The "Turks" in the Channel
"All, all asleep within each roof, along the rocky street,
And these must be the lovers' friends, with gently sliding feet--
A stifled gasp! a dreary noise! 'The roof is in a flame!'
From out their beds, and to their doors, rush maid, and sire, and dame--
And meet, upon the threshold stone, the gleaming sabre's fall,
And o'er each black and bearded face the white or crimson shawl--
The yell of 'Allah!' breaks above the prayer and shriek and roar--
Oh, blessed God! The Algerine is lord of Baltimore!"
_The Sack of Baltimore_, by THOMAS OSBORNE DAVIS.
YOU may read dozens of English histories, and even histories of the
British Navy, and find little or no mention of the subject of this
chapter. And yet during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and part of the
eighteenth centuries the Algerine pirates, or "Turks" as they were
generally called, were a real menace to our trade, our fishermen, and
even to the dwellers on our coasts. The story is not at all a creditable
one to us as a nation, nor did the Navy itself gain any particular
distinction in fighting with these pests; but this was not so much the
fault of our sea-commanders and their men as of the Government, which
rarely gave them any real opportunity of exterminating the Turkish
pirates that infested even our home waters.
The most discreditable part of all was that played by the British
renegades, who were, more than anyone else, responsible for the Turkish
efficiency at sea. Left to themselves, the corsairs from Algiers, Tunis,
and Salee would never have become formidable. In mediæval times, as has
already been noted, the English had the reputation of being "good
seamen, but better pirates", and piracy (including English piracy),
though scotched, was not killed till some time after the days of "Good
Queen Bess". Why, in the youth of Edward VI, when the country was ruled
by the Regent Somerset, the Regent's own brother--Sir Thomas Seymour,
the Lord High Admiral of England--did not disdain to "do a bit in that
line" himself!
The story is this. He had been married to the Queen Dowager. When she
died, he found himself rather "hard up". From his position he knew all
about the Channel pirates; he had dealt with lots of them, and "executed
justice" on them for their misdeeds. Now, however, he entered into a
surreptitious partnership with them, "winked the other eye" at
complaints, and pocketed half-profits. He did so well that he tried to
start a special mint of his own at Bristol. He still pretended to the
Regent and the Council to be very poor, and eventually succeeded in
getting an addition of 1500 ducats a year to his salary. He was allowed,
moreover, to draw this in a lump sum in advance. But it was not very
long before the Council began to "smell a rat". The pirates naturally
got bolder and bolder, knowing that they could work with impunity, and
Sir Thomas Seymour was asked "why he did not look after these matters?"
"Oh," said he, "I am just sending three ships after these fellows! I'll
soon make things all right." His ships sailed, but only to become the
worst and most successful freebooters in British waters. Their
depredations and his great wealth, which, it seems, he spent openly and
extravagantly, could not long remain a secret, and he was again summoned
before the Council. He still asserted that he was poverty-stricken, but
he could no longer get anyone to believe him, and a piratical captain
who was captured about this time admitted, under examination, that the
admiral had "gone halves" with him. "Brother or no brother, he must be
executed for this," said the Protector Somerset--and he was.
When a man in Sir Thomas Seymour's exalted position could behave in
this manner, one can hardly be surprised that lesser "gentlemen" were
not ashamed to follow in his footsteps--even some years later.
The first appearance of Mohammedan pirates in Northern waters was at a
time very remote from that of which I am now writing, but I think it is
of sufficient interest to deserve a passing reference. It was in the
year 1048--just eighteen years before the Conquest--that news came to
William of Normandy that a band of Moorish or Saracen pirates had
established themselves in a castle which they had built on an eminence
right in the middle of the Island of Guernsey, from which they harassed
and terrorized the inhabitants. A knight, Samson d'Anville, was sent to
destroy "Le Château du Grand Sarrasin", as it was called, and he
apparently succeeded in rooting out the wasps' nest; and when in 1203 a
church was built on the site, the salvation of the islanders was
commemorated by its consecration as "Notre Dame de la Deliverance du
Castel". Catel Church still stands on this historic spot. We hear no
more of Saracen pirates in Northern seas till the sixteenth century,
unless the mysterious ships which were driven ashore near Berwick in
1254 were in any way connected with them. Certainly the ships of any
Northern nation would have been recognizable on our north-east coast.
The ships in question "were large handsome vessels, but unlike anything
ever before seen in this country: well provided with naval stores and
provisions, and laden with coats of mail, shields and weapons of all
kinds, sufficient for an army".[25] Their crews were arrested "as
barbarians, or spies, or even enemies", but as no one understood their
language, nothing whatever could be made of them, and so they were
eventually allowed to depart in peace. Who they were, whence they came,
and whither they went has never been discovered. The incident remains
one of the most impenetrable of the many mysteries of the sea.
The foundation of the piratical States on the north coast of Africa,
which were to be the source of untold misery to European nations, may be
traced to the final expulsion of the Moors from Spain in 1509. Pursued
by the Spaniards to Algiers--or Argier, as it was then usually
called--the Moors called in the assistance of Arouji Barbarossa, a noted
Mediterranean corsair. He succeeded in beating off the invaders and
established himself as first Dey. Tunis, Sallee, and other rover
communities soon sprang up along the African coast, and, beginning by
retaliating on the Spaniards, the "Turks" gradually extended their
sphere of operations till they became a terror to Christendom.
Christendom had itself to blame in a very great measure, since the
Christian nations could never agree long enough between themselves to
stamp out effectively these nests of pirates. Ceasing to be content with
the spoils and slaves they could capture in the Mediterranean, they set
themselves to--
"Keeping in awe the Bay of Portingale
And all the ocean by the British Shore".[26]
The churchwardens' accounts of the parish of St. Helen's, Abingdon, bear
curious witness to the pitch at which Turkish piracy had arrived by the
year 1565. An entry in this year runs as follows: "Payde for two bokes
of Common Prayer agaynst invading of the Turke 0_s._ 6_d._" The special
prayer was probably the one that ran thus:
"O Almighty and Everlasting God, our Heavenly Father,
we Thy disobedient and rebellious children, now by Thy
just judgement sore afflicted, and in great danger to
be oppressed, by Thine and our sworn and most deadly
enemies, the Turks, &c."
The danger was evidently felt to be imminent. By 1576 the "Turks" of
Argier had no less than 25,000 Christian captives in their cruel
clutches. Most, certainly, came from the southern European countries,
but our turn was to come, and half a dozen years later the miscreants
were boasting as much to their English captives. We still had our own as
well as Flemish, Irish, and French piratical gentlemen in the Channel at
this time, for in 1580 the Council called the attention of the Cinque
Ports to the fact that such robbers were "daily received and harboured
by the inhabitants of the said places, making open sale of their spoils
without interruption".
[Illustration: A Turkish Pirate Ship of 1579 (_From a print of Algiers
of that year_)
Observe the sharp ram, the tower-like forecastle, and the curiously
perched cabin aft. Also the tail-like ornaments at the stern, possibly
reminiscent of the sterns of the old "Dragon-ships" and "Long Serpents".
The big and somewhat triangular openings are probably gun-ports, but no
guns are visible.]
It is probable that the attempts at the suppression of our own
sea-robbers drove some of them into the ranks of the Barbary corsairs.
And among them, it is shameful to relate, were not a few men of good
family. Captain John Smith, who wrote about 1630, explains that at the
accession of James I the "Gentlemen Adventurers" and other seaman who
had long carried on a sort of licensed piracy against the Spanish
possessions and ships on the Spanish Main, found themselves, like
Othello, with their "occupation gone". James wanted to live at peace
with everybody. As an epigram of the time put it:
"When Elizabeth was England's King,
That dreadful name thro' Spain did ring;
How altered is the case ad sa'me,
These juggling days of good Queen Jamie".
So that, to quote John Smith on the Gentlemen Adventurers, "those that
were rich, rested with what they had; those that were poor, and had
nothing but from hand to mouth, turned pirates; some because they were
slighted of those for whom they had got much wealth; some for that they
could not get their due; some that had lived bravely would not abase
themselves to poverty.... Now because they grew hateful to all Christian
Princes, they retired to Barbary, where altho' there be not many good
harbours, but Tunis, Algier, Sally, Marmora and Tituane, there are many
convenient roads.... Ward, a poor English sailor, and Dansker, a
Dutchman made first here their marts when the Moors scarce knew how to
sail a ship. Bishop was ancient and did little hurt; but Easton got so
much as made himself a Marquess in Savoy, and Ward lived like a Bashaw
in Barbary; those were the first taught the Moors to be men of war." He
gives the names of several other noted English pirates of the time: some
were hung, others were "mercifully pardoned" by King James. Other
villains acted as agents and contrived to give the "Turks" wind of the
sailing of any punitive expedition.
"For there being several Englishmen," writes Sir William Monson, the
celebrated Admiral, "who have been too long in trading with pirates, and
furnishing them with powder and other necessaries, it is to be feared
those same Englishmen will endeavour to give the pirates intelligence,
lest their being taken, their wicked practices should be discovered."
Thanks to such scoundrels as these the "Turks" were able to attack us
in our own waters. By 1616 they had no less than thirty ships north of
the Mediterranean, and in that year a Salee rover was actually captured
in the River Thames. By the year following so many British ships had
been taken by the "Turks" that the merchants of London established a
fund of £40,000--the Trinity House contributing £1068--"for the
merchants and ships of the Port of London as a fund against the Turks".
Four hundred and sixty British ships had already fallen into their
hands.
When in 1619 Sir John Killigrew asked permission to erect a lighthouse
on the Lizard the Trinity House refused, on the ground "that it is not
necessary or convenient to erect a lighthouse there, but _per contra_,
inconvenient, having regard to _pirates_ and enemies whom it would
conduct to a safe place of landing". In 1620 James I was at last
persuaded to send an expedition against "Argier". The £40,000 collected
in London, and other sums subscribed, went towards its equipment. It
consisted of six men-of-war and twelve hired merchantmen under Sir
Robert Mansell; but as during the previous sixteen years of the King's
reign, "never a nail had been knocked into any of the Royal ships", and
as their captains "were of little repute", the whole affair turned out
such a dismal failure that the Algerines were encouraged to attack us
with greater determination than ever.
"But too true it is," wrote Monson, "that since that time our poor
English, and especially the people of the West country, who trade that
way daily, fall into the hands of those pirates. It is too lamentable to
hear their complaints, and too intolerable to suffer the misery that has
befallen them."[27]
By 1625 the Turkish pirate ship was "a common object of the seashore" in
the West. There were at least a score of them in the Channel. They
captured the Island of Lundy, and, "Hun-like", threatened to burn
Ilfracombe unless a large sum was paid as indemnity. They landed in
Cornwall one Sunday, surrounded a church while divine service was
proceeding, and carried off sixty men from the congregation into
slavery. Some months earlier it had been officially reported that there
were nearly 1400 Englishmen captive in Salee alone, "all, or greatest
part, taken within 20 or 30 miles of Dartmouth, Plymouth, or Falmouth.
When the winter takes, then the Sally men-of-war go to Flushing and
Holland, where, having supplied all wants, and the winter past, they go
to sea again. If they want men in the places with the Dutch, they are
furnished."
Perhaps the most celebrated coastal raid was that made by Murad Reis
upon the village of Baltimore, on the Munster coast, on 31st June, 1631.
Piloted by a traitor from Dungarvon--one Flachet by name, who, it is
consoling to learn, expiated his crime on the scaffold--the "Turks"
sailed into the little harbour in the dead of night and descended on the
sleeping village like a "bolt from the blue". Completely surprised, the
Irishmen could oppose no resistance to the dark-skinned demons and their
blacker-hearted renegade comrades. Those who were not fortunate enough
to be slain on their own doorsteps were herded on board the corsairs
with all the weeping women and children of the village, even babies in
arms, and carried off into a captivity worse than death itself. The
total "bag" amounted to 237 men, women, and children. Baltimore was then
a thriving fishing centre, but it has never recovered from this raid.
The south coast of Ireland and the Bristol Channel seem to have been a
favourite hunting-ground at this period. Murad had already been harrying
the English coast before he carried out his coup at Baltimore. The year
before the "Turks" had taken six ships _near Bristol_, and had
something like forty ships operating in English waters. But the
Government of King Charles was so feeble and so incompetent that even
the Sack of Baltimore failed to rouse it to the necessary action.
The navy was willing enough to deal with the pirates, but it was in a
very poor way itself, its men robbed, starved, and stinted, its ships
and many of their commanders anything but efficient. It is even stated
that two of the King's ships lying at Kinsale had word of Murad Reis's
attack, but did not attempt to intercept it. Apparently all that was
done was to set up additional alarm-beacons on the coast. Captain
Richard Plumleigh wrote from Waterford in October of the year following,
reporting an engagement he had had with "the arch-pirate Nutt", and
adds, "Nutt has 2 Turks with him and his consort.... I never saw people
in whom one disaster had settled so deep an impression as the Turks'
last descent hath done in these Irish: every small fleet they see on the
coast puts them into arms, or at least to their heels."
There would appear to have been something like a permanent, though
inefficient, watch in St. George's Channel about this time, for in 1634
Sir John Plumleigh, another naval officer, writes from the Isle of Man,
after "scouring" those waters, "Of the Turks as yet we hear nothing,
though the general bruit runs that they intend hither this year, as some
prisoners from Algiers have written over to their friends". So
enterprising had the pirates become that not long before this it was
represented very strongly to the Mayor of Barnstaple that "unless
vigorous steps are taken for the suppression of these marauders" there
was great danger that "they will fall upon our fishing shippes both at
Newfoundland and Virginea, for they desire both our shippes and men".
The "Turks" were, in fact, insatiable. At this time it was reported that
they had 25,000 Christian slaves in Algiers alone, besides 8000
renegades, among whom were over 1000 women. The petitions to the
Government from coastal towns, from merchants, from the friends and
relations of the unhappy captives, were legion--but nothing practical
was done. The celebrated Robert Boyle writes of his passage from Youghal
to Bristol in 1635, that he accomplished it safely, "though the Irish
coasts were infested with Turkish galleys".
[Illustration: THE RELEASE OF CHRISTIAN PRISONERS AT ALGIERS
The bold and aggressive Turkish pirates were for long the terror of
merchantmen. So successful were they in their raids that at one time
they were reported to have 25,000 Christian slaves in Algiers alone.]
Two years later a squadron under Captain William Rainsborow was actually
dispatched against Salee. This port was blockaded by four ships, which
were reinforced by four more, and after destroying every Turkish ship
which attempted to break the blockade, the squadron closed in to the
city, and so battered its fortifications that the pirates were glad to
make terms by giving up 400 English slaves. The success of Captain
Rainsborow shows what might have been done had the same process been
applied to other pirate cities on the African coast, but, strange to
say, our forefathers were content merely to "scotch the snake", without
making an end of it once and for all.
By 1640 the Turks were as bold and aggressive as ever. Three Turkish
men-of-war attacked the _Elizabeth_ off the Lizard and burned her, and
shortly afterwards landed at Penzance and carried off sixty men, women,
and children. The Deputy-Lieutenant of Cornwall reported that there were
about sixty Turkish pirates off the coast at this time. In 1645 it is
stated that they landed again at Fowey, and made slaves of 240 persons,
including some ladies.
Occasionally some of our merchant-ships were able to put up a successful
defence against the "Turks".
There were several instances of this in the Mediterranean, and here is a
shipmaster's report of how he did the like in the Channel in 1638: "W.
Nurry, of this town and county of Poole, Mariner and Master under God of
the good ship called the _Concord_ of Poole, burthen, 80 tons, with 6
guns, 12 men, and 2 boys, being about 6 or 7 leagues off Ushant, coming
from Rochelle laden with salt, was set upon by a man-of-war of Algiers
having 15 pieces of ordnance and full of men with the colour of
Holland displayed ... and then put out her Turkey colours and bade him
'amain'[28] for the King of Algiers, whereupon this examinant refusing
to strike their sails at his command, the Turk boarded his ship in his
quarter with great store of men, whereby they continued to fight board
by board together by the space of 3 hours, and the Turk being weary of
the battery took occasion to cut away this examinant's sprit-sail-yard
to clear himself away, and then stood to the northward ... that he
killed a great many of the Turks and beat them out of his top into the
sea with his muskets, and then surprised and brought into this harbour
of Poole, one Turk and three Christians, viz.: a Dutchman, a Frenchman
and a Biscayner." These three men made statements to the effect that the
Turkish ship was of 240 tons displacement, carried 15 guns and 124 men,
of whom 19 were Christians, 6 of them English, and 3 of them renegades,
and that thirty men-of-war from Algiers were "on the war-path" against
Spain, France, and England. The "Dutchman" was one Oliver Megy of
Lübeck, who admitted that he had been acting as pilot. Dutchman was
apparently then used indiscriminately for Dutch or German, as I believe
is still to a great extent the case at sea.
Then Sir John Pennington, in his _Journal_ on board H.M.S. _Vauntguard_,
in 1633, reports falling in with a "fly-boat", which informed him that
he had been "clapt aboard" by two Turks, one of eleven, the other of
seven guns, "betwixt the Gulfe and the Land's End, and hurt 9 or 10 of
his men very dangerously, but at last--God bee praysed--they got from
them and slew 4 of the Turkes--that entered them--outright and drove the
rest overboard". Again, when anchored in the _Swiftsure_, in Stokes Bay,
Pennington notes on 24th September, 1635: "There came in a freebooter,
and in his company a barke of Dartmouth laden with Poore John (dried
fish) which he tooke in the Channel from a Turks man-of-warr". In 1652,
just after the Republican form of government had been established in
England, the _Speaker_ frigate was dispatched to "Argier in Turkey" with
£30,000 to ransom English captives from slavery. But when the strong
hand of the Protector Cromwell had seized the helm of state there was no
more question of ransoms or presents to the barbarians of Algiers. He
dispatched the celebrated Admiral Blake with a dozen men-of-war to deal
with the Turks in the only effective way. Blake stood into the harbour
of Tunis, burned all the shipping there, and knocked their
fortifications to pieces, with the loss of only twenty-five killed and
forty wounded. He then appeared before Algiers, whither the story of his
victory at Tunis had preceded him, and had no difficulty in arranging
for the release of the whole of the British captives. More than this,
the "Turks" gave British waters a wide berth, and there were no more
complaints of their performances in the Narrow Seas during the
Protectorate.
But with the re-appearance of the Stuart kings at the Restoration the
old story of outrage and piracy began all over again. The Turks led off
with the sensational capture of Lord Inchiquin, the British Ambassador
to Portugal, who with his whole suite was captured off the Tagus and
publicly sold by auction in the market-place of Algiers. They would
never have dared to act in this manner in the days of Cromwell and
Blake; but they knew well enough that there was mighty little patriotism
about the "Merry Monarch" and his Court and Government. But even Charles
could not stomach the degrading arrangement which was made by the Earl
of Winchelsea, the British Ambassador to Turkey, who had been ordered to
call at Algiers on his way out to negotiate a new treaty with the Dey.
This nobleman actually granted the pirates liberty to search British
vessels and remove all foreigners and their goods. The Earl of Sandwich
and Sir John Lawson were sent with a fleet to Algiers to enforce the
removal of the obnoxious clause from the treaty. They bombarded the
town, but apparently not very effectively. The point was conceded by the
Dey, but as the Algerines, like the modern Huns, regarded all treaties
as "scraps of paper", to be torn up when opportunity offered, the
expedition was practically fruitless.
The Earl of Inchiquin and his son were eventually ransomed for £1500,
and Charles showed his weakness by indulging in the unfortunately
widespread habit of trying to conciliate the "Turks" by presents of arms
and ammunition, which everyone knew would be used against our own ships
and men.
From about this time forward the Turkish pirates seem to have generally
kept farther out in the Atlantic. They were especially on the look-out
for our Newfoundland ships. In 1677 six corsairs destroyed seventeen of
these, but one of the Turks was terribly mauled by a small English
frigate, and only escaped by the aid of a dark and stormy night. Our
watch-dogs were settling down to their work at last. The _Concord_
merchantman bound for America had a stiff fight with a Turkish squadron
in 1678, 120 leagues from the Land's End. One night they fell in with
"The Admiral of Algiers, a new Frigate of 48 guns, called the _Rose_,
and commanded by Canary, a Spanish renegade; the other two Virginiamen,
the one of Plymouth, the one of Dartmouth", evidently captured ships.
There was also a "barque of Ireland". "The Algerian hailed us in
English," says Thomas Grantham, master of the _Concord_, "'From whence?'
We answered, 'From London.' He told us he was the _Rupert_, frigate, and
commanded our boat on board, which our Captain refused, knowing it could
not be the _Rupert_. The Turk kept company with us all night, which gave
us some time to fit our ship, and get our boats out: when it was light
he put abroad his bloody flag[29] at main-topmast head, fires a gun,
and commands us to strike to the King of Algiers and to Admiral Canary.
[Illustration: THE FIGHT BETWEEN A MERCHANTMAN AND A TURKISH PIRATE
_Drawn by C. M. Padday_
"His sails, masts, and shrouds were all in a blaze. Then we cut loose,
and his mast went by the board."]
"We gave him a 'What cheer ho', he comes up with us and passes his
broadside upon us, having 13 guns of a side of his lower tier; we
returned him as good a salute as we could; he steered from us, falls
astern, loaded his guns with double head and round partridge,[30] and
then came up again with us, claps us on board, grapples with us on the
quarter, and made fast his spritsail topmast to our main-bowline, our
main-topsail being furled. After 2 or 3 hours dispute, finding he could
not master us, he cut away our boats, and fires us on the quarter, and
our mizzen-yard being shot down, fired our sail which burnt very
vehemently, and immediately set all the after-part of our ship on fire.
Our captain kept the round-house and cuddy, till the fire forced him to
retreat, all that were with him being killed or wounded and being got
down into the great cabin steerage, he sallied out with those that were
there with a resolution rather to be burnt than taken.
"In the interim, the Turk's foresail hanging in the brails over our poop
took fire; then he would fain have got clear of us, but we endeavoured
to keep him fast, and as many as run up to cut him clear, we fetched
down with our small shot, until his sails, masts, shrouds, and yards,
were all in a blaze; then we cut loose, and immediately his mast to the
deck went by the board, with many men in his top and his bloody flag;
several of the men betook themselves to their boats, but at last they
overcame the fire, as, thanks be to God, we did likewise on board our
ship, having our mizzen-mast burnt by the board and all the after-part
of our ship burnt; there was little or no wind. The Turk got his oars,
and rowed till he was out of fear of us.... We had killed or wounded on
board of us in the action with Canary 21 men, but of Turks, according to
the account from aboard them, at least 70 or 80 are killed." If every
merchantman had put up as good a fight as Captain Thomas Grantham, the
Turks would soon have had to retire from their piratical business. As it
was, they were able to continue their depredations for some years
longer, but not in quite the same wholesale way. The British Navy became
more and more active, and in 1681-2 made prizes of a number of Turkish
vessels, among them the _Admiral of Sally_, the _Two Lyons and Crown of
Argiers_, the _Three Half Moons_, the _Golden Lyon_, and--what a name
for a man-of-war!--the _Flowerpott_. These captures had an immediate
effect. The Algerines became "very inclinable to peace" and offered to
release many English captives "gratis". Their last notable exploit in
British waters was the attempt to capture a transport in which the Royal
Irish Regiment was sailing from Ostend to Cork in 1695.
The "Turk" in this case was a Salee rover, like the one that attacked
Robinson Crusoe's ship. She gave chase to the transport and overhauled
her, but when she got near enough to see her decks crowded with redcoats
she considered discretion to be the better part of valour and hauled
off. It is probable that occasional forays were made on our shipping by
such marauders in the early part of the eighteenth century, and we have
a very detailed account of the wreck of the _White Horse_, an Algerine
frigate, near Penzance, in September, 1740. The return of the greater
part of her survivors to Algiers on board the _Blonde_ frigate is an
early instance of our national weakness for too tenderly dealing with
alien enemies. Slavery had not been abolished; we could easily and
legitimately have sold them for slaves to the West Indian planters or to
the Knights of Malta, or exchanged them for some of the hundreds of our
fellow-countrymen the pirate cities of North Africa still held in
bondage. But no, we preferred to set them free and to put them in a
position to murder, rob, and enslave yet more Englishmen.
The very last appearance of the Turkish pirate in our waters I have been
able to find is of so recent a date as 18th May, 1817, when a couple of
Moorish vessels captured a ship coming from Oldenburgh, off the Galloper
Shoal, which is not far from the Goodwin Sands. This must have been a
very exceptional case, though up to the time Lord Exmouth subjected
Algiers to a severe bombardment the "Turks" were still a danger to
merchantmen in southern waters. The pest was not stamped out until the
capture of the famous pirate city by the French in 1830. So confident
and so truculent were the Deys of Algiers as late as the early part of
the nineteenth century that, in 1804, even Nelson, in command of a
powerful fleet, was unable to make the Dey give an interview to Captain
Keats of the _Superb_, whom he had sent as bearer of a letter setting
forth certain British claims. Incredible to relate, no further steps
were taken, and the fleet put to sea and resumed the blockade of Toulon.
We can hardly, therefore, be surprised to read that in the same year the
"Turks" should have had the hardihood to attack the United States
frigate _Philadelphia_, which took the ground off Tripoli when in
pursuit of a pirate. The Americans fought for four hours, but, the ship
being by that time almost on her beam ends, had eventually to strike
their colours, and both officers and men were carried ashore into
slavery.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] Nicholas. _History British Navy._
[26] Massinger.
[27] From the Parish Books of Portishead, Somerset: Acct. of
Disbursements:--
"1722.--Gave 5 sailors taken by Pierates 10_d._
1723.--Gave 1 man that had been in turkey 1_d._
1726.--Gave 6 poor men tacking by the pirits 6_d._
1726.--Gave 7 poor sailors burnt 1_s._"
Mr. Henry Caer of Portishead, who has been good enough to send me these
extracts, thinks that "burnt" in the last entry means that their ship
had been burnt.
[28] i.e. "yield".
[29] This, the old Grecian signal to engage, in 1292 "signified certain
death and mortal strife to all sailors everywhere". In the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries it was constantly used as an emblem of "Defiance"
and "No Quarter". The mutineers at the Nore hoisted it in 1797, as did
the Paris Communists in 1871.
[30] A species of grape-shot.