of Thieves with gold, silver, pearls, amber,
spices, drugs, silks, cloths, velvets, &c., whereby they have rendered
this city the most opulent in the world: insomuch that the Turks call
it, not without reason, their India, their Mexico, their Peru."[54]
[Illustration: GALLEY RUNNING BEFORE THE WIND.
(_Jurien de la Graviere._)]
One has some trouble in realizing the sort of navigation employed by
Corsairs. We must disabuse our minds of all ideas of tall masts
straining under a weight of canvas, sail above sail. The Corsairs'
vessels were long narrow row-boats, carrying indeed a sail or two, but
depending for safety and movement mainly upon the oars. The boats were
called galleys, galleots, brigantines ("_galeotas ligeras o
vergatines_," or _frigatas_), &c., according to their size: a galleot
is a small galley, while a brigantine may be called a quarter galley.
The number of men to each oar varies, too, according to the vessel's
size: a galley may have as many as four to six men working side by
side to each oar, a galleot but two or three, and a brigantine one;
but in so small a craft as the last each man must be a fighter as well
as an oarsmen, whereas the larger vessels of the Corsairs were rowed
entirely by Christian slaves.
[Illustration: STAGES IN BUILDING A GALLEY.
(_Jurien de la Graviere._)]
[Illustration: PLAN AND SECTIONS OF A GALLEY.
(_Jurien de la Graviere._)]
[Illustration: _Caique._ _Canoe._
HOLD OF A GALLEY.
(_Jurien de la Graviere._)]
The galley is the type of all these vessels, and those who are curious
about the minutest details of building and equipping galleys need only
consult Master Joseph Furttenbach's _Architectura Navalis: Das ist,
Von dem Schiff-Gebaw, auf dem Meer und Seekusten zu gebrauchen_,
printed in the town of Ulm, in the Holy Roman Empire, by Jonam Saurn,
in 1629. Any one could construct a galley from the numerous plans and
elevations and sections and finished views (some of which are here
reproduced) in this interesting and precise work.[55] Furttenbach is
an enthusiastic admirer of a ship's beauties, and he had seen all
varieties; for his trade took him to Venice, where he had a
galleasse,[56] and he had doubtless viewed many a Corsair
fleet, since he could remember the battle of Lepanto and the death of
Ochiali. His zeal runs clean away with him when he describes a
_stolo_, or great flagship (_capitanea galea_) of Malta in her pomp
and dignity and lordliness, as she rides the seas to the rhythmical
beat of her many oars, or "easies" with every blade suspended
motionless above the waves like the wings of a poised falcon. A galley
such as this is "a princely, nay, a royal and imperial _vassello di
remo_," and much the most suitable, he adds, for the uses of peace and
of war in the Mediterranean Sea. A galley may be 180 or 190 spans
long--Furttenbach measures a ship by _palmi_, which varied from nine
to ten inches in different places in Italy,--say 150 feet, the length
of an old seventy-four frigate, but with hardly a fifth of its cubit
contents--and its greatest beam is 25 spans broad. The one engraved on
p. 37 is evidently an admiral's galley of the Knights of Malta. She
carries two masts--the _albero maestro_ or mainmast, and the
_trinchetto_, or foremast, each with a great lateen sail. The Genoese
and Venetians set the models of these vessels, and the Italian terms
were generally used in all European navigation till the northern
nations took the lead in sailing ships. These sails are often clewed
up, however, for the mariner of the sixteenth century was
ill-practised in the art of tacking, and very fearful of losing sight
of land for long, so that unless he had a wind fair astern he
preferred to trust to his oars. A short deck at the prow and poop
serve, the one to carry the fighting-men and trumpeters and yardsmen,
and to provide cover for the four guns, the other to accommodate the
knights and gentlemen, and especially the admiral or captain, who sits
at the stern under a red damask canopy embroidered with gold,
surveying the crew, surrounded by the chivalry of "the Religion,"
whose white cross waves on the taffety standard over their head, and
shines upon various pennants and burgees aloft. Behind, overlooking
the roof of the poop, stands the pilot who steers the ship by the
tiller in his hand.
Between the two decks, in the ship's waist, is the propelling power:
fifty-four benches or banks, twenty-seven a side, support each four or
five slaves, whose whole business in life is to tug at the fifty-four
oars. This flagship is a Christian vessel, so the rowers are either
Turkish and Moorish captives, or Christian convicts. If it were a
Corsair, the rowers would all be Christian prisoners. In earlier days
the galleys were rowed by freemen, and so late as 1500 the Moors of
Algiers pulled their own brigantines to the attack of Spanish
villages, but their boats were light, and a single man could pull the
oar. Two or three were needed for a galleot, and as many sometimes as
six for each oar of a large galley. It was impossible to induce
freemen to toil at the oar, sweating close together, for hour after
hour--not sitting, but leaping on the bench, in order to throw their
whole weight on the oar. "Think of six men chained to a bench, naked
as when they were born, one foot on the stretcher, the other on the
bench in front, holding an immensely heavy oar [fifteen feet long],
bending forwards to the stern with arms at full reach to clear the
backs of the rowers in front, who bend likewise; and then having got
forward, shoving up the oar's end to let the blade catch the water,
then throwing their bodies back on to the groaning bench. A galley oar
sometimes pulls thus for ten, twelve, or even twenty hours without a
moment's rest. The boatswain, or other sailor, in such a stress, puts
a piece of bread steeped in wine in the wretched rower's mouth to stop
fainting, and then the captain shouts the order to redouble the lash.
If a slave falls exhausted upon his oar (which often chances) he is
flogged till he is taken for dead, and then pitched unceremoniously
into the sea."[57]
"Those who have not seen a galley at sea, especially in chasing or
being chased, cannot well conceive the shock such a spectacle must
give to a heart capable of the least tincture of commiseration. To
behold ranks and files of half-naked, half-starved, half-tanned meagre
wretches, chained to a plank, from whence they remove not for months
together (commonly half a year), urged on, even beyond human strength,
with cruel and repeated blows on their bare flesh, to an incessant
continuation of the most violent of all exercises; and this for whole
days and nights successively, which often happens in a furious chase,
when one party, like vultures, is hurried on almost as eagerly after
their prey, as is the weaker party hurried away in hopes of preserving
life and liberty."[58]
Sometimes a galley-slave worked as long as twenty years, sometimes for
all his miserable life, at this fearful calling. The poor creatures
were chained so close together in their narrow bench--a sharp cut was
the characteristic of the galley--that they could not sleep at full
length. Sometimes seven men (on French galleys, too, in the last
century), had to live and sleep in a space ten feet by four. The whole
ship was a sea of hopeless faces. And between the two lines of rowers
ran the bridge, and on it stood two boatswains (_comiti_) armed with
long whips, which they laid on to the bare backs of the rowers with
merciless severity. Furttenbach gives a picture of the two boatswains
in grimly humorous verse: how they stand,
Beclad, belaced, betrimmed, with many knots bespick;
Embroidered, padded, tied; all feathers and all flap;
Curly and queued, equipped, curious of hood and cap:
and how they "ever stolidly smite" the crew with the bastinado,
Or give them a backward prod in the naked flesh as they ply,
With the point that pricks like a goad, when "powder and shot" is
the cry;
in order to send the Turks to Davy's wet locker:--
As John of Austria nipped them and riddled them with ball,
As soon as his eyes fell on them, and ducked or slaughtered them all;
and how the boatswain's dreaded whistle shrieked through the ship:--
For they hearken to such a blast through all the swish and sweat,
Through rattle and rumpus and raps, and the kicks and cuffs that they
get,
Through the chatter and tread, and the rudder's wash, and the dismal
clank
Of the shameful chain which forever binds the slave to the bank.
To this may be added Captain Pantero Pantera's description of the
boatswain's demeanour: "He should appear kindly towards the crew:
assist it, pet it, but without undue familiarity; be, in short, its
guardian and in some sort its father, remembering that, when all's
said, 'tis human flesh, and human flesh in direst misery."
This terrible living grave of a galley, let us remember, is depicted
from Christian models. A hundred and fifty years ago such scenes might
be witnessed on many a European vessel. The Corsairs of Algiers only
served their enemies as they served them: their galley slaves were no
worse treated, to say the least, than were Doria's or the King of
France's own. Rank and delicate nurture were respected on neither
side: a gallant Corsair like Dragut had to drag his chain and pull his
insatiable oar like any convict at the treadmill, and a future grand
master of Malta might chance to take his seat on the rowing bench
beside commonest scoundrel of Naples. No one seemed to observe the
horrible brutality of the service, where each man, let him be never so
refined, was compelled to endure the filth and vermin of his neighbour
who might be half a savage and was bound to become wholly one; and
when Madame de Grignan wrote an account of a visit to a galley, her
friend Madame de Sevigne replied that she would "much like to see this
sort of Hell," and the men "groaning day and night under the weight of
their chains." _Autres temps, autres moeurs!_
Furttenbach tells us much more about the galley; and how it was rigged
out with brilliant cloths on the bulwarks on fete-days; how the
biscuit was made to last six or eight months, each slave getting
twenty-eight ounces thrice a week, and a spoonful of some mess of rice
or bones or green stuff; of the trouble of keeping the water-cans
under the benches full and fairly fresh. The full complement of a
large galley included, he says, besides about 270 rowers, and the
captain, chaplain, doctor, scrivener, boatswains, and master, or
pilot, ten or fifteen gentleman adventurers, friends of the captain,
sharing his mess, and berthed in the poop; twelve helmsmen
(_timonieri_), six foretop A.B's., ten warders for the captives,
twelve ordinary seamen, four gunners, a carpenter, smith, cooper, and
a couple of cooks, together with fifty or sixty soldiers; so that the
whole equipage of a fighting-galley must have reached a total of about
four hundred men.[59]
What is true of a European galley is also generally applicable to a
Barbary galleot, except that the latter was generally smaller and
lighter, and had commonly but one mast, and no castle on the prow.[60]
The Algerines preferred fighting on galleots of eighteen to
twenty-four banks of oars, as more manageable than larger ships. The
crew of about two hundred men was very densely packed, and about one
hundred soldiers armed with muskets, bows, and scimitars occupied the
poop. Haedo has described the general system of the Corsairs as he
knew it at the close of the sixteenth century, and his account, here
summarized, holds good for earlier and somewhat later periods:--
These vessels are perpetually building or repairing at Algiers; the
builders are all Christians, who have a monthly pay from the Treasury
of six, eight, or ten quarter-dollars, with a daily allowance of three
loaves of the same bread with the Turkish soldiery, who have four.
Some of the upper rank of these masters have six and even eight of
these loaves; nor has any of their workmen, as carpenters, caulkers,
coopers, oar-makers, smiths, &c., fewer than three. The _Beylik_, or
common magazine, never wants slaves of all useful callings, "nor is it
probable that they should ever have a scarcity of such while they are
continually bringing in incredible numbers of Christians of all
nations." The captains, too, have their private artificer slaves, whom
they buy for high prices and take with them on the cruise, and hire
them out to help the Beylik workmen when ashore.
The number of vessels possessed at any one time by the Algerines
appears to have never been large. Barbarossa and Dragut were content
with small squadrons. Ochiali had but fifteen Algerine galleys at
Lepanto. Haedo says that at the close of the sixteenth century (1581)
the Algerines possessed 36 galleots or galleys, made up of 3 of 24
banks, 1 of 23, 11 of 22, 8 of 20, 1 of 19, 10 of 18, and 2 of 15, and
these were, all but 14, commanded by renegades. They had besides a
certain number of brigantines of 14 banks, chiefly belonging to Moors
at Shersh[=e]l. This agrees substantially with Father Dan's account
(1634), who says that there were in 1588 thirty-five galleys or
brigantines (he means galleots) of which all but eleven were commanded
by renegades. Haedo gives the list[61] of the 35 captains, from which
the following names are selected: Ja'far the Pasha (Hungarian), Memi
(Albanian), Mur[=a]d (French), Deli Memi (Greek), Mur[=a]d Reis
(Albanian), Feru Reis (Genoese), Mur[=a]d Maltrapillo and Y[=u]suf
(Spaniards), Memi Reis and Memi Gancho (Venetians), Mur[=a]d the Less
(Greek), Memi the Corsican, Memi the Calabrian, Montez the Sicilian,
and so forth, most of whom commanded galleys of 22 to 24 banks.[62]
It was a pretty sight to see the launching of a galley. After the long
months of labour, after felling the oak and pine in the forests of
Shersh[=e]l, and carrying the fashioned planks on camels, mules, or
their own shoulders, some thirty miles to the seashore; or perhaps
breaking up some unwieldy prize vessel taken from the Spaniards or
Venetians; after all the sawing and fitting and caulking and painting;
then at last comes the day of rejoicing for the Christian slaves who
alone have done the work: for no Mussulman would offer to put a finger
to the building of a vessel, saving a few Morisco oar-makers and
caulkers. Then the _armadores_, or owners of the new galleot, as soon
as it is finished, come down with presents of money and clothes, and
hang them upon the mast and rigging, to the value of two hundred or
three hundred ducats, to be divided among their slaves, whose only pay
till that day has been the daily loaves. Then again on the day of
launching, after the vessel has been keeled over, and the bottom
carefully greased from stem to stern, more presents from owners and
captains to the workmen, to say nothing of a hearty dinner; and a
great straining and shoving of brawny arms and bare backs, a shout of
_Allahu Akbar_, "God is Most Great," as the sheep is slaughtered over
the vessel's prow--a symbol, they said, of the Christian blood to be
shed--and the galleot glides into the water prepared for her career of
devastation: built by Christians and manned by Christians, commanded
probably by a quondam Christian, she sallies forth to prey upon
Christendom.
The rowers, if possible, were all Christian slaves, belonging to the
owners, but when these were not numerous enough, other slaves, or
Arabs and Moors, were hired at ten ducats the trip, prize or no prize.
If he was able, the captain (_Reis_) would build and furnish out his
own vessel, entirely at his own cost, in hope of greater profit; but
often he had not the means, and then he would call in the aid of one
or more _armadores_. These were often speculative shopkeepers, who
invested in a part share of a galleot on the chance of a prize, and
who often discovered that ruin lay in so hazardous a lottery. The
complement of soldiers, whether volunteers (_levents_), consisting of
Turks, renegades, or _Kuroghler_ (_Kuloghler_)--_i.e._, _creoles_,
natives, Turks born on the soil--or if these cannot be had, ordinary
Moors, or Ottoman janissaries, varied with the vessel's size, but
generally was calculated at two to each oar, because there was just
room for two men to sit beside each bank of rowers: they were not paid
unless they took a prize, nor were they supplied with anything more
than biscuit, vinegar, and oil--everything else, even their blankets,
they found themselves. The soldiers were under the command of their
own Aga, who was entirely independent of the Reis and formed an
efficient check upon that officer's conduct. Vinegar and water, with a
few drops of oil on the surface, formed the chief drink of the galley
slaves, and their food was moistened biscuit or rusk, and an
occasional mess of gruel (_burgol_): nor was this given out when hard
rowing was needed, for oars move slackly on a full stomach.
It was usual to consult an auguration book and a _marabut_, or saint,
before deciding on a fortunate day for putting to sea, and these
saints expected a share of the prize money. Fridays and Sundays were
the favourite days for sailing; a gun is fired in honour of their
tutelary patron; "God speed us!" shout the crew; "God send you a
prize!" reply the crowd on the shore, and the galleot swiftly glides
away on its destructive path. "The Algerines," says Haedo, "generally
speaking, are out upon the cruise winter and summer, the whole year
round; and so devoid of dread they roam these eastern and western
seas, laughing all the while at the Christian galleys (which lie
trumpetting, gaming, and banqueting in the ports of Christendom),
neither more nor less than if they went a hunting hares and rabbits,
killing here one and there another. Nay, far from being under
apprehension, they are certain of their game; since their galleots are
so extremely light and nimble, and in such excellent order, as they
always are[63]; whereas, on the contrary, the Christian galleys are
so heavy, so embarrassed, and in such bad order and confusion, that it
is utterly in vain to think of giving them chase, or of preventing
them from going and coming, and doing just as they their selves
please. This is the occasion that, when at any time the Christian
galleys chase them, their custom is, by way of game and sneer, to
point to their fresh-tallowed poops, as they glide along like fishes
before them, all one as if they showed them their backs to salute: and
as in the cruising art, by continual practise, they are so very
expert, and withal (for our sins) so daring, presumptuous, and
fortunate, in a few days from their leaving Algiers they return laden
with infinite wealth and captives; and are able to make three or four
voyages in a year, and even more if they are inclined to exert
themselves. Those who have been cruising westward, when they have
taken a prize, conduct it to sell at Tetw[=a]n, El-Araish, &c., in the
kingdom of Fez; as do those who have been eastward, in the states of
Tunis and Tripoli: where, refurnishing themselves with provisions,
&c., they instantly set out again, and again return with cargoes of
Christians and their effects. If it sometimes happens more
particularly in winter, that they have roamed about for any
considerable time without lighting on any booty, they retire to some
one of these seven places, viz:--If they had been in the west their
retreats were Tetw[=a]n, Al-Araish, or Yusale; those who came from the
Spanish coasts went to the island Formentara; and such as had been
eastward retired to the island S. Pedro, near Sardinia, the mouths of
Bonifacio in Corsica, or the islands Lipari and Strombolo, near Sicily
and Calabria; and there, what with the conveniency of those commodious
ports and harbours, and the fine springs and fountains of water, with
the plenty of wood for fuel they meet with, added to the careless
negligence of the Christian galleys, who scarce think it their
business to seek for them--they there, very much at their ease, regale
themselves, with stretched-out legs, waiting to intercept the paces of
Christian ships, which come there and deliver themselves into their
clutches."[64]
Father Dan describes their mode of attack as perfectly ferocious.
Flying a foreign flag, they lure the unsuspecting victim within
striking distance, and then the gunners (generally renegades) ply the
shot with unabated rapidity, while the sailors and boatswains chain
the slaves that they may not take part in the struggle. The fighting
men stand ready, their arms bared, muskets primed, and scimitars
flashing, waiting for the order to board. Their war-cry was appalling;
and the fury of the onslaught was such as to strike panic into the
stoutest heart.
When a prize was taken the booty was divided with scrupulous honesty
between the owners and the captors, with a certain proportion (varying
from a fifth to an eighth) reserved for the Beylik, or government, who
also claimed the hulks. Of the remainder, half went to the owners and
reis, the other half to the crew and soldiers. The principal officers
took each three shares, the gunners and helmsmen two, and the soldiers
and swabbers one; the Christian slaves received from 11/2 to three
shares apiece. A scrivener saw to the accuracy of the division. If the
prize was a very large one, the captors usually towed it into Algiers
at once, but small vessels were generally sent home under a lieutenant
and a jury-crew of Moors.
There is no mistaking the aspect of a Corsair who has secured a prize:
for he fires gun after gun as he draws near the port, utterly
regardless of powder. The moment he is in the roads, the _Liman_ Reis,
or Port Admiral, goes on board, and takes his report to the Pasha;
then the galleot enters the port, and all the oars are dropped into
the water and towed ashore, so that no Christian captives may make off
with the ship in the absence of the captain and troops. Ashore all is
bustle and delighted confusion; the dulness of trade, which is the
normal condition of Algiers between the arrivals of prizes, is
forgotten in the joy of renewed wealth; the erstwhile shabby now go
strutting about, pranked out in gay raiment, the commerce of the
bar-rooms is brisk, and every one thinks only of enjoying himself.
Algiers is _en fete_.
FOOTNOTES:
[54] Haedo, quoted by Morgan, 593-4.
[55] Hardly less valuable is Adm. Jurien de la Graviere's _Les Derniers
Jours de la Marine a Rames_ (Paris, 1885). It contains an admirable
account of the French galley system, the mode of recruiting,
discipline, and general management; a description of the different
classes of vessels, and their manner of navigation; while a learned
Appendix of over one hundred pages describes the details of
galley-building, finishing, fitting, and rigging, and everything that
the student need wish to learn. The chapters (ix. and x.) on
_Navigation a la rame_ and _Navigation a la voile_, are particularly
worth reading by those who would understand sixteenth and seventeenth
century seamanship.
[56] A galleasse was originally a large heavy galley, three-masted, and
fitted with a rudder, since its bulk compelled it to trust to sails as
well as oars. It was a sort of transition-ship, between the galley and
the galleon, and as time went on it became more and more of a sailing
ship. It had high bulwarks, with loopholes for muskets, and there was
at least a partial cover for the crew. The Portuguese galleys in the
Spanish Armada mounted each 110 soldiers and 222 galley-slaves; but the
Neapolitan galleasses carried 700 men, of whom 130 were sailors, 270
soldiers, and 300 slaves of the oar. Jurien de la Graviere, _Les
Derniers Jours de la Marine a Rames_, 65-7.
[57] So says Jean Marteille de Bergerac, a galley-slave about 1701,
quoted by Adm. Jurien de la Graviere, _Derniers Jours de la Marine a
Rames_, 13.
[58] Morgan, 517.
[59] In 1630 a French galley's company consisted of 250 forcats and 116
officers, soldiers, and sailors.
[60] Dan, _Hist. de Barbarie_, 268-71. See the cut of Tunisian galleots
on p. 183.
[61] _Topographia_, 18.
[62] Dan, 270-1.
[63] The Corsairs prided themselves on the ship-shape appearance of
their vessels. Everything was stowed away with marvellous neatness and
economy of space and speed; even the anchor was lowered into the hold
lest it should interfere with the "dressing" of the oars. The weapons
were never hung, but securely lashed, and when chasing an enemy, no
movement of any kind was permitted to the crew and soldiers, save when
necessary to the progress and defence of the ship. These Corsairs, in
fact, understood the conditions of a rowing-race to perfection.
[64] Haedo, 17.
XVII.
THE TRIUMPH OF SAILS.
17th Century.
[Illustration: GALLEASSE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
(_Jurien de la Graviere._)]
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]
[Illustration: ANCHOR.]
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.
[Illustration: TORMENTS OF THE SLAVES.
(_Dan, Hist. de Barbarie, 1637._)]
[Illustration: TORMENTS OF THE SLAVES.
(_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]
[Illustration: FATHERS OF THE REDEMPTION.
(_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.
Every now and then a paltry sum was doled out by Government for the
ransom of slaves, whose capture was due to official supineness; and we
find the House of Lords subscribing nearly L3,000 for the same object.
In the first quarter of the seventeenth century 240 British slaves
were redeemed for L1,200; and the Algerines, who looked upon the whole
matter in a businesslike spirit, not only were willing to give every
facility for their purchase, but even sent a special envoy to the
Court of St. James's to forward the negotiations. Towards the middle
of the century a good many more were rescued by Edmond Casson as agent
for the Government. Alice Hayes of Edinburgh was ransomed for 1,100
double pesetas (two francs each), Sarah Ripley of London for 800, a
Dundee woman for only 200, others for as much as 1,390; while men
generally fetched about 500.[85] Sometimes, but very rarely, the
captives made their own escape. The story is told by Purchas[86] of
four English youths who were left on board a prize, the _Jacob_ of
Bristol, to help a dozen Turkish captors to navigate her, and who
threw the captain overboard, killed three more, drove the rest under
hatches, and sold them for a round sum in the harbour of San Lucar by
Cadiz. Even more exciting were the adventures of William Okeley, who
in 1639 was taken on board the _Mary_ bound for the West Indies, when
but six days from the Isle of Wight. His master, a Moor, gave him
partial liberty, and allowed him to keep a wineshop, in consideration
of a monthly payment of two dollars; and in the cellar of his shop the
slave secretly constructed a light canoe of canvas, while the staves
of empty winepipes furnished the oars. These he and his comrades
smuggled down to the beach, and five of them embarked in the crazy
craft, which bore them safely to Majorca. The hardest part was the
farewell to two more who were to have accompanied them, but were found
to overweight the little boat.
Several other narratives of successful escapes may be read in the
volume of voyages published by the Redemptionist Fathers, and
translated by Joseph Morgan. One at least is worth quoting:
"A good number, of different nations, but mostly Majorcans, conspired
to get away by night with a row-boat [_i.e._, brigantine] ready for
the cruise: they were in all about seventy. Having appointed a place
of rendezvous, at dead of night they got down through a sewer into the
port: but the dogs, which are there very numerous, ran barking at
them; some they killed with clubs and stones. At this noise, those who
were on guard, as well ashore as in the ships, bawled out with all
their might, 'Christians! Christians!' They then assembled and ran
towards the noise. And forty of the slaves having entered the
_fregata_, or row-boat, and being stronger than those who guarded her,
they threw them all into the sea; and it being their business to
hasten out of the port, embarrassed with cables of the many ships
which then quite filled it, and as they were desirous of taking the
shortest cut, they took the resolution of leaping all into the water,
hoisting up the boat on their shoulders, and wading with it till clear
of all those cables. Spite of the efforts to prevent their design,
they made out to sea, and soon reached Majorca. On hearing this the
Dey cried out, 'I believe these dogs of Christians will come one day
or other and take us out of our houses!'"[87]
Ransoms and escapes were more than made up by fresh captures. In 1655,
indeed, Admiral Blake, after trying to bring the Tunisians to terms,
ran into the harbour of Porto Farina on the 3rd of April, where the
fleet of the Bey, consisting of nine vessels, was anchored close in
under the guns of the forts and earthworks, and under a heavy fire he
burnt every one of them: then proceeding to Algiers, found the city in
such consternation that he liberated the whole body of British slaves
(English, Scots, Irish, and Channel Islanders) for a trifling sum.
Nevertheless, four years later, the Earl of Inchiquin, notorious as
"Morough of the Burnings," from his manner of making war, and his son,
Lord O'Brien, were caught off the Tagus while engaged in one of those
foreign services in which royalists were apt to enlist during the
troubles at home, and it took the Earl seven or eight months'
captivity and 7,500 crowns to obtain his release. In the following
century the remnant of the brave Hibernian Regiment, on its way from
Italy, was surrounded and overcome, to the number of about eighty, and
was treated with peculiar barbarity. It was no rare thing to see
British ships--once even a sloop of war--brought captive into Algiers
harbour, on some pretext of their papers being out of form; and the
number of slaves continued to increase, in spite of the philanthropic
efforts of some of the wealthy merchants, like William Bowtell, who
devoted themselves to the humane attempt.
Very often it was the captive's own fault that he was taken.
Frequently he was serving on a vessel of a power then at war with
Algiers. The system of passes for the Mediterranean opened the way to
a good deal of knavery; ships sailed under false colours, or, being
themselves at war with Algiers, carried passes purchased from her
allies. The Algerines were shy of contracting too many alliances, lest
there should be no nation to prey upon, and we read of a solemn debate
in the Divan to decide which nation should be broken with, inasmuch as
the slave-masters were becoming bankrupt from the pacific relations of
the State. This was when the cupidity of the Dey had led him to accept
a heavy bribe from Sweden in return for his protection, and the
Corsairs rushed excitedly to the palace declaring that they had
already too many allies: "Neither in the ocean nor narrow sea can we
find scarce any who are not French, English, or Dutch; nothing remains
for us to do, but either to sell our ships for fuel, and return to
our primitive camel-driving, or to break with one of these
nations."[88] Thus there was generally one favoured nation--or perhaps
two--to whom the Algerines accorded the special favour of
safe-conducts over the Mediterranean, and it was the object of all
other traders to borrow or buy these free passes from their happy
possessors. The Algerines were not unnaturally incensed at finding
themselves cheated by means of their own passes. "As for the
Flemings," complained the Corsairs, "they are a good people enough,
never deny us anything, nor are they worse than their word, like the
French; but they certainly play foul tricks upon us, in selling their
passes to other infidels: For ever since we made peace with them, we
rarely light on either Swede, Dane, Hamburgher, &c. All have Dutch
complexions; all Dutch passes; all call each other _Hans, Hans_, and
all say _Yaw, Yaw!_"
Many of these counterfeit allies carried English seamen, and such, not
being under their own colours, were liable to be detained in slavery.
So numerous was this class of captives that, although in 1694 it was
reported that no Englishmen captured under the British flag remained
in slavery in Algiers, there was ample application soon afterwards for
Betton's beneficial bequest of over L21,000 for the purpose of
ransoming British captives.
Expedition after expedition was sent to argue, to remonstrate, to
threaten, with literally no result. Ambassador after ambassador came
and went, and made useless treaties, and still the Algerines
maintained the preposterous _right to search British vessels_ at sea,
and take from them foreigners and goods. Sir Robert Mansell first
arrived in 1620 with eighteen ships and five hundred guns, manned by
2,600 men; and accomplished nothing. As soon as they turned their
backs the pirates took forty British ships. Sir Thomas Roe made a
treaty, which turned out to be waste paper. Blake frightened the
Corsairs for the moment. The Earl of Winchelsea, in 1660, admitted the
right of search. Lord Sandwich in the following year cannonaded
Algiers without result from a safe distance. Four times Sir Thomas
Allen brought his squadron into the bay, and four times sailed he out,
having gained half his purpose, and twice his desert of insult: "These
men," cried 'Ali Aga, "talk as if they were drunk, and would force us
to restore their subjects whether they will or no! Bid them
begone."[89] The only satisfactory event to be reported after fifty
years of fruitless expeditions is Sir E. Spragg's attack on the
Algerine fleet, beached under the guns of Buj[=e]ya: like Blake, he
sent in a fireship and burnt the whole squadron. Whereupon the
Janissaries rose in consternation, murdered their Aga, and, carrying
his head to the Palace, insisted on peace with England.
It was a very temporary display of force. Five years later Sir John
Narborough, instead of bombarding, was meekly paying sixty thousand
"pieces of eight" to the Algerines for slaves and presents. In 1681
Admiral Herbert, afterwards Lord Torrington, executed various amicable
cruises against the Algerines. In 1684 Sir W. Soame with difficulty
extorted a salute of twenty-one guns to His Britannic Majesty's flag.
And so the weary tale of irresolution and weakness went on. Admiral
Keppel's expedition in 1749 is chiefly memorable for the presence of
Sir Joshua Reynolds as a guest on board the flagship; and it is
possible that two sketches reproduced by Sir Lambert Playfair are from
his pencil: the drawings were the only fruit of the cruise. James
Bruce, the African traveller, as agent or consul-general in 1763, put
a little backbone into the communications, but he soon went on his
travels, and then the old fruitless course of humble remonstrances and
idle demonstrations went on again. Whenever more serious attempts were
made, the preparations were totally inadequate. Spain, Portugal,
Naples, and Malta sent a combined fleet in 1784 to punish the
Algerines, but the vessels were all small and such as the Corsairs
could tackle, and so feeble and desultory was the attack that, after a
fortnight's fooling, the whole fleet sailed away.
FOOTNOTES:
[78] Broadley, _Tunis_, i. 51.
[79] _Several Voyages_, 97.
[80] _Ibid._ 104, note.
[81] London: Smith and Elder, 1884.
[82] Up to 1618 Algiers was governed by a Pasha directly appointed by
the Sultan; from 1618 the Pasha was chosen by the Janissaries and other
militia subject to the veto of the Sultan; in 1671 the Janissaries
first elected a Dey out of their own number, every soldier being
eligible, and their Dey soon made the Sultan's Pasha a lay figure; in
1710 the two offices were united in a Dey chosen by the soldiery. These
parvenus were by no means ashamed of their origin or principles.
Mohammed Dey (1720), getting into a passion with the French consul,
exclaimed with more frankness than courtesy: "My mother sold sheeps'
feet, and my father sold neats' tongues, but they would have been
ashamed to expose for sale so worthless a tongue as thine." Another
time the Dey confessed with dignified _naivete_ to Consul Cole: "The
Algerines are a company of rogues--_and I am their Captain!_"
[83] _Several Voyages_, 111 ff.
[84] See his descendant Adm. Spratt's _Travels and Researches in
Crete_, i. 384-7.
[85] Playfair, 64 ff.
[86] _Voyages_, ii. 887.
[87] _Several Voyages_, 57-8.
[88] Morgan, Pref. v., vi.
[89] Playfair, 94.
XX.
THE UNITED STATES AND TRIPOLI.
1803-5.