This week we continue the series of posts on life in Algiers drawn from the book titled Relation de la captivité et liberté du sieur Emanuel d’Aranda, (The Relation of the Captivity of Emanuel d’Aranda), written by Emanual d’Aranda.
This week’s excerpt describes an attack by corsairs on a ship aboard which Aranda was a passenger.
In the year 1639, I was bound from England to St. Lucas, in Spain. Having been thirteen days at sea, and not seen land, our Master took the height of the sun with his astrolabe and found that we were at the altitude of Portugal, and that before night we should see two islands called Las Islas Berlingas.
Coming accordingly near the said islands, we perceived two ships cruising up and down. Our Master, named Vincent Arris, a man of great experience in sea affairs, thought that the two ships were Turkish pirates. He commanded the guns to be unloaded and, instead of bullets, to be charged with iron bars, saying, “If those two ships have any design to engage us, they will come on in the night, and once they are near, the bars will do them more harm than the bullets.
Night came on, and the two ships were out of sight. We passengers were afraid that we would be forced to engage in the night, but the Master said he was not of that opinion. We then then each of us took a draught of sack [fortified wine], and with that, we went to bed.
The Master set the accustomed watch, but since we were sailing with a forewind, the sentinel at the prow could not see before him. It happened that before we had slept much above an hour, a boy who was with the watch on the prow saw two ships and began to cry out the alarm. By then, those two ships had got so near that nobody dared stay on deck to put the long boat overboard—when the boat is on the deck, the ship cannot without inconvenience be so well defended, nor the enemy be kept from boarding.
All the seamen, who were about sixty in number, were present in a posture of fighting, every man in his station, and three at every gun. The Master commanded all the gunports to be shut, the lights to be shrouded, and that all should be silent. He further ordered the gunners on one side of the ship that when he stamped thrice with his foot, they should take it for a signal to open the gunports, put out the guns, and give fire. He had also ordered eight trumpeters to sound off along with the discharging of the guns.
In the meantime, the two pirate ships had drawn so near that they seemed ready to board our ship with their swords drawn. The Master then gave the signal, and his orders were so punctually obeyed that in a moment the gunports were opened and the guns fired. At the same time, the trumpets began to sound, and silence was converted into noise. Since the two pirate ships were very near us, we clearly heard the iron bars shot out of our pieces making their way through their ship and the cries of those who were in them. After discharging, the guns were drawn in, and the trumpets continued the alarm. This dreadful din made in the made even the most confident fearful.
The two pirate ships, having found, and, what is more, felt, notwithstanding the silence, that we were not asleep, passed by without making any return fire.
Perceiving this, our Master ordered the boat to be put overboard, furled up the main-sail, and opened the hatches. This last was indeed the most necessary, for, all the ports being shut and the hatches of the deck covered, the smoke from the guns caused a thick obscurity.
All things having been put into a posture of defense, the Master doubled the watches, and gave order that everyone should be ready against the break of day.
The next morning before sunrise, we saw the two pirate ships heading straight towards ours. The Master commanded all his people to come up on deck, encouraging them in a few words, pointing out the colors of the two pirate ships, which were Turkish, and telling them that the only way to avoid slavery was to fight valiantly. That done, he ordered some prayers to be said, according to their way. We passengers, who were Catholics, prayed in ours.
Every man had two glasses of wine, and the main sail was furled up, as a signal that we had no mind to run away. The target-fences were hung all about the ship, and the red flag set up at the stern. In this posture, we waited for about an hour; but the two pirate ships, observing the size of our ship, the multitude of people on the decks, and those resolved to fight, dared not come too near us.
Our Master ordered a gun to be discharged as it were to defy them. Finding that they had no stomach for the business, we sailed away and prosecuted our voyage.
I was extremely desirous to know what had passed in the two Turkish ships after we had fired upon them with regard to the men in them who had cried out so extremely. Having seen the Turkish flags, I knew from what port in Barbary they came, and what number of men and guns they had.
In the year 1641, while I lived with Cataborn Mustapha, I often discussed with some other Christian slaves of several nations who were also lodged there. One night, they were talking of accidents at sea and of how, through the conduct of the Commander, a ship might escape great dangers, but that when there is dissention between the Captain, his officers, and soldiers, they cannot act effectively, especially in pirate ships.
At this, a French slave related how, some two years before, he had been aboard an Algerine pirate ship off the coast of Portugal. One night, the ship he was on and another pirate ship set upon an English ship, and that by reason of some difference that happened between the Captain and his officers, the English-man was not engaged as they had intended.
I told him that I had been aboard that English ship and desired him to tell me how it came to pass that being so near to us as they were when we discharged our guns, they did not board us, and why they did not so much as fire a gun at us.
He answered that the pirates thought they had not been perceived, and it happening that the greater of the two ships—the one aboard which he had been—ere there had been any noise heard, received of a sudden the iron bars through her side. Along with that, the pirates heard so many trumpets that they were filled with so much astonishment, fear, and confusion, that the officers and soldiers told the Captain plainly that they would only attack the ship by day.
When the Turks saw the bigness of your ship the next morning, and when they observed the courage of our Commander, they had no stomach to fight.
And so I finally understood what I had been so desirous to know about that sea battle, though it would have been better for me if I had come to know it in some other way than be becoming a slave in Algiers.
For those who may be interested…
The story of the Englsh ship attacked by Algerine pirates can be found in “Curiosity is satisfy’d by Time and Patience,” in The history of Algiers and it’s slavery with many remarkable particularities of Africk / written by the Sieur Emanuel D’Aranda, sometime a slave there ; English’d by John Davies, pp. 203-207.
As usual. I have edited the original seventeenth century text to make it more easily readable.
Corsairs and Captives
Narratives from the Age of the Barbary Pirates
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The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson
The story of the Barbary corsair raid on Iceland in 1627
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