(This post is a continuation of The Adventures of William Okeley: A Captive’s Tale – Part 1. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best to read that post before continuing on here.)
This week’s post continues William Okeley’s first-person account of his experiences as a slave in Algiers in the early seventeenth century.
My patron’s father being desirous to see his son’s purchase, commanded me up into a gallery which looked into the court below. He began to insult me with insupportable scorn because I was a Christian, using expressions that insulted the person of my Redeemer (though I have heard far worse since). My neck was not yet bowed then, nor my heart broken by the yoke of bondage, and I could not well brook his words, for I was then unused to such language. I could not express myself in the Moresco tongue or in Lingua Franca, so I made the sign of the cobbler’s yarke and signified as best I could that their prophet was but a cobbler.
Without the preamble, my patron’s father fell upon me with severe blows. Whatever rage and fury his hands or feet could execute, that I felt. My entreaties did but enrage his choler, and I saw that I might sooner blow out a fire with a pair of bellows than diminish his passion with prayers. I had no other way but to make an offer of leaping down from the gallery into the court, and I therefore grabbed the railing, as if I would rather throw myself headlong to receive my death from the pavement than endure further his abuse.
The old gentleman knew very well that if I lost my life his son would lose his present investment and future profit, for there’s little that can be made out of a dead man’s skin. Therefore he refrained from further abuse till my patron’s return. He then relayed this reputed blasphemy of mine. My patron, being naturally a very passionate man, said nothing, but without explanation drew out his long knife, (which they constantly wear by their sides) and came at me. He would doubtless have put an end to my life had not his wife taken him in her arms and sweetened him into more moderate counsels.
Some will be ready enough to say, that I was but a martyr to my own folly and that this situation called not for dispute but for obedience. Well, I learned that when the body is a slave, the reason must not expect to be free, and where the whole outward man is in bondage, the tongue must not plead exemption.
At this time, my patron had a part in a ship, a man-of-war which carried twelve guns. That ship, being at sea with some others from Algiers, met with an English merchant laden with rich commodities from Spain and bound for London. After a very sharp, though short dispute, the Algerines captured her and brought her back to Algiers, where the adventurers divide their booty. Being high flown with this success, they resolve to fit the same ship out again to carry more guns.
From this grew my new employment: I attended the carpenters and waited on the smiths as they got the iron work fitted and finished.
When this ship was outfitted for another adventure, my patron told me I must go in her. I pleaded that I was no seaman, understood nothing of the mariner’s art, and therefore he could expect little service from me because I could not acquit myself as well as others.
But there was more at the bottom of this for me. A case of conscience offered itself: whether I might without sin fight against Christians on the part of the common enemy of all Christianity. The best resolution I could give myself was that my employment would only lie in managing the tackle, which would kill nobody. But it was replied that without the due management of the tackle, the guns in the ship would kill nobody. I answered that it was not evident they would engage against Christians more than all the rest of mankind, for all the world is their enemy who are rich enough to interest them and too weak to resist them.
My patron had a solution to all this. He told me peremptorily that I must and would go. So I found myself under duress. I was a pressed man who could not examine the justice of the cause. In a word, his commands were backed with compulsion, and he had more power than I had courage to deny or strength to resist.
Nine weeks we were at sea, within and without the Straits of Gibraltar, cruising and pickarooning up and down. Finally, we met with one poor Hungarian French man of war, whom we took, and so returned to Algiers.
My patron having spent a great deal in fitting out and manning out this ship, and the profits so slenderly answering his great cost, determined that I must provide him an income of two dollars per month, and that I should live ashore where I could and get the money however I could. This was a hard circumstance: that I, who could not even maintain myself, should be compelled to contribute to the maintenance of another. It is difficult to raise increase out of no stock, or to pay interest out of no principal. But there was no contending it.
I consequently turned my thoughts upon all manner of forms and shapes, but all the projects that presented themselves to me were encumbered with so many difficulties that they amounted to impossibilities. The more I consulted, the further I found myself from a conclusion.
Finally, I addressed myself to an Englishman, whose condition was that of a slave, and whose calling was that of a tailor. With his help, I thought I might be able to devise a means of meeting my patron’s demand.
To find out how events unfolded from here, go to The Adventures of William Okeley: A Captive’s Tale – Part 3.
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