The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates

by Des Ekin

  Joane Broadbrook, in her heavily pregnant state, may have been treated better than the rest. There is some evidence that Morat’s men showed respect to expectant mothers.

  At the height of the Icelandic raid, for instance, a terrified woman went into labour behind a large rock. Morat’s troops soon found her, but to her surprise they spared her life and treated her kindly. This small act of humanity in the midst of atrocity impressed the islanders so much that they preserved the stone as a memorial.

  And when the wife of Heimaey parson Ólafur Eigilsson gave birth during the voyage to Algiers, two of Morat’s men donated their shirts to serve as baby blankets. In view of these two cases, it’s probable that the corsairs showed compassion to Joane. Perhaps the reason was purely commercial: to keep her and her baby alive for sale. Or perhaps, as the captive Fanny Loviot speculated in her own case, the hardened seamen looked at the women and ‘thought of their wives, their mothers, their sisters whom they had left at home.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A Remedy For Grief

  Back at home, poor William Gunter was inconsolable. The man who had lost more relatives than any other single individual in the Baltimore raid was determined to do everything in his power to bring his loved ones home.

  Haggard and grief-stricken, Gunter stood before the powerful Lords of the Privy Council in London and poured his heart out. He told of his great loss and begged that they put pressure on the English consul in Algiers to redeem the captives.

  The Lords nodded gravely. But unknown to Gunter, they’d already had their cards marked by their fellow aristocrat, Richard Boyle, the Earl of Cork.

  Boyle had written to the Lords asking them to find some way of freeing the 107 captives.

  But his tone was strangely lukewarm, and he added with more than a hint of apology: ‘Among many others that suffer by that accident there is one William Gunter, who bears the greatest part in that loss, having his wife and seven sons carried away by the Turks. He will not be dissuaded from repairing thither to solicit your Lordships applying some remedy to his grief.’

  Will not be dissuaded? Boyle’s tone spoke volumes about the attitude of the English aristocracy towards commoners who’d been enslaved in Barbary. The subtext of his message to the Lords was clear: Just humour the old fellow and send him home.

  Yet, as Gunter would have discovered, there was talk of little else in London. The raid on Baltimore was far more than a regional nuisance. It was an invasion of the King’s territory and an unprecedented humiliation.

  The Baltimore incursion was without doubt the greatest Islamist invasion of the British-Irish Isles. True, hundreds of English and Irish sailors had been seized from their ships at sea in the previous decade (up to a thousand in one year alone) but land raids had been rare.

  Six years earlier, in 1625, Barbary troops had invaded Mount’s Bay in Cornwall and stormed into the local church during service, screaming threats and brandishing their yatagans at the terrified worshippers. Corsairs raided the Cornish village of Looe that same year, but the alarm had been raised and they found the town almost empty.

  Later, in 1640, corsair ships from Algiers were to swoop on the Cornish port of Penzance and seize dozens of men, women and children.

  It’s hard to find reliable statistics on the number of slaves captured in these incidents. While there was a painstaking tally of the 107 captives taken in the Baltimore raid, the figures for Cornwall are vague and suspiciously rounded. They tended to include local fishermen and mariners who’d been seized at sea. We must remember, too, that it was in the interests of local authorities seeking expensive protection from London to beef up their statistics.

  One eyewitness reckoned that sixty slaves were taken in the Mount’s Bay raid. Eighty were seized at Looe, but this figure included seamen and fishermen who’d presumably been taken at sea. The main source for the Penzance incident in 1640 is a report from London saying that ‘those roguish Turkish pirates’ had seized from the shore near Penzance ‘sixty men, women and children; this was in the night …’

  Even taking these figures at face value we find that no other invasion of these islands matches Baltimore in terms of scale. At the time, officials described it as ‘unprecedented’.

  Certainly, it caused an economic calamity in Ireland.

  As the ever-caring Sir William Hull of Leamcon wrote the day after the raid: ‘If these [pirate] ships are not driven off, trade will be ruined and the people will be utterly unable to pay off their debts.’

  Tensions were racked up even higher when a Captain William Thomas based in Algiers relayed intelligence of further impending raids on Ireland, sparking off fears of a full-scale Ottoman invasion.

  And the Earl of Cork warned: ‘I hear on good authority that the Turks intend to surprise the whole southern coast next year, distributing their fleet according to the strengths of the different ports.

  ‘This rumour has stopped trade on the southern coast of Ireland.

  ‘Three evils follow: the depeopling of the harbour towns, and the cessation of the pilchard fishery, which trains men for the Navy and increases the King’s customs; and the stoppage of the rapid flow of coin into the Realm.’

  The authorities worked hard to find some practical early-warning system that would prevent such a disaster happening again. Beacons appeared on headlands at Baltimore and Cape Clear. ‘[U]pon the firing of these beacons, [local men] are to assemble under arms at Clonakilty,’ the President of Munster ordered.

  An ingenious Captain James proposed:

  ‘… a system of flag signals: flags placed on different positions on the poles will indicate whether the ship is a Turk or Dutchman.’

  The Earl of Cork begged London for aid. ‘We have no means or ships here and look entirely to Your Lordships,’ he wrote. ‘The sea between England and Ireland must be guarded. Pirates frequently assume command of it in summer time.’

  Firmly locking the stable door after the corsairs had bolted, Boyle promised that the few people remaining in Baltimore would ‘rebuild, and prepare and hold, at their own expense, a blockhouse’ to repel invaders.

  The follow-up invasion never came, but that summer Boyle had a different fight on his hands. He was facing the fury of an all-powerful King who saw the Baltimore raid as a personal insult and humiliation … and who would not rest until he found out who was to blame for the fiasco.

  Eight miles northwest of Oxford’s dreaming spires lies Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Winston Churchill. On the other side of the lake, a rarely-visited memorial stone stands today as the only remaining relic of the once-grand Royal Manor House of Woodstock.

  For six centuries, this sylvan hunting lodge had served as holiday home for English monarchs. It was here that Eleanor of Aquitaine surprised her husband Henry II with his secret lover Rosamund – with fatal consequences for the king’s mistress. It was here that the young Princess Elizabeth Tudor – imprisoned by her half-sister Queen Mary – scratched a pathetic poem on a glass window:

  Much suspected of me

  Little proved can be.

  —quoth Elizabeth, prisoner.

  In the summer of 1631, Woodstock became the setting for another moment of high drama in history.

  King Charles was enjoying a midsummer break – perhaps enjoying a glass of claret from the famously well-stocked cellar after a game of tennis in his newly-installed courts – when word reached him of the abduction and naval fiasco at Baltimore.

  ‘This event is absolutely without precedent, even in time of war,’ read the despatch from the Earl of Cork and his fellow Lord Justice, Adam Loftus. ‘It is a grave loss to the King but, besides, it is an insult to his honour.’

  The news did nothing to enhance the quality of the royal holiday. Charles was a small man with a stammer and a notoriously short temper. It was clear from his blistering reply that the monarch was incandescent with rage.

  ‘The invasion [at Baltimore] was no more unusual than the absence of the means of preventi
on,’ his furious letter hissed. ‘You shall inform us where responsibility for this negligence lies.

  ‘You blame the two captains appointed to guard the coast and they blame each other, but we are not satisfied with these recriminations. You shall inform us about what was left undone to guard against such a thing.’

  The letter put the fear of God into the complacent bureaucrats. For weeks, the courts of Dublin and London were loud with the silken rustle of backsides being covered as almost everyone involved tried to blame somebody else.

  As we’ve seen, Captain Francis Hooke of The Fifth Whelp maintained that Admiral Sir Thomas Button had pocketed the money for his supplies, leaving him stuck in port. There was an added complication: Hooke, although a humble captain, was under the special protection of the King’s powerful Secretary Of State, Lord Dorchester.

  This might explain the strangely mild tone of the Earl of Cork’s letter to London eight days after the raid. After asking Dorchester to make a diplomatic complaint to the Ottoman Empire, Boyle broaches the subject hesitantly:

  ‘I think Captain Hooke much to blame; if he had even cruised about, he would have frightened off the Turks. As he is under your special favour, I trust you will admonish him.’

  A couple of weeks later, a more comprehensive picture begins to emerge. It is July 14, and the Lords of the Admiralty are writing to the two Lords Justices:

  ‘Captain Hooke complains that he has been badly and dishonestly victualled by Sir Thomas Button and that want of victuals prevents him from dealing with the pirates, of whose depredations we hear daily complaints. It is obviously a bad thing that captains should victual their own ships. A cause of the difficulty is the dispute between Captain Hooke and Sir Thomas. You have done much to make things worse by allowing Sir Thomas to swerve from our instructions. You must take the victualling out of Sir Thomas’s hands and give it to Sir Sampson Daydrell … be strict about this matter.’

  Four days later, however, Captain Hooke is once again harbour-bound in Kinsale. He protests to the Admiralty Lords that he has been forced to ‘live from hand to mouth’ since 4 May.

  The same day, he writes another letter to the authorities complaining forthrightly about Button’s ‘corruption’.

  There must have been some substance to Hooke’s complaints, because by July 23, he is back at sea, plying between Cork and Waterford. Hooke reveals that he has been given supplies for fourteen days and that Button has promised him six months’ pay.

  Later that summer, Captain Hooke travelled inland to the town of Mallow for an informal hearing before the Earl of Cork and Boyle’s great rival, Munster President William St Leger.

  — Captain, you have been accused of negligence over the piratical raid on Baltimore, Boyle said icily. What have you to say?

  Hooke tensed. He knew that his entire career hung in the balance. With a dramatic flourish, he produced a battered sea-log.

  — This journal has been signed by all the officers on The Fifth Whelp, he said. It testifies that since we arrived at Kinsale in April, we have been victualled from hand to mouth and could not leave port.

  The book was passed to Boyle and St Leger, who studied it carefully.

  — So this was not a case of cowardice, Hooke persisted.

  There was a silence as the two officials examined the log.

  — In future, the Earl said at last, you shall be victualled for three months.

  The Fifth Whelp was soon back at sea, and Captain Hooke was recording in his journal: ‘We are today victualled for a month.’

  Hooke left the Mallow hearing with his head held high. But if he thought the case was closed, he was wrong. His troubles were far from over.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Black Paste and Putrid Water

  Life goes on, as it always does. As the corsair ships sailed onwards past La Rochelle, the weather became warmer and Joane, Bessie and the other women were allowed out on deck for prolonged periods. They found themselves growing accustomed to the comforting – if not comfortable – predictability of shipboard routine.

  ‘The morning commences with the watch on deck’s ‘turning-to’ at day-break and washing down, scrubbing, and swabbing the decks,’ sailing veteran Richard Dana recalled. ‘This, together with [drawing] fresh water, and coiling up the rigging, usually occupies the time until seven bells, (half after seven) when all hands get breakfast. At eight, the day’s work begins, and lasts until sundown, with the exception of an hour for dinner.’

  Captured European crewmen were confused by the corsairs’ unfamiliar work schedule, which involved two ten-hour watches from 8 pm until 6 am, and 6 am until 4 pm, with a ‘dog watch’ in between. Some captives could not sleep for fear that they might miss their watch.

  On an Islamic ship, there was another routine. Five times a day, after the call to prayer, the faithful would form rows facing in the direction of Mecca and perform the set rak’ah, or genuflections: a standing prayer, a kneeling prayer and two prostrations. Like the Flemish captive Emanuel d’Aranda, John Ryder must have been filled with ‘fear, wonder and curiosity’ at the sight. D’Aranda admitted he felt spellbound by these exotic figures ‘talking strange tongues, wearing strange clothes, carrying strange weapons, and praying with odd rituals.’

  But within a few days, many captives found their initial terror replaced by a growing curiosity. At least some of the Baltimore hostages must have been moved to ask questions and receive their first instructions about this strange new religion that was to dominate so many of their lives.

  At mealtime, Ryder would have queued up with the others to be served from a communal pot. The food was like nothing he had ever seen before. He would probably have agreed with the fastidious Italian captive Filippo Pananti, who recalled his first meal with horror: ‘[I]t consisted of a black looking paste in an immense pan, which, placed on the deck, was immediately surrounded by a host of hungry Moors and negroes, indiscriminately mixed together and making common cause for the laudable purpose of emptying the platter.’

  The captives had to wait ‘like timid spaniels’ for the leftovers.

  ‘Stretched along the decks in the manner of the Turks, [we were] obliged to eat our wretched meal with the lowest part of the crew.’

  And the drink wasn’t much better than the food. ‘The beverage consisted of putrid water,’ he wrote, ‘which was handed round to the company in a large earthen pitcher.’

  On other ships, dinner consisted of ship’s biscuit and a few olives with vinegar and oil. ‘[They] told us to eat heartily,’ the captive John Foss recalled, ‘for after our arrival in Algiers we should not be allowed such dainties.’

  For the troops, the fare was even more frugal.

  ‘A ration just sufficient to sustain life is daily weighed out to the Janissaries,’ writes Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, an ambassador to the Ottoman court. ‘…[T]hey take out a few spoonfuls of flour and put them into water, adding some butter, and seasoning the mess with salt and spices; these ingredients are boiled, and a large bowl of gruel is thus obtained.’

  Some European corsairs included less orthodox foods in their diet. In 1623 the Barbary-based pirate John Nutt’s stock of food consisted of ‘bread … twelve hogsheads of beef, besides pork [my italics], and a store of water and some wine …’

  Morat’s ships continued on their long journey southwards, through the stormy Bay of Biscay and down the western coast of Spain and Portugal. The weather grew hotter and awnings were erected to protect the officers from the blazing sun.

  For the fifty Baltimore youngsters, curious despite their situation, there would be a constant unfolding of marvels: perhaps a sighting of a whale or seal, or a school of dolphin flashing by. The corsair crew would very likely have included lads of their own age and we can imagine, for instance, the Gunter boys peering intently as they learned how to fashion a bowline or tie a Turk’s head knot.

  The deck was a busy and often chaotic place. Ships of the era carried not only humans, but also a wide va
riety of animals ranging from pet monkeys and parakeets to the hens and goats who were allowed to wander freely on deck.

  Anna the maid would probably have relaxed when she saw that her own two young charges were being treated kindly by the crew. The Icelandic captives of 1626 recorded that Morat’s pirates began acting like fond uncles to their children, slipping them treats and helping to cheer them up. Pananti confirmed this: he wrote that two child captives in his group were very much the centre of affectionate attention.

  From the youngsters’ point of view, the corsairs would have made up a remarkable tableau – faces of nearly every conceivable shape and shade, and voices speaking in at least half a dozen languages. We know for certain that they would have heard people conversing in English, French, Dutch and Portuguese as well as Turkish and Arabic. (D’Aranda heard tongues of seven nations and Pananti noted several Mediterranean and African races.)

  In this floating Tower of Babel, communication was made possible only by inventing a common language – Sabir, or ‘The Knowledge’, a mixture of Romance and Arabic tongues. The beauty of Sabir was its simplicity. All verbs were infinitive and didn’t change tense. ‘Mangiar’ always meant ‘eat’. ‘Drinking’ was ‘bibir’. ‘To sell’ was ‘vendir’. For the future tense, you simply used the word ‘bisogno’, ‘need’, before the verb. Adjectives also remained unchanged.

  John, Tom and the other Baltimore captives could quite rapidly have picked up the basics and learned to communicate.

  Life on board the slave ship was not all hard work. Morat had far more hands than he was ever likely to need, and in calm weather there would have been plenty of leisure time.