Back at the end of 2020, I serialized the narrative of Elizabeth Marsh (The Female Captive: A Narrative of Facts Which Happened in Barbary in the Year 1756, Written by Herself) who was captured by Salé corsairs in the spring of 1756.
This week, we begin a serialized narrative about another female captive: a young Scottish girl named Elizabeth (Bet) Whitson. Some time around 1743, when she was twenty years old or so, Bet Whitson had the bad luck to be aboard an English merchant ship that was captured by corsairs from Salé, and she wound up enslaved in Morocco.
Elizabeth Marsh told her own story. We get Bet Whitson’s story, however, from a male narrator—which makes it a very different kind of story.
Here, then, is the first part of the story of Bet Whitson.
The famous Elizabeth Whitson was born near Dunse, in Berwickshire, about the year 1723. Her parents were poor, honest people, who gave her the best education their circumstances would allow. Before she had reached her seventeenth year, she became the pride and toast of all the surrounding country. She was rather above the middle size, and extremely well formed, though rather inclined to embonpoint [i.e., plumpness]. Her eyes were large, black, and expressive, her features remarkably handsome, and her skin fair and transparent. What increased the charms of her unequalled beauty was that she appeared quite unaffected by the admiration she excited.
At this time, she was sent to service to a distant relation who occupied a farm in the neighborhood of Durham. But her master being in arrears with his landlord, whom he had also offended, was shortly after seized for debt. The young esquire, in order to increase his tenant’s mortification, attended the bailiffs and superintended the writing of the schedule. While thus employed, he observed the pretty servant alarmed, grieved, arid weeping in a comer.
Admiration and unlawful desire immediately took possession of his mind, and he determined to affect the ruin of the unsuspecting girl. For this purpose, be called the farmer into a private room, and depicted in strong colors the misery, want, and desperation that must overtake his wife and children when turned adrift upon the world. He next dwelt upon his own tender feelings and his desire to serve the farmer fairly and concluded by only requesting, in return, that he and his wife should unite their endeavors to prevail upon their servant girl to accept his protection, protesting, at the same time, that he would make her a lady and the envy of the country.
The farmer firmly rejected the proposal, but the tears and entreaties of his wife, whom the esquire easily gained to his side, at length prevailed, and the farmer basely agreed to sacrifice his young and inexperienced relative for the prosperity of his own family:
The amorous esquire was a most accomplished libertine, but he found many unexpected and formidable obstacles in the good sense, upright feeling, and virtuous principles of the bonny Scotch lassie. However, his deep and refined arts at last succeeded, and while she was in a state of insensibility, he effected his diabolical purpose.
On recovering her faculties and recollection, nothing could exceed the grief and rage of his victim. She flew upon her abashed seducer like an infuriated tigress, and her strength and agility soon laid him prostrate. But when she lifted a knife, intending to bury it in his black and base heart, she recollected her father’s parting admonition: “Keep the commandments.” So she threw the knife away and sullenly departed, resolving to fly and implore the advice and protection of her aged parents
The esquire now followed her incessantly. He appeared overwhelmed with remorse and grief for his folly, and he threatened to destroy himself if his beloved charmer would not condescend to forgive him. These declarations, aided by the tears and arguments of her master and mistress, at length prevailed. The vanity of poor Bet was flattered, and this compensated in some degree for her loss of character. The esquire was young, handsome, and rich, and who could tell but that he might, on the death of an old, ill-natured aunt, lead her to the altar and make her an honest woman and the mistress of his great estate. In the meantime, he insisted on bringing her home, and instituting her into the office of housekeeper.
But this elevation was too high and too sudden for poor Bet’s head. She became giddy, vain, and insolent. She dressed in the most extravagant style and ruled the house with extreme haughtiness. At last her conduct became quite insupportable, and the servants, under the direction of the old butler, organized a conspiracy against her. An opportunity occurred for executing their plot when the esquire went on his annual excursion to shoot in the moors of Perthshire. The butler, in great alarm, pretended that several valuable articles of plate had been stolen, and he sent for two constables to search the servants’ boxes.
Nothing was found, and the officers were just going to depart, when the cook observed that Bet Whitson, though very fine, was a servant as well as they were, and it was too bad that favorites might be dishonest if they pleased, and none must suspect them. On hearing this, Bet flew into a violent rage and abused and threatened the whole lot of them. She insisted that her trunks should be also searched. And lo! The whole of the plate stolen were found wrapped up in some old gowns. Bet stood mute with astonishment. On recovering herself, she declared that the whole was a wicked plot to ruin her, and that she would immediately write for the esquire, and have all the servants turned away.
The butler, however, insisted that the constables should do their duty, and Bet, in spite of her tears and remonstrances, was hurried before a clerical justice of the peace, whom she had formerly offended, and who now immediately committed her to Durham jail till the assizes.
The next part of the plot was to pack the groom off to London, where he intended to marry an old fellow servant and open a public house. This done, the butler wrote an aggravated account of the theft committed by the housekeeper and also declared that he had often seen the groom enter her chamber at night, that they had agreed to elope together, and that the groom had fled upon the wicked and ungrateful hussy being taken into custody lest he should share in her punishment. This statement had the desired effect. The esquire was highly enraged at Bet’s faithless conduct and returned all her letters unopened.
Upon the trial, the proofs of Bet’s guilt appeared clear and decisive, and she was sentenced to be transported for seven years to the colony of Virginia. When she was ready to sail, the esquire sent her all her trunks and clothes, which she at first intended to return, in scorn of his pitiful and ill-timed generosity. But having become vain of her beauty, she thought fine dress would render her attractions irresistible and perhaps yet make her fortune. She therefore kept the clothes and sailed for America in good spirits.
On the third day after passing the Channel, a violent northwest wind arose, and the vessel nearly foundered in the Bay of Biscay. As the leakiness of the ship increased, the captain resolved to put into the Tagus [i.e., the Targus River, which empties into the Atlantic near Lisbon, Portugal] and repair. But a series of baffling winds prevented him, and, to complete his misfortunes, he fell in with a Moorish pirate from Salé, to whom he was obliged to surrender without attempting any useless resistance.
See the next post in this blog for the second installment of Bet Whitson’s story.
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For those who may be interested…
This extract of Bet Whitson’s story comes from A New, Improved, and Authentic Life of James Allan, the Celebrated Northumberland Piper, Detailing his Surprising Adventures in Various Parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, Including a Complete Description of the Manners and Customs of the Gipsy Tribes, collected from sources of genuine authority (as the title page has it) by James Thompson, published in 1828, pp. 383-386.
Corsairs and Captives
Narratives from the Age of the Barbary Pirates
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The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson
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