The British Navy Book Part 8

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RELEASE OF CHRISTIAN PRISONERS AT ALGIERS

The bold and aggressive Turkish pirates were for long the terror of merchantmen. So successful were they in their raids that at one time they were reported to have 25,000 Christian slaves in Algiers alone.]

Two years later a squadron under Captain William Rainsborow was actually dispatched against Salee. This port was blockaded by four ships, which were reinforced by four more, and after destroying every Turkish ship which attempted to break the blockade, the squadron closed in to the city, and so battered its fortifications that the pirates were glad to make terms by giving up 400 English slaves. The success of Captain Rainsborow shows what might have been done had the same process been applied to other pirate cities on the African coast, but, strange to say, our forefathers were content merely to "scotch the snake", without making an end of it once and for all.

By 1640 the Turks were as bold and aggressive as ever. Three Turkish men-of-war attacked the _Elizabeth_ off the Lizard and burned her, and shortly afterwards landed at Penzance and carried off sixty men, women, and children. The Deputy-Lieutenant of Cornwall reported that there were about sixty Turkish pirates off the coast at this time. In 1645 it is stated that they landed again at Fowey, and made slaves of 240 persons, including some ladies.

Occasionally some of our merchant-ships were able to put up a successful defence against the "Turks".

There were several instances of this in the Mediterranean, and here is a shipmaster's report of how he did the like in the Channel in 1638: "W.

Nurry, of this town and county of Poole, Mariner and Master under G.o.d of the good ship called the _Concord_ of Poole, burthen, 80 tons, with 6 guns, 12 men, and 2 boys, being about 6 or 7 leagues off Ushant, coming from Roch.e.l.le laden with salt, was set upon by a man-of-war of Algiers having 15 pieces of ordnance and full of men with the colour of Holland displayed ... and then put out her Turkey colours and bade him 'amain'[28] for the King of Algiers, whereupon this examinant refusing to strike their sails at his command, the Turk boarded his ship in his quarter with great store of men, whereby they continued to fight board by board together by the s.p.a.ce of 3 hours, and the Turk being weary of the battery took occasion to cut away this examinant's sprit-sail-yard to clear himself away, and then stood to the northward ... that he killed a great many of the Turks and beat them out of his top into the sea with his muskets, and then surprised and brought into this harbour of Poole, one Turk and three Christians, viz.: a Dutchman, a Frenchman and a Biscayner." These three men made statements to the effect that the Turkish ship was of 240 tons displacement, carried 15 guns and 124 men, of whom 19 were Christians, 6 of them English, and 3 of them renegades, and that thirty men-of-war from Algiers were "on the war-path" against Spain, France, and England. The "Dutchman" was one Oliver Megy of Lubeck, who admitted that he had been acting as pilot. Dutchman was apparently then used indiscriminately for Dutch or German, as I believe is still to a great extent the case at sea.

Then Sir John Pennington, in his _Journal_ on board H.M.S. _Vauntguard_, in 1633, reports falling in with a "fly-boat", which informed him that he had been "clapt aboard" by two Turks, one of eleven, the other of seven guns, "betwixt the Gulfe and the Land's End, and hurt 9 or 10 of his men very dangerously, but at last--G.o.d bee praysed--they got from them and slew 4 of the Turkes--that entered them--outright and drove the rest overboard". Again, when anch.o.r.ed in the _Swiftsure_, in Stokes Bay, Pennington notes on 24th September, 1635: "There came in a freebooter, and in his company a barke of Dartmouth laden with Poore John (dried fish) which he tooke in the Channel from a Turks man-of-warr". In 1652, just after the Republican form of government had been established in England, the _Speaker_ frigate was dispatched to "Argier in Turkey" with 30,000 to ransom English captives from slavery. But when the strong hand of the Protector Cromwell had seized the helm of state there was no more question of ransoms or presents to the barbarians of Algiers. He dispatched the celebrated Admiral Blake with a dozen men-of-war to deal with the Turks in the only effective way. Blake stood into the harbour of Tunis, burned all the shipping there, and knocked their fortifications to pieces, with the loss of only twenty-five killed and forty wounded. He then appeared before Algiers, whither the story of his victory at Tunis had preceded him, and had no difficulty in arranging for the release of the whole of the British captives. More than this, the "Turks" gave British waters a wide berth, and there were no more complaints of their performances in the Narrow Seas during the Protectorate.

But with the re-appearance of the Stuart kings at the Restoration the old story of outrage and piracy began all over again. The Turks led off with the sensational capture of Lord Inchiquin, the British Amba.s.sador to Portugal, who with his whole suite was captured off the Tagus and publicly sold by auction in the market-place of Algiers. They would never have dared to act in this manner in the days of Cromwell and Blake; but they knew well enough that there was mighty little patriotism about the "Merry Monarch" and his Court and Government. But even Charles could not stomach the degrading arrangement which was made by the Earl of Winchelsea, the British Amba.s.sador to Turkey, who had been ordered to call at Algiers on his way out to negotiate a new treaty with the Dey.

This n.o.bleman actually granted the pirates liberty to search British vessels and remove all foreigners and their goods. The Earl of Sandwich and Sir John Lawson were sent with a fleet to Algiers to enforce the removal of the obnoxious clause from the treaty. They bombarded the town, but apparently not very effectively. The point was conceded by the Dey, but as the Algerines, like the modern Huns, regarded all treaties as "sc.r.a.ps of paper", to be torn up when opportunity offered, the expedition was practically fruitless.

The Earl of Inchiquin and his son were eventually ransomed for 1500, and Charles showed his weakness by indulging in the unfortunately widespread habit of trying to conciliate the "Turks" by presents of arms and ammunition, which everyone knew would be used against our own ships and men.

From about this time forward the Turkish pirates seem to have generally kept farther out in the Atlantic. They were especially on the look-out for our Newfoundland ships. In 1677 six corsairs destroyed seventeen of these, but one of the Turks was terribly mauled by a small English frigate, and only escaped by the aid of a dark and stormy night. Our watch-dogs were settling down to their work at last. The _Concord_ merchantman bound for America had a stiff fight with a Turkish squadron in 1678, 120 leagues from the Land's End. One night they fell in with "The Admiral of Algiers, a new Frigate of 48 guns, called the _Rose_, and commanded by Canary, a Spanish renegade; the other two Virginiamen, the one of Plymouth, the one of Dartmouth", evidently captured ships.

There was also a "barque of Ireland". "The Algerian hailed us in English," says Thomas Grantham, master of the _Concord_, "'From whence?'

We answered, 'From London.' He told us he was the _Rupert_, frigate, and commanded our boat on board, which our Captain refused, knowing it could not be the _Rupert_. The Turk kept company with us all night, which gave us some time to fit our ship, and get our boats out: when it was light he put abroad his b.l.o.o.d.y flag[29] at main-topmast head, fires a gun, and commands us to strike to the King of Algiers and to Admiral Canary.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIGHT BETWEEN A MERCHANTMAN AND A TURKISH PIRATE

_Drawn by C. M. Padday_

"His sails, masts, and shrouds were all in a blaze. Then we cut loose, and his mast went by the board."]

"We gave him a 'What cheer ho', he comes up with us and pa.s.ses his broadside upon us, having 13 guns of a side of his lower tier; we returned him as good a salute as we could; he steered from us, falls astern, loaded his guns with double head and round partridge,[30] and then came up again with us, claps us on board, grapples with us on the quarter, and made fast his spritsail topmast to our main-bowline, our main-topsail being furled. After 2 or 3 hours dispute, finding he could not master us, he cut away our boats, and fires us on the quarter, and our mizzen-yard being shot down, fired our sail which burnt very vehemently, and immediately set all the after-part of our ship on fire.

Our captain kept the round-house and cuddy, till the fire forced him to retreat, all that were with him being killed or wounded and being got down into the great cabin steerage, he sallied out with those that were there with a resolution rather to be burnt than taken.

"In the interim, the Turk's foresail hanging in the brails over our p.o.o.p took fire; then he would fain have got clear of us, but we endeavoured to keep him fast, and as many as run up to cut him clear, we fetched down with our small shot, until his sails, masts, shrouds, and yards, were all in a blaze; then we cut loose, and immediately his mast to the deck went by the board, with many men in his top and his b.l.o.o.d.y flag; several of the men betook themselves to their boats, but at last they overcame the fire, as, thanks be to G.o.d, we did likewise on board our ship, having our mizzen-mast burnt by the board and all the after-part of our ship burnt; there was little or no wind. The Turk got his oars, and rowed till he was out of fear of us.... We had killed or wounded on board of us in the action with Canary 21 men, but of Turks, according to the account from aboard them, at least 70 or 80 are killed." If every merchantman had put up as good a fight as Captain Thomas Grantham, the Turks would soon have had to retire from their piratical business. As it was, they were able to continue their depredations for some years longer, but not in quite the same wholesale way. The British Navy became more and more active, and in 1681-2 made prizes of a number of Turkish vessels, among them the _Admiral of Sally_, the _Two Lyons and Crown of Argiers_, the _Three Half Moons_, the _Golden Lyon_, and--what a name for a man-of-war!--the _Flowerpott_. These captures had an immediate effect. The Algerines became "very inclinable to peace" and offered to release many English captives "gratis". Their last notable exploit in British waters was the attempt to capture a transport in which the Royal Irish Regiment was sailing from Ostend to Cork in 1695.

The "Turk" in this case was a Salee rover, like the one that attacked Robinson Crusoe's ship. She gave chase to the transport and overhauled her, but when she got near enough to see her decks crowded with redcoats she considered discretion to be the better part of valour and hauled off. It is probable that occasional forays were made on our shipping by such marauders in the early part of the eighteenth century, and we have a very detailed account of the wreck of the _White Horse_, an Algerine frigate, near Penzance, in September, 1740. The return of the greater part of her survivors to Algiers on board the _Blonde_ frigate is an early instance of our national weakness for too tenderly dealing with alien enemies. Slavery had not been abolished; we could easily and legitimately have sold them for slaves to the West Indian planters or to the Knights of Malta, or exchanged them for some of the hundreds of our fellow-countrymen the pirate cities of North Africa still held in bondage. But no, we preferred to set them free and to put them in a position to murder, rob, and enslave yet more Englishmen.

The very last appearance of the Turkish pirate in our waters I have been able to find is of so recent a date as 18th May, 1817, when a couple of Moorish vessels captured a ship coming from Oldenburgh, off the Galloper Shoal, which is not far from the Goodwin Sands. This must have been a very exceptional case, though up to the time Lord Exmouth subjected Algiers to a severe bombardment the "Turks" were still a danger to merchantmen in southern waters. The pest was not stamped out until the capture of the famous pirate city by the French in 1830. So confident and so truculent were the Deys of Algiers as late as the early part of the nineteenth century that, in 1804, even Nelson, in command of a powerful fleet, was unable to make the Dey give an interview to Captain Keats of the _Superb_, whom he had sent as bearer of a letter setting forth certain British claims. Incredible to relate, no further steps were taken, and the fleet put to sea and resumed the blockade of Toulon.

We can hardly, therefore, be surprised to read that in the same year the "Turks" should have had the hardihood to attack the United States frigate _Philadelphia_, which took the ground off Tripoli when in pursuit of a pirate. The Americans fought for four hours, but, the ship being by that time almost on her beam ends, had eventually to strike their colours, and both officers and men were carried ash.o.r.e into slavery.

FOOTNOTES:

[25] Nicholas. _History British Navy._

[26] Ma.s.singer.

[27] From the Parish Books of Portishead, Somerset: Acct. of Disburs.e.m.e.nts:--

"1722.--Gave 5 sailors taken by Pierates 10_d._ 1723.--Gave 1 man that had been in turkey 1_d._ 1726.--Gave 6 poor men tacking by the pirits 6_d._ 1726.--Gave 7 poor sailors burnt 1_s._"

Mr. Henry Caer of Portishead, who has been good enough to send me these extracts, thinks that "burnt" in the last entry means that their ship had been burnt.

[28] i.e. "yield".

[29] This, the old Grecian signal to engage, in 1292 "signified certain death and mortal strife to all sailors everywhere". In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was constantly used as an emblem of "Defiance"

and "No Quarter". The mutineers at the Nore hoisted it in 1797, as did the Paris Communists in 1871.

[30] A species of grape-shot.

CHAPTER IX

The Honour of the Flag

"Ye mariners of England!

That guard our native seas; Whose flag has braved, a thousand years, The battle and the breeze!

Your glorious standard launch again To match another foe.

The meteor flag of England Shall yet terrific burn Till danger's troubled night depart, And the star of peace return."

"Ye Mariners of England." THOMAS CAMPBELL.

MOST people, as they listen to the inspiring strains of "Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves", feel a wholesome consciousness of pride and satisfaction in having the privilege of belonging to a nation whose sons have almost always been pre-eminent on the ocean; but few stop to consider what is implied by the expression "rule the waves".

We are not in any doubt at the present moment of at least one meaning of the words. Had not our fleet instantly a.s.serted its supremacy at the very outbreak of the great war with Germany we should have found it very difficult to get along at all, either with the war or with "business as usual". Does everybody realize, even now, that the war forced us to try to do two stupendous things at once--to carry on the biggest struggle in our history and to keep going the biggest trade and commerce in the world? It is quite certain that if we had not been able to maintain our "ruling of the waves", we should soon have been in a state of commercial collapse.

But in the old days our claim to the empire of the sea was based on other considerations, and though nothing more important was at stake than what may be termed a question of precedence, our naval commanders, even in those periods when our navy was by no means at its best or strongest, were always prepared to enforce their claims by instant resort to arms. Strange to say, it is only since our great victory off Cape Trafalgar that we have abrogated a claim to an extensive watery kingdom, extending from Cape Van Staten in Norway to Finisterre in Spain, which for many hundred years we had fought for, generally maintained, and a.s.serted in the most imperious manner. According to old writers on the subject, even the Saxon kings had claimed the kingship of the "Narrow Seas", which then probably meant what is now the English Channel. This, in the time of our Norman kings, was actually a channel through their dominions, and when, by his marriage to the daughter of the Duke of Aquitaine, Henry II eventually succeeded to that duchy, and extended his dominions to the south-east corner of the Bay of Biscay, he naturally felt he had a claim to rule the seas still farther to the south.

"The striking of the sail" (that is, lowering it) "is one of the ancientest prerogatives of the Crown of England," says an old writer, "and in the second year of King John, it was declared at Hastings by that Monarch, for a law and custom of the sea, that if a Lieutenant on any voyage, being ordained by the King, encounter upon the sea any ship or vessel, laden or unladen, that will not strike or vail their bonnets[31] at the commandment of the Lieutenant of the King, or of the Admiral of the King, or his Lieutenant, but will fight against them of the fleet, that if they can be taken they shall be reputed as enemies; their ships, vessels, and goods taken and forfeited as the goods of enemies; and that the common people being in the same, be chastised by imprisonment of their bodies." The same writer states that this claim was formally recognized and accepted in the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Edward I (1297) "by the Agents and Amba.s.sadors of Genoa, Catalonia, Spain, Almaigne, Zealand, Holland, Friesland, Denmark, Norway, and divers other places in the Empire, and by all the States and Princes of Europe".

There do not seem to have been any definite limitations to our watery kingdom laid down: it is sometimes convenient not to be too precise. But the earliest claim was _usque ad finem terrae_, which might mean to the "Land's End", to "Finisterre" in Brittany, to "Finisterre" in Spain, or "to the ends of the earth"--all very different things. Certainly the Spanish Finisterre was regarded as the southern boundary in the seventeenth century, for in the Rev. H. Teonge's _Diary_, when chaplain in the _Royal Oak_, we find the following entry written after leaving Gibraltar for England: "13 May, 1679--An indifferent good gale, and fayre weather, and at twelve wee are in the King of England's dominions (_Deo gratia_), that is wee are past Cape Finister and entering on the Bay of Biscay".

Monarch after monarch a.s.serted his right to be saluted by foreigners "taking in their flag and striking their topsail" when within "His Majesty's Seas", and the Protector Cromwell made the same claim on behalf of the nation. Our men-of-war had also to be saluted in the same way by our merchant-ships. Any neglect used to be summarily punished.

Captain Pennington of H.M.S. _Vauntguard_ notes in his _Journal_ that on 6th September, 1633, he had "in the Bilbowes" (that is, fastened by the legs to an iron bar running along the deck) "Richard Eastwood, Master of a Sandwich hoye, for not striking his topsayle"! He does not say how long he kept him there, or whether he handed him over to the civil power to be prosecuted by the Admiralty.

Not only the sea but "all that therein is" was considered the property of the English monarchs. Foreigners were not allowed to fish without permission, for which they generally had to pay. This was relaxed under Henry VI, but rea.s.serted later, and the enforcement of payment from Dutch fishermen for fishing in the North Sea was one of the prime causes of the wars between Holland and England in the time of the Commonwealth and of Charles II. For the Dutch thought they were strong enough to wrest the trident of Neptune from our grasp. They nearly succeeded, but not quite, and we find William III a.s.serting our claim to sovereignty afloat just as particularly and definitely as any of his predecessors.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TEACHING THE SPANIARD "THE HONOUR OF THE FLAG"

Philip of Spain, arriving in the Straits of Dover on his journey to England to espouse Mary, flaunts the flag of Spain without paying the customary salute. Lord Howard of Effingham, the English admiral, soon brings him to his senses by firing a round shot across his bows.]

The officers in command of royal ships or fleets were not expected to refer the matter to higher authority, but were to take action at once, and made no bones about doing so. Innumerable instances may be quoted--the only difficulty is to pick out the most interesting cases.

Nor were they respectors of persons. When the gloomy and saturnine Philip of Spain arrived in British waters, on his way to espouse our Queen Mary, he came with great pomp and circ.u.mstance with a fleet of 100 sail, flaunting the gaudy flag of Spain even in the Straits of Dover.

Lord Howard of Effingham, sent with a guard of honour of 28 men-of-war to meet the Prince Consort elect, had no idea of allowing that even in this very special case, and, seeing no disposition on the part of the Spanish fleet to pay the customary salute, lost no time in sending over a gentle reminder in the shape of a round shot.

The hint was taken, and not till then did Howard go on board to pay his respects to King Philip. Not many years later a Spanish fleet which was on its way to Flanders, to bring Anne of Austria back to Spain, tried it on again on entering Plymouth. Here they found Admiral Hawkins flying his flag on board the _Jesus of Lubeck_--a ship, by the way, that had taken part in the Armada fight. Hawkins was not slow in sending the usual reminder humming through the Spanish admiral's rigging, and, as he still hesitated to "take in his flag", a second messenger came crashing into his ship's side. Still trying to avoid paying the usual compliment, he went personally on board the _Jesus_ to argue the point.

He might have spared his pains. All the satisfaction he got was a peremptory order to clear out of our seas within twelve hours as a penalty for his rudeness to the Queen.