THE PERILS OF THE SEA – PART 3 – Corsairs & Captives

(This post is a continuation of The Perils of the Sea – Parts 1 & 2. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best to read those posts before continuing on here.)

Last week, the Charitie and its crew had been released by the corsairs who had captured them. We take up the story from there.

At break of day on the following morning, to our dismay, we espied the corsair ships once again, within a mile of us, and we feared they had changed their decision regarding us. But we soon perceived that, as they had formerly chased us, so they were now pursuing a French ship.

The Frenchman first put on all his sails, using the best wings he had for his escape, but to a fruitless purpose. After resisting them by an honorable fight, yet to as bootless an end, he was warned as we had been. But he would not lower his topsails and submit at their first shot. Instead, the French crew trusted to their own ableness and stood out till they were overrun.

Our eyes were made witnesses as the corsairs took the merchant and the master and hanged them both from their yard arms, and as they had sent away one of our ships, so they commanded away his ship to Tunis and made slaves of all that crew, there being fourscore and four men in her.

The pitifulness of this spectacle would have moved any but the worst of villains to tears.

Here might you have seen the poor captives kneeling piteously, while their conquerors, triumphing over them, bound them back to back. And you might have beheld the eyes of the one full of sorrow, intreating for compassion, whilst the other laughed in their faces. This we viewed (and not without much pity) as it happened unto them. And this, we knew, had we not yielded, must have befallen us.

Thieving is the corsairs’ living, blood is their exercise, tyranny is their practice. Christians are turned Turks, and Turks are the sons of devils. So what good can be expected from them? O what a lamentation is this, that in one minute by the cruelty of such villains, fourscore and four fathers should be wrested from their sons, so many wives be bereft of their husbands, and no doubt so many children despoiled of their parents—a calamity so exceeding that me thinks, even but at the report thereof, all Christendom should be made up into one hand for the exacting of revenge.

Though this tragedy was enacted before our eyes, and death and slavery visited upon those innocents, and though well might we pity then, we knew we could in no way prevail to their help. So we raised our sails and struck out to be clear of the corsairs a second time.

But one mischance doth seldom or never come but there succeeds another as his inheritor, and he who carefully strives to avoid a dangerous rock doth often fall upon more devouring sands. Even so it fared with us, for the very next day, after we had discharged ourselves of bad, we were subject to fall into the jaws of worse, being now most eagerly pursued by a bloody French man-of-war, and a pirate like the other. We had hear of the cruelty of this Frenchman, and we accounted ourselves compassed even in the arms and grip of death. For when the other corsairs do but to kill some and make slaves of the rest, this Frenchman’s custom is to murder all he takes, and he is not glutted with the hanging of one or two or three—nay, or even twenty. If he happens to take of a hundred, he binds them back to back and buries them together.

For two days and a night this French pirate had us in chase, and the wind beginning to grow duller and calm (although our ship was of indifferent speed), he was come within a mile of us, so that the nearer we perceived him, the nearer we judged ourselves to be to our sudden destruction. It was in vain to strive to make any defense, for we had nothing wherewith to do so. So everyone betook himself to his prayers for the good of his soul.

We had no hope, all expectation of rescue was frustrated, and we expected to give our lives over to ruin in the hands of our enemies and our bodies to the sea. Yet at that moment it pleased God, who is the defense of his servants, to send in sight of us five ships under sail. Though we knew not who they were, we chose rather to fall into their hands than to submit ourselves to the cruelty of him who so long had held us in chase. Thus we made all the speed we could to come up to these newcomers.

The Frenchman strove as much as was in him to cut us off from our purpose, but we being come within their ken, and in hopes that we might make them discern our troubles by outward signs, we expressed the lively motions of distressed men, as by kneeling on our knees and holding up our hands. They perceiving, although not knowing what we were, in charity made for us, and in a short time we were come within their command.

The Frenchman considering, and guessing it would prove too dangerous for him to make up any nearer, he sprang aloof and left us.

These Ships were four Englishmen and one Fleming. But I must give you to understand, that until we had truly tasted their charity, it was for us a doubtful question whether it were possible that truth or honesty might be met at sea.

Of the English ships, one was Master Stanley, another was Master Humphrey. As for the other two ships, the one was of Yarmouth, and the other of Lynne. At our meeting, there was no little joy on both sides: in them, that they had been a means to rescue their countrymen; in us, that they had preserved our lives.

But nothing is there in this world but is transitory. Our life is not permanent, no more are our fortunes. We have joy in this minute, and sorrow in the next. And so it was with us. For scarce had our joy felt an hour of embracement, or our comfort given a hearty salutation the one to the other, when presently we perceived ourselves for the third time to be had in chase by a man-of-war and his pinnace who, when he drew near up to us, we perceived it was Captain Danseker of Algiers. His ship was so potent that it seemed to us useless to try to resist, for he carried 55 pieces of ordinance, besides 400 Turkeys with small shot.

He came amongst the thickest of our fleet, as if he had had power to sweep us away with his breath, and when he came near to us, he caused his followers to waft us amain with their glistering swords, threatening to sink us the one after the other if, at his command, we did not immediately strike our sails.

For the next installment of the adventures of the Charitie and its crew see The Perils of the Sea – Part 4 here in this blog.

For those who may be interested…

The letter written by the Charitie’s captain in which he describes his experiences at sea 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.