1617 THE BARBARY PIRATES. 65 hardy ruffians flocked on board. As soon as the selection had been made, the captain put out to sea, and either lay in wait for the richly freighted merchantmen which carried the trade of Western Europe, or swept the coast in the hope of surprising persons of wealth and station, for whose release a large ransom might be demanded. Strict discipline was maintained, and it was rarely that the pirates returned without a prize. At the end of the cruise a fixed proportion of the booty was assigned to the Dey, whilst the remainder was shared amongst the crew.1 The greater number of the prisoners were detained in a lifelong slavery. No hope remained to them, unless they were fortunate enough to be captured by the vessels of some Christian sovereign. It was only a few who, like Cervantes, owed their release to the payment of a ransom by their wealthy friends. Still fewer, like Vincent de Paul, were assisted to escape by the connivance of some member of their captor's family. By the inhabitants of the coasts of Southern Europe, slavery at Algiers was regarded as a horrible misery, which might fall to the lot of anyone. The rene It was not only amongst ine natives of the Turkish Empire that the pirate bands were recruited. Every man who would join them was welcome in Algiers. The offscourings gades. of the Mediterranean ports-men with seared consciences and broken fortunes-might there win their way to wealth and to a certain kind of fame. Their prosperity would be all the more brilliant if they would renounce a Christianity of which they knew nothing but the name. Even natives of the northern countries occasionally joined in these atrocities. Not a few of the mariners who had manned the English privateers which had been so mischievous to the enemy during the Spanish war, continued the work of plunder from the Barbary ports. The heir of an ancient Buckinghamshire family, Sir Francis Verney, took part for many years in these nefarious enterprises. An Englishman, named Ward, and a Dutchman, named Dansker, were long the terror of sailors of every nation; and, at one time, it was said that not single 1 Zinkeisen, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reichs, iv. 325 VOL. III. F vessel sailed out of Algiers which did not carry an English pilot. Ward. The history of Ward was, perhaps, in the main the history of hundreds like him. In his youth he had taken part in some of the buccaneering expeditions in which so many Story of English sailors had gambled away their lives, in the hopes of filling their pockets with Spanish gold. He is next heard of as a frequenter of alehouses at Plymouth, where he is said to have left behind him the reputation of a spendthrift and a drunkard. Early in the reign of James, he found employment as a common sailor on board one of the king's ships. Steady discipline and hard fare were not to his taste. One day, as his vessel was lying in Portsmouth harbour, he heard that a wealthy recusant, who had recently sold his estate, with the intention of taking refuge in France, had sent 2,000l. on board a little vessel which was waiting to convey himself and his family to Havre. Ward had no difficulty in persuading some of his boon companions to join him. in an attempt upon the prize. Soon after nightfall the crew of desperadoes leaped upon the deck, battened down the hatches upon the two men who were left in charge, and stood out to sea. To Ward's sore disappointment his search for the expected treasure proved unavailing. His colloquies with his associates. had attracted attention, and the money had been removed to a place of safety. But it was too late to go back. Off the Scilly Isles he sighted a French vessel three times the size of his own, and armed with six guns. Fertile in expedients, he ordered the greater part of his crew to keep below whilst he ran alongside the stranger, and engaged the Frenchmen in conversation. At a given signal his men poured up from the hold, and over the sides of the larger vessel. In a few seconds she was a prize in the hands of the pirates. After this exploit, Ward had the effrontery to put into Cawsand Bay, and to search for recruits amongst the comrades of his carouses in the alehouses of Plymouth. As soon as his vessel was manned, he made all sail for Tunis, where he was received with open arms. His courage and skill soon placed him on a level with the foremost 1617 THE BARBARY PIRATES. 67 of the pirate captains. Wealth followed in the train of success, and it was said that no English nobleman kept such state as the runaway sailor.1 In itself, piracy was by no means regarded in England with the detestation which it merited. To plunder Frenchmen and Venetians was a very venial offence. To plunder Feeling in England. Spaniards was almost a heroic achievement. But indignation was roused when it was heard that many of these men had 'turned Turks,' 2 especially when it was found that the renegades had no idea of sparing the growing English commerce in the Mediterranean. In the words of a contemporary annalist, these wretches, 'doubting their offences to be unpardonable by law and nature, became runagates, renouncing their Christian faith, exercising all manner of despites, and speaking blasphemy against God, their king, and country; and taught the infidels the knowledge and use of navigation, to the great hurt of Europe.' Attempts piracy. Attempts were occasionally made to arrest the evil. James had set his heart, as far as he ever set his heart upon anything, upon suppressing the pirates. In the first years of to suppress his reign proclamation followed proclamation, in which, as far as words could go, he made known his abhorrence of their conduct. In 1608, nineteen pirates were seen hanging in a row at Wapping, as a terror to all who might be disposed to follow their example. On July 20, 1609, the Spanish Admiral, Fajardo, succeeded in destroying no less than twenty vessels under the command of Ward. But such losses were easily repaired. Two months after Ward's defeat, Dansker took one of the galleons of the Mexico fleet, and carried it into Marseilles, in the expectation that a blow struck against the commerce of Spain would be welcome in France, from whatever quarter it might proceed. A few days earlier, Sir Francis Verney had been making havoc of his own countrymen, and A true and certain Report of Captain Ward and Dansker, by Andrew Barker, 1609. This feeling is illustrated by the prologue to Daborn's play, 'A Christian turned Turk.' had carried into Algiers three or four prizes belonging to the merchants of Poole and Plymouth.' Treatment of in Spain. The Spaniards returned in kind the barbarous treatment which they suffered. In houses of distinction at Madrid, slaves from Barbary were the regular attendants.2 European the prisoners pirates were more harshly treated. In 1616, for instance, a Captain Kelway was taken, with thirty of his crew. They were all condemned to be hanged; but, as Cottington expresses it, 'the Jesuits dealt with them for their conversion in religion; and such as they could convert were immediately hanged with great joy; and such as keep their own religion live, and are put to the gallies, so as twelve only are made saints, and the others are kept for devils.' 3 But neither the hangman, nor the worse misery of the galleys, proved of any avail, and in the early part of 1617 the crews of a fleet of seventy sail found occupation in plundering the commerce of the Mediterranean 4 The Earl of ton. Foremost amongst those who took to heart the insolence of these miscreants, was Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. His shining talents and impetuous courage had made him a marked man amongst the paladins who guarded the throne of Elizabeth in her declining years. Almost alone amongst his contemporaries, he had detected the genius of Shakespeare; and it has even been supposed by some that his were the joys and sorrows embalmed by the great poet in his immortal sonnets. He had thrown himself heart and soul into the great struggle with Spain; and wherever his sword 1 Stow's Annales, ed. Howes, 893. A relation of the success of the King of Spain's Armada in 1609, S. P. Spain. The date is given by Howes erroneously as 1608. See also Cottington's despatch of Sept. 28, 1609, in S. P. Spain. There is a full account of Sir Francis, whose portrait and staff are preserved at Claydon, in Mr. Bruce's Verney Papers. Few serve themselves with other than captive Turks and Moors, and so the multitude of them were very great." Cottington to Salisbury, June 9, 1610. When Buckingham was in Spain in 1623, he asked the Marquis of Aytona to sell him a boy for 30l. Aston to Buckingham, Dec. 5, 1623, S. P. Spain. 2 3 Cottington to Winwood, Aug. 19, 1616, ibid. 4 Cottington to Winwood, May 20, 1617, ibid. 1617 SOUTHAMPTON AND GONDOMAR. 69 was drawn he brought back with him the reputation of a brave and skilful warrior. He had many great and some noble qualities; but they were seriously impaired by the vehemence of his temper. His judgment was weak, and his power of selfrestraint was very small. At one time he was brawling in the Queen's palace; at another time his friendship for Essex beguiled him into taking part in the spoiled favourite's senseless treason, and brought him to the very edge of the scaffold. The accession of James opened his prison doors, and he hoped for a seat at the Council-table; but his merits and his faults alike barred the way to office against him. In 1604 he gave offence to the King, and for a few days he was under arrest. In 1610 the Court was amused by his quarrel, at a game of tennis, with Pembroke's foolish brother, Montgomery, and men were laughing at the vehemence with which these two great lords used their rackets about one another's ears. But such scenes as these were far from making up the whole of his life. He found occupation for himself in the many schemes which were on foot for the colonisation of America, and he soon became a busy member of the Virginia Company. He was now engaged in consultations with the City merchants who had suffered in the Mediterranean; and with their assistance he had prepared a plan which was submitted to the King. He proposed that an expedition should be at once fitted out against Algiers. Twelve thousand men, he said, would be sufficient to capture that nest of pirates. The merchants expressed their willingness to bear two-thirds of the expense, if the King would take the remainder upon himself. If James refused, it was thought that the Dutch would be ready to take the matter up. Gondomar's If this had been all, there would have been enough to excite the apprehensions of Gondomar. He had no wish to see an English fleet so near the coast of Spain. But the opposition. informant from whom the ambassador derived his knowledge told him more than this. He said-and it is by no means unlikely to have been true 2-that it was resolved that if 'Chamberlain to Winwood, May 2, 1610. Winw. Memorials, ii. 154. It must be remembered that a month or two earlier a proposal had |