THE ENGLISH SPANISH PILGRIM: A CAPTIVE’S TALE — PART 1

This week we begin a series of excerpts from a new captivity narrative. This one is by an Englishman named James Wadsworth.

James Wadsworth was born in 1604—in the middle of a very messy time. England had officially been a Protestant nation for seventy years by then, but religious affiliation dies hard, and the ‘divorce’ from Rome was not clean one. Wadsworth’s father had gone to Spain in 1605 as chaplain to Sir Charles Cornwallis, the English Ambassador there (from 1605 to 1609). Once in Spain, however, Wadsworth senior was seduced by Catholicism. He converted and subsequently left the employ of the English Ambassador to serve the Spanish Crown and the (in)famous Spanish Inquisition.

Wadsworth senior brought his family out from England to join him in 1610. That family included James Wadwsorth junior, the youngest child of the family, who was six at the time. Wadsworth junior attended various Spanish schools until 1618 (he was 14), when his father enrolled him in a Jesuit College at St Omer, in Artois, France, a little over twenty miles (35 kilometers) southeast of Calais, nearish to the border with what is now Belgium.

Wadsworth had been living in Madrid. To get to Saint Omer, he traveled overland to Saint Sebastian, a port town on the shore of the Bay of Biscay, right next to what is now the border with France. The route from there took him by ship across the Bay of Biscay, northwards along the Atlantic coast of France, through the English Channel, and so to Calais, from where he would have traveled overland to Saint Omer .

As the ship Wadsworth was aboard entered the English Channel, however, it was nearly wrecked by a violent storm. Then, as the ship was trying to limp into port… it was attacked by pirates.

This blog is all about Barbary corsairs. So it may come as a slight surprise that the pirates who attacked Wadsworth’s ship weren’t Barbary corsairs.

They were privateers operating out of La Rochelle, a notorious privateer port located on France’s Atlantic coast.

Barbary corsairs weren’t the only threat on the seas.

In those days, remember, everybody employed privateers, both in Europe and in North Africa. There was a difference, though. European privateers were employed by the governments of large nations (England, the Netherlands, France, Spain). North African privateers were employed by what were essentially city states (Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, Salé). The La Rochelle privateers (Wadsworth refers to them as “Rochellers”) more resembled North African corsairs than European privateers, for La Rochelle at that time was essentially an independent (Protestant) city state perched precariously on the Atlantic flank of Catholic France.

By the end of the 1620s, La Rochelle had been gobbled up by France and no longer existed independently. But in Wadsworth’s day, the city was still independent and thriving, and a major port for privateers—highly successful and highly feared privateers.

Wadsworth was later captured by corsairs from Salé and enslaved there (his description of that experience will fill a series of posts in the coming weeks here in this blog). For this week, though, we’ll follow his experience being attacked by European ‘corsairs’—La Rochelle privateers.

It’s worth remembering that he was fourteen at the time.

Here, then, is Wadsworth’s description.

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In the year 1618, I took my farewell of the royal town of Madrid, of my father and mother, and of other friends and, after their benediction, I set out for Saint Sebastian, accompanied by a Mister Pickford, his Spanish Majesty’s pensioner in the castle at Antwerp, who was to conduct me to Saint Omer, in the province of Artois, seven leagues from Calais. At Saint Sebastian, which is 100 leagues from Madrid, we chanced on a French ship of a hundred tons, bound for Calais.

Having embarked with the first favorable wind, we hoisted up sails and launched into the main, steering our course towards the English Channel. Hardly had we arrived there, however, before we were pursued by an exceedingly fierce storm, even to the hazard of our lives, our ship leaking much, and beating itself against the wind and the billows of the turbulent sea. Once the storm finally abated, and the ship was repaired as well as time and place could afford, we continued onwards.

After a time, one of our mariners descried far-off a great vessel making towards us and chasing us closely. This struck the ship’s Master and passengers with no little fear, and not without cause. For presently we perceived this ship to be a man-of-war out of La Rochelle, and we made all haste possible to gain the wind of him, and so avoid him. But all was in vain. The man-of-war was lighter and less burdened than we, while our ship was old and deeply laden with the commodities of iron and wool.

All this being thought on, we fell into diverse opinions as to whether it were best to prepare to fight it out or strike sails and submit. Don Gondamours’s nephew, who was with us in our ship, and who was then bound for Flanders, appointed there by his Catholic Majesty as Captain of a troupe of horse, advised us to yield, supposing thereby we might save our lives. But Mister Pickford, an experienced old soldier, took upon himself the responsibility of command, to whom all assented jointly that they were ready to submit themselves to his counsel.

He then being recognized as Captain and Master, commanded to be brought before him all the provisions and best victuals of the ship, and cheered up the company therewith, telling them thus: that they ought to make merry with that which God had sent them, since it was doubtful whether they should ever meet together any more. Having made this good benediction, he commanded them to betake themselves heartily to their devotions, and to ready themselves for resistance, saying it was better to die a thousand deaths than to fall into the Rochellers’ hands—since the passengers were most of them retainers to his Catholic Majesty [and the La Rochelle privateers were Protestants].

Immediately after this, the man-of-war came upon us and, fetching us up, gave us a broadside with his ordnance. Upon this, the mariners aboard our ship (contrary to their promise) struck the sails and submitted. The Rochellers boarded us and then separated us one from the other to make us confess what money we had, and what other commodities might be hidden aboard the ship, threatening us that if we concealed anything from them, they would forthwith pistol us. Such was their rapine and avarice, that our surrendering made no difference. Some of us they bastinadoed, others buffeted and kicked, without respect for person or age. Amongst the rest, I bore my part, for I was taken aside and stripped stark naked. Pulling off my boots, my robber heard a merry jingling [of coins], whereupon he forced me to be silent, upon the danger of my life, for he feared he should lose his pillaged booty to the other pirates if they should discover us, for it was catch as catch may. Hoping for more booty, he therefore disrobed me of the other boot—with the greatest dexterity that ever any shoemaker used.

Once we had all been robbed, our sails were plucked down, and we were committed to the mercy of the waves.

We suffered three days of famine and cold, and we would have suffered longer had not those senseless creatures, the wind and the waves, been so kind as to show us the way to Galisia [in northwest Spain], where we met with a bark which was then for Saint Sebastian.

Being arrived there, each one of us was forced to shift for himself.

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For those who may be interested…

James Wadsworth’s description of the attack by privateers from La Rochelle comes from his book The English Spanish pilgrime. Or, A nevv discouerie of Spanish popery, and Iesuiticall stratagems VVith the estate of the English pentioners and fugitiues vnder the King of Spaines dominions, and else where at this present. (published in 1629), pages 6-9.

As usual, I have lightly edited the original text to make it more accessible for modern readers.

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