THE PERILS OF THE SEA – PART 2 – Corsairs & Captives

This week, we continue the series of posts about the Charitie, the English merchant ship that was captured by corsairs in the spring of 1609,

Last week, the crew of the Charitie had just been informed by English slaves aboard the corsair ships that if they yielded, they would not be enslaved and would be given their liberty.

We pick up the story from there.

Even the Infidels themselves were moved to compassion by what the enslaved Englishmen aboard their ships had said to us. Seeing no safety but only destruction, and after a second summons, we had parley with these our desperate enemies for the space of an hour to decide whether we would yield for our liberty or give our bodies to the sea.

When we considering how unequally we were matched, being encompassed round about and assaulted with three ships, the Admiral carrying 30 pieces of ordinance, and the other two ships having 28 apiece, besides six hundred Turks with small shot, who are held the best shots in the world, and our being but 20 men, and our ship bearing but 11 pieces of ordinances, we struck our sails and yielded. In the end, we held it more discretion to stand to the mercy of those whom we had no ability to confound for our liberty rather than to desperately and willfully destroy ourselves and the estate we had of yours, foreseeing that by fighting we could not purchase our safety and the best of our resistance must end in either death or perpetual slavery.

After we yielded, they presently boarded us and commanded that our Master and eleven of our company be carried aboard their Admiral, where, after consultation amongst them, we were severally dispersed into their ships, and divers of them appointed to go aboard ours. It being almost dark when we were taken, we were for that night guarded, every man having his sentinel to watch him

The next morning, the Captains of the men-of-war consulted how to dispose of us and our ships. In the midst of our misfortune, it fortunately fell out that our Master, having in former voyages transported passengers from Algiers and Tunis to Alexandria and Constantinople, was well remembered by many of these pirates (whom more than we expected lamenting our case). They informed their Captain of the services done for their nation by our Master, and also of what both they and others of their friends had received at his hands, and that our ship was thus not a stranger unto them, for our Master in his last voyage had brought from Constantinople the great Pashaw of Tunis.

This fortunate accident was one and the chief causes of you seeing your vessel again, or we our country and families. Also, our ship was laden with corn, which they utterly neglected as a commodity unworthy of them. In brief, the end of their consultation was that our ship should be restored.

However, they presently came aboard us and fell violently to ransacking and pillaging our vessel, cutting down our cabins and smashing our chests to pieces, leaving us nothing to call our own but what we had on our backs. They took away all the powder we had, saving what our ordinance was laden withal, leaving us not so much as would prime one piece. They bereft us of most of our great shot, all our muskets, all our small shot, of our matches, pikes, ladles, sponges, rapiers, swords, daggers of all munitions necessary for defense whatsoever, leaving us with nothing but the vast sea and the inconstant wind to defend us. After this, they returned to tear from us part of our sails and tackle and to take from us our beef, our pork, all our butter and cheese, and our rice and oil.

In brief, we were left nothing to defend us and little or nothing to feed us.

I must pause here, before I proceeded, and relate in full what happened to us aboard their ships.

First, as I related unto you, upon our first yielding, divers of us were taken aboard their ships, and many of them (as well Turks as English) shifted unto ours. The Englishmen amongst them were the first that boarded us, demanding to know our cargo. We answered that the whole of it was corn [grain]. However, we had, every one of us besides, some little particular venture for our selves or our friends. We desired and hoped they would not make prey of this, to which they answered it was in no way their intent, neither was it the pleasure if their captain—Captain Ward—that any private seafaring man’s venture should be in any way hindered by him or his confederates.

“If you have anything,” they said, “that you would have defended from the grasp of the greedy Turks, deliver it in trust to us, and as we are countrymen of yours, while we continue together we will see it faithfully reserved, and upon your free discharge restored to you in full. With this trap, we poor birds were caught. Partly from fear, we did not dare to distrust them, and partly with hope, every man amongst us distributed unto them what he had, trusting that they would prove to be men of their words, and that there might be found some conscience in them because they were our countrymen.

When we found ourselves to be discharged, every man began to enquire for him to whom he had delivered, but they were stolen away in the night, and we got nothing. Our own countrymen had made fools of us. Being thus cheated of all our shift whatsoever, we began to complain of our wrong to the Turks and implored their assistance. They straight made us this answer: “Since our own nation has served you so ill, what reason have we to be courteous unto you?”

By this time, seeing that they could take no more from us, they heaved up their hands and bade us be gone.

As you may well conceive, we were not a little glad when we looked back and saw them as far astern as we could descry them, and we were glad indeed when we beheld for certain that we could discern them not at all.

For the next installment of the Charitie’s woes, see The Perils of the Sea – Part 3 here in this blog.

For those who may be interested…

The letter written by the Charitie’s captain can be found in a pamphlet titled News from Sea of two notorious Pyrates, Ward the Englishman, and Danseker the Dutchman, with a True Relation of all or the Most Piracies by them Committed unto the sixth of April, 1609, published around 1609 and attributed to a pamphleteer named Anthony Nixon (the pamphlet has no page numbers). I have edited and lightly abridge the original text to make it more accessible.