FRANCIS BROOKS – BARBARIAN CRUELTY

This week’s post contains an excerpt from a book published in London in 1693, written by an Englishman named Francis Brooks. The book’s title is Barbarian Cruelty: Being a True History of the Distressed Condition of the Christian Captives under the Tyranny of Mully Ishmael Emperor of Morocco, and King of Fez and Macqueness in Barbary.

In the preface to Barbarian Cruelty, Brooks writes:

“The chiefest design of my publishing this book is to caution all seafaring men, whose particular voyages carry them into the Strait of Gibraltar, that they take all possible care not to be trapped by the subtle pirates who infest those coasts, where we unfortunately fell into their hands. Considering the barbarities those whom the pirates capture must expect to suffer from such merciless enemies, it will be in their surest interest to defend themselves to the utmost of their power, even to the last extremity, for death itself is to be preferred before that, or any other slavery.”

Brooks was captured in early August, 1681, by Algiers corsairs who, instead of returning to Algiers, took him and his fellow captives to Salé and sold them into slavery there. At the time, Algiers had entered into a treaty with England, and so Algiers corsairs were legally obligated to leave English shipping alone. Some Algiers corsair captains simply ignored such treaties, however, for there was a simple way around them: take the captives to a corsair port that did not have any treaty with England, and therefore would accept English captives without any hesitation—like Salé.

This is what happened to Brooks. The ship he was on didn’t flee the Algiers corsair ship when it approached because those onboard thought the treaty would protect them—hence Brook’s warning about not being trapped by “the subtle pirates who infest those coasts.”

Brooks had a bad time in Morocco, bad enough so that he cautions the reader that “death itself is to be preferred” to what he endured. The extract below doesn’t focus on Brooks’ experience in Morocco as a slave, though (we’ll look at that in a post to come). The extract below doesn’t focus on his actual capture either. It comes from the very beginning of the book and outlines how he and the ship he was on got from Bristol to Marseilles and, eventually, to the waters near Tangier, in the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Algiers corsairs captured it. The extract is interesting for the glimpse it provides into just how unpredictable and precarious merchant shipping was in the late seventeenth century.

Here is this week’s extract (as usual with these seventeenth century texts, I have modernized the vocabulary and spelling and mildly edited the original):

In November of 1681, I went on board the William and Mary of Bristol, of 120 tuns burden, equipped with 7 canons and 4 patereros [small, breech-loading swivel guns that fired stone shot], William Bowry Commander, being bound from Bristol to Plymouth to form up with an escort ship. We went from there with our escort (the Turkish Tiger) to Cales, where she left us.

After safely arriving, we stayed there looking for a convoy to join. When none came, the merchants aboard our ship went to a French vessel of 26 guns that was bound for Marseilles who agreed with them to escort us safely there. To seal the agreement, the French Commander went aboard and fired off a gun. Upon hearing this, we set sail after him. But when we were no more than three leagues out of Cales, he hoisted his topsails and left us. However, we got safely to Malaga, where we again waited for a convoy.

We stayed there a considerable time, expecting we should have met with some convoy or other, but we were forced to go without, since we were loaded with herrings, which were likely to be spoiled. From there, we went to Allicant, where we met with two Dutch ships bound for Marseilles, one of 16 guns, the other of 22, with whom we set sail about four o’clock in the morning.

Four hours afterwards, we met with the frigate out of Bristol, who inquired from whence we came. We gave them an account of where we had come from and where we were bound. We asked from where they had come. They answered, from Algiers. We asked what the news from there might be. They answered, “Good News,” for the English had made peace with Algiers. So we paused, and our Master hoisted out his ship’s boat and went aboard them and procured a copy of the Articles of Peace made between the English and Algerines. After this, we sailed onwards in company with the two Dutch ships, bound for Marseilles.

We lay at anchor at Marseilles for 19 days before Pratique [a license given to a ship allowing it to enter a port once the port’s authorities accepted that those aboard were free from disease] was granted us. That being gained, we entered the harbor and delivered our cargo. After this, our Master was very eager for us to take on new cargo and make our return voyage. But the Merchants onboard said we must wait a while. So we took in our ballast, and our Master took the Merchants to Santra Pee, and after that to Santra Pell, where we took on a load in oil. We then set Sail for Bristol.

Coming homewards, we put into Malaga, where there was a ship that had come from Tunis, and was bound for London, on which there were two lions and two Barbary horses, presents for the late King Charles the Second. The Commander came aboard our ship to visit with our Master. We inquired of him what his route was. He said he was bound for Tangier, but planned to stay there only one day. Our Master told him he should be glad of his company homewards. He said he should be likewise glad of our company.

After this, our Master went ashore, having some business with our Merchants to conduct. That same day, the Londoner sailed away, leaving us behind. The next day, being the second of August, 1681, we set sail in the morning, alone. Coming within six leagues of Tangier [on the Moroccan side of the Strait of Gibraltar], we saw a ship which give us chase. When they caught up with us, they asked from whence we had come. We said from Marseilles. We inquired the same of them. They answered: “From Algiers.”

Their Commander then bid our Master to hoist out his ship’s boat. Our Master answered that he would not for any ship he should meet like this. Our Master further told him that he should be the one to hoist out a boat if he wanted any further communication. If he did so, our Master said, he would show those in the boat our Pass [the Articles of Peace made between the English and Algerines that they had gotten a copy of earlier]. So the Algerine Commander sent his Lieutenant to us in his own boat, to whom our Master showed our Pass. The Lieutenant acknowledged it to be good, and, calling to his Commander, told him the same.

The Algerine Commander nevertheless demanded that our Captain come aboard his ship with the Pass. Our Master told him that if the Lieutenant would stay on board with us, one of our men would go aboard his ship and show him the Pass. The Lieutenant agreed.

After the Algerine Commander had viewed the Pass, however, the Moors went down into their own ship and loaded up with pistols, which they stuck in the waistbands of their trousers under their coats, and every one of them had likewise a cutlass strapped to his waist. They then entered aboard us all at once, firing their pistols and wounding us with their cutlasses.

They had on board 300 Men and 16 Guns an easily overwhelmed us.

After they had thus taken our ship, they carried us to Salé, but they sent our Ship into Marmora, having secured us first in a place underground. Our diet was only a little black bread and water. They kept us there for four days, and then sent us to Marmora to unload the ship they had taken from us. They sent the oil with which the ship had been laden to the Emperor of Morocco, packed in skin containers upon camels and mules. After we had worked there very hard all day unloading the ship, they put us down in the hold of their own ship, in irons.

Afterwards, they sent us to Macqueness, where the Emperor’s castle is, and where he keeps all his slaves, and we were delivered up to the Vice-Roy (the Emperor being then on a campaign against a city to the southward, called Tarradant, in Barbary). We were put to work all day, his Negroes driving and cursing us, bidding us turn Moors. At night, we were driven to a place where the rest of the Christians lay, being like a vault underground, filled with crawling vermin.

For those who may be interested…

The above extract is taken from pages 1-9 of Francis Brooks’ Barbarian Cruelty: Being a True History of the Distressed Condition of the Christian Captives under the Tyranny of Mully Ishmael Emperor of Morocco, and King of Fez and Macqueness in Barbary, originally printed for I. Salusbury at the Rising-Sun in Cornhil, and H. Newman at the King’s Arms in the Poultry, in London, England, in 1693.