The Barbary Corsairs
The
island of Malta today seems like the most benevolent of places. It’s
hard to believe that three centuries ago, this whole Mediterranean
region bristled with slave-ships, fighting a bitter battle for god and
gold.
This
conflict pitched the forces of Christendom against the might of Islam.
Nominally a holy war, a continuation of the Crusades on the high seas,
it was equally a pirate battle that sometimes approached the proportions
of a small naval war.
On
the Muslim side were the Barbary Corsairs. These were slave galleys of
the Barbary states — semi-autonomous city states on the North African
coast of the Mediterranean. The Muslim fiefdoms there had been building
and equipping rowed galleys to raid Mediterranean shipping from the
early sixteenth century onwards. Captured Christians worked the oars in a
punishing ritual that has been used in the succeeding centuries as a
talisman of Muslim cruelty.
But
the story from the other side of the religious divide is less well
known. Christian forces based in Malta also sponsored piracy in actions
that precisely mirrored those of the Barbary Corsairs. Furthermore, the
organisation that equipped and organised these counter offensives is
still with us. Though changed beyond all recognition, the Knights
Hospitaler of St John of Jerusalem is ironically now a charity
organisation.
Piracy in the Mediterranean in earlier times
Piracy
in the Mediterranean is an ancient calling. When tiny merchant ships
made their first halting voyages on the sea’s relatively calm waters,
pirates were never far behind. When trade in the Mediterranean expanded,
so too did piracy. As early as the seventh century bc Phoenician ships
suffered regular attacks by pirates.
The
Greek and Roman civilisations also suffered the unwanted attentions of
pirates. A Greek myth describes how Dionysus turned himself into a lion
when captured by pirates. The terrified brigands jumped overboard, and
the wine god transformed them to jumping dolphins in the water. (In the
corresponding Roman myth it is Bacchus who exacted his poetic revenge.)
It
was the Crusades, though, that established the pattern for later piracy
in the region, and provided both Islamic and Christian raiders with a
justification for their illicit trade.
The
traditional school-primer history of the Crusades is simplistic and
one-sided, but it provides some useful pointers in exploring the piracy
that followed. Crudely expressed, the purpose of these military
pilgrimages was to recapture the Holy Land from “the infidel” who had
controlled the region since the 7th century. Launched in 1096 by the
Western Church with the Pope at its head, the Crusades also had the
secondary purpose of buttressing the beleaguered Byzantine (Eastern)
Church based in Constantinople (now Istanbul), which was threatened by
nomadic Turkish warlords.
The
Pope’s plea mobilised not only the properly armed and equipped knights
at whom it had been aimed, but also a ragged army of poor pilgrims. Many
died on route to the Holy Land; those who survived were massacred on
arrival. However, the army of knights that followed captured the coastal
region of the Holy Land and established Crusader kingdoms there. This
dramatic and decisive success proved hard to repeat in subsequent
campaigns. The balance of power in the region see-sawed between
Christian and Muslim forces, and after two centuries of bloody warfare,
the real achievements of the Crusades must have seemed slim to their
Christian advocates.
One
tangible advance, though, was that the Crusades secured the
Mediterranean for European (i.e. Christian) shipping. The Crusading
states needed to keep open the supply routes to the Holy Land, so they
vigorously defended not only the military vessels, but also the cargo
ships supplying their outposts at the eastern end of the sea. The
Italians were the main beneficiaries: the cities of Genoa, Pisa and
Venice developed a domination of the Mediterranean carrying trade that
they were to cling to for centuries.
Equally
important from the point of view of later piracy in the Mediterranean
was the establishment of military orders. These “fighting knights”
initially aimed to nurse sick pilgrims and Christian warriors, and to
defend the roads that they followed on their path to the Holy Land. The
Knights Hospitaler of St John formed in Jerusalem, taking their name
from the Hospital dedicated to the saint in the holy city. The Pope gave
the group his approval in 1113. A French knight started another
brotherhood, the Knights Templar, six years later. The wealth and
influence of the Hospitalers and the Templars grew rapidly, and they
soon acquired vast estates in Europe and in the Crusader states. These
increasingly corrupt military-religious orders were among the most
fanatical of the Crusaders, and were to continue the Holy War long after
the Crusades themselves ended.
While
they lasted, though, the Crusades fueled the fires of religious
fanaticism throughout the Islamic and Christian worlds. Eight centuries
on, it’s difficult to unravel fact from propaganda, but it’s clear that
both sides committed bestial atrocities and indiscriminate massacres.
The Hospitalers and Templars arguably had particular reason to hate “The
Turks” after the rout of the Crusaders at the battle of Hattin in 1187.
There victorious forces led by Salah al-Din ibn Ayyub (Saladin) spared
the lives of most Christian captives but singled out captured Knights of
both orders, and butchered them in cold blood. This legacy of hatred
provided the Hospitalers with their justification for a continuing Holy
War at sea.
The Ottoman Empire
The
Hospitaler’s wrath would eventually be directed against the Ottoman
empire. However, at the time of the last crusade in 1270, the Ottomans
were relatively unimportant warlords based in a small state in northwest
Turkey. Ottoman expansion began slowly, but rapidly accelerated. In
1453, they captured Constantinople; early in the following century the
ruthless Sultan Selim the Grim (1470-1520) conquered Persia, Syria and
Egypt. By the time of his death, the Islamic world was united under
Ottoman rule. His successor, Suleiman the Magnificent (1494-1566),
consolidated Selim’s gains, turning the Ottoman state into a great world
power.
When
the fortunes of the Crusaders declined, those of the Hospitalers
naturally fell too. With the defeat of Acre (the last Crusader
stronghold in the Holy Land) by Moslem forces in 1291, the Hospitalers
retreated to Cyprus. 18 years later the Knights captured Rhodes from the
Byzantine Empire, which had long before dissolved the always-fragile
Crusading alliance with Rome. The island was to remain the home of the
order for more than 200 years.
Ottoman
expansion evicted the Hospitalers from Rhodes in 1522, and they
retreated to Crete, bruised but not quite humiliated. Charles V
(1500-58), King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, granted the Hospitalers
the rocky island of Malta as a base, and with it the fort at Tripoli.
They clung to Tripoli for nearly thirty years, but on its (more or less
inevitable) loss to the Ottomans, the Hospitalers consolidated their
forces in Malta, and became known as the Knights of Malta.
With
this turbulent history perhaps it is not surprising that racism and
religious fanaticism run through early accounts of the war against the
pirates of the Barbary coast like letters through a stick of rock. As
late as 1980, a popular writer on piracy felt able to describe “the
corsair menace to sea trade” that “remained a scourge until 1700, when
their activities were curtailed by an English admiral…” without once
mentioning that Maltese corsairs continued a corresponding business from
their island base.
Since
the earliest times Christians had used the name “Barbary” to describe
the southern coast of the Mediterranean, from Egypt to the Atlantic, and
on beyond Gibraltar. The origins of the name are unclear: the usual
explanation is that it is a corruption “Berber”, which itself derives
from a derogatory ancient Greek word for anything non-Greek. This in its
turn was the root of our word barbarian.
The
Phoenicians and Greeks had established colonies in Barbary, and the
Romans conquered and subdued the region. The Byzantine Empire briefly
controlled the coast in the 6th century, but by 711 most of the North
African shoreline was under Arab rule, and the Muslim world additionally
took control of the Spanish peninsula soon after. Muslim domination of
the North African coast was to continued virtually unchallenged until
the early 16th century. However, Christian power grew in Spain, until by
1248 only Granada at the extreme south remained in Muslim hands. The
expulsion in 1492 of the Moorish rulers of Granada by Ferdinand V
(1452-1516) marked an intensification of the religious feud between the
Christian and Moslem worlds that faced each other across the great sea.
Attacks
by Spanish and Portuguese privateers in the early years of the 16th
century gave the Europeans a brief and uncertain foothold on the North
African shore. The most important conquests were Algiers, Tunis and
Tripoli.
Spanish
forces took the first of these towns in 1510, and fortified the island
of Peñon that overlooked the harbour area. After a revolt six years
later, the Algerians appointed an Arab leader, and laid siege to Peñon.
The stalemate continued for an amazing 13 years, but the Spanish were
finally expelled in 1529.
Tuscan Galleys fight in a vicious battle with Barbary Corsairs.
The
capture of Tunis followed in 1535, and the Spanish controlled it for
more than three decades. They again took the port in 1573, before
finally relinquishing it the following year.
Tripoli
was a Norman possession from the 12th century to 1510 when the Spanish
took the town. With the fall of Tripoli to Ottoman forces in 1551, the
major ports of the Barbary coast were in Muslim hands. Prior to their
capture by the Spanish, the towns had been used to supply and shelter
pirate ships. On their return to Muslim control, corsair activity
expanded and became more institutionalised.
Two
brothers were largely responsible for building the ports into corsair
bases. Maritime adventurers Aruj (c 1474-1518) and Kheir-ed-din
(“Defender of the Faith”) came from a Greek family that had converted to
Islam. The older brother, Aruj, was the first to rise to prominence. He
began his maritime career working on the cargo ship of his father, a
potter. As a young man he served in the Turkish navy, but eventually
took command of a privateering vessel. By 1504 he had begun to cruise on
the Barbary Coast. He called at Tunis, and struck a deal with the King
there. In exchange for harbor facilities, the pirate would pay over a
fifth of everything he captured. The arrangement quickly bore fruit:
commanding a small galleot off the coast of Elba, Aruj captured two of
the Pope’s grand galleys. It was an extraordinary achievement, and it
earned Aruj fame in throughout Barbary. Within five years he had eight
ships under his command. News of the corsair’s skills also spread among
European sailors, who dubbed him Barbarossa on account of his red beard.
Aruj’s
career was not without setbacks: he lost an arm while trying to seize
Bougie from the Spanish in 1514, and while he was recovering, his
brother Kheir-ed-din took control. Further setbacks followed, but the
fortunes of the pair were transformed when they responded to the call to
wrest Algiers from Spanish hands. Aruj and his followers rapidly took
control of the town, put down a rebellion, and repelled a flotilla of
Spanish ships. By 1517, Aruj controlled most of what is now Algeria,
with the exception of Peñon and a handful of isolated Spanish
garrisons.
Aruj’s
reign over Algiers ended with his death in a land battle against
Spanish forces and their local supporters. His place was taken by his
younger brother Kheir-ed-din. Like Aruj, Kheir-ed-din was a superb
seamen, but not from the salty-sea-dog mould. He was cultured and
sophisticated, and fluent in six languages.
There
is no reliable record of how Kheir-ed-din consolidated his control over
central Barbary, but some accounts suggest that his first step on
succeeding his brother was to pay homage to the Sultan, and his reward
was to be made Governor General of Algiers, backed by a force of 2000
Janissaries — the elite fighters of the Ottoman army.
By
1525 Kheir-ed-din had reinforced his hold over Algiers, had begun
building it into a powerful corsair base, and strengthening Ottoman
power on the waves. His formidable successor, Dragut, recovered Tripoli
from the Knights of St John.
However,
by the end of the 16th century, the role of the Barbary states was
starting to change. As regencies, the Barbary ports had enjoyed a
certain degree of independence, and this continued after their recapture
from the Spanish. The coastal towns were in principle outposts of the
Ottoman Empire, but in practice they grew into self-governing fiefdoms.
In the early years of Ottoman rule a Pasha, nominated by the Sultan,
controlled the ports. However, his authority was guaranteed by a corp of
Janissaries.
The
Janissaries enjoyed relatively high status in the Barbary states. When
the corp was established in the 14th century, it recruited exclusively
from Christian slaves who had apostatised (converted to Islam). The
Janissaries were highly trained, subject to severe discipline, and were
forbidden to marry. To ensure their loyalty, they were salaried —
whereas the bulk of the Turkish army was recruited under a system of
feudal obligation. The Janissaries had a fearsome reputation, both in
the Islamic world, and among the European fighters who had to face them.
Far from Constantinople, they were mercifully free of some of the more
rigid rules that governed their lives elsewhere in the Ottoman empire.
Throughout
the later sixteenth century the balance of power shifted away from the
Pasha, and towards a council of Janissary officers called the Divan. The
Divan appointed a Bey or Dey, and it was these figures who actually
controlled the Barbary kingdoms. The system bordered on the anarchic,
and corruption, assassination and political intrigue were commonplace.
But despite their sometimes chaotic political life, the Barbary states
blossomed into military powers with the capability to prey on Christian
shipping over wide areas of the Mediterranean.
The
weapon of the Barbary states was the slave galley. This narrow, sleek
ship was the traditional fighting machine of the Mediterranean. To the
casual eye it was little different from the trireme of ancient Greece.
However, closer inspection would reveal many differences; for example,
the oars of the Barbary galley were arranged in a single bank, rather
than the superimposed rows of the Greek craft. And though the 16th
century North African slave ship had a pointed prow, this was above the
waterline; the ship’s ancestor from the Aegean had a ram at water level,
to hole and sink its victims.
The
Barbary slave ship was enclosed at the stern to provide shelter for the
company of Janissaries who formed the ship’s fighting force. But the
rest of the vessel was open to the elements forward to the bows. There
was fixed a canon, but on a low deck area, rather than in a raised
forecastle that is such a characteristic element of northern European
“round ships” of the period. Further swivel guns were mounted
amidships.
A
single lateen (triangular) sail propelled the galley when there was
enough wind, but it was the oarsmen who provided the power in a chase,
when sailing into the wind, or on a calm day.
From
the early 17th century the Barbary corsairs began to supplement their
galley fleets with the round ships that by then dominated Atlantic
warfare ; this development is discussed below.
The
slaves sat naked on benches, four or five of them pulling on each oar.
They were encouraged by the crew of the vessel, who would not hesitate
to apply the whip to the shoulders of any slave who was not (quite
literally) pulling his weight. This description, written by a Frenchman
who had felt the lash upon his own back, vividly evokes the privations
that slaves endured:
They are chained six to a bench; these are four foot wide covered with sacking stuffed with wool, over which are laid sheepskins … When the captain gives the order to row, the officer gives the signal with a silver whistle which hangs on a cord around his neck; the signal is repeated by the under-officers, and very soon all fifty oars strike the water as one … Sometimes the galley slaves row ten, twelve or even twenty hours at a stretch, without the slightest rest or break. On these occasions the officer will go round and put pieces of bread soaked in wine into the mouths of the wretched rowers, to prevent them from fainting … if one of the slaves falls exhausted over his oar (which is quite a common occurrence) he is flogged until he appears to be dead, and is thrown overboard without ceremony.”
It
is not easy to judge exactly how fast the slaves could drive the ship
forward. Five miles in the first hour of rowing seems a reasonable
guess, but some naval historians have suggested speeds as high as 12
knots (14 mph/22 kph) in short bursts.
Command
of the ship was the responsibility of the raïs or captain. He
controlled all aspects of sailing and navigation. His crew was often a
mixture of captured Christian and Muslim sailors — European “sea
artists” were highly valued and their skills secured them a more
comfortable position than the slave’s bench.
The
Christian seamen needed freedom to work the ship, and — unlike the
slaves — they were shackled only when attack was imminent. By contrast
the slaves, who greatly outnumbered the Turks on board, had almost
nothing to lose, and mutiny was prevented only by their constant
confinement in chains.
In
addition to the oarsmen and crew, every Barbary galley carried a
complement of Janissaries — between 100 and 140 on a large vessel. The
Janissaries played no part in sailing the ship, and were there simply to
fight. This they evidently did with considerable courage and tenacity,
attacking with musket, bow and arrow, and scimitar.
Though
the Agha — the commander of the Janissaries — had no say over the
sailing of the ship he was the superior officer, and made decisions
about whether or not to engage a vessel. In this respect the Agha was in
overall charge of the cruise.
A
quick sum will reveal that a Barbary galley carried an enormous number
of people, and with so many mouths to feed, cruises were necessarily
short. A typical trip might last six to eight weeks; perhaps less if the
galley was quick to find a prize. There was another compelling reason
to return to port at regular intervals. The Barbary galleys relied on
speed for their success, and this was impossible without frequent
careening. The galley would be beached, and laboriously scraped to
remove the coating of barnacles and weed that adhered below the
water-line. A coating of wax helped it to slip smoothly through the
water. Careening took about ten days, and had to be repeated every two
months or so.
Until
the late 16th century, the galleys of the Barbary states were more or
less integrated into the fleet of the Ottoman Empire, but by the end of
the century Barbary vessels were operating independently. Ships of the
three states had their own hunting grounds, but necessarily there was
some overlap. Tripoli galleys cruised between Sicily and Gibraltar — and
beyond, out into the Atlantic. Those from Tripoli harassed shipping to
the east of Sicily. Tunis, roughly mid-way between the other two Barbary
states, launched vessels in the central and eastern Mediterranean.
The
practices of all three fleets were essentially opportunistic. If their
quarry made seasonal voyages — perhaps transporting a new harvest — then
they would change their routes and timings to take fullest advantage of
the increase in maritime traffic.
The
tactics of the Barbary pirates naturally varied with time and
circumstances, but in the era of the galley there seems to have been a
fairly consistent approach to pursuit and capture. As the pirates closed
in on their victims, they would fire the canon at the bows, but more by
way of a warning than for the destructive power of the ball. Firing the
smaller swivel guns amidships might usefully clear the decks of
opponents, but gunnery generally was not a priority.
The
Janissaries did the real work of attacking and boarding the ship. The
attacking ship’s captain would aim to ram the victim, so that the
fighters could swarm aboard from the raised prow.
Not
many vessels put up a fight, and indeed many were so lightly armed that
they were incapable of doing so. The crews of those ships that carried
sufficient cannon to fight back, or enough sail to flee were often so
frightened that they surrendered anyway. To encourage submission, the
janissaries made themselves as terrifying as possible, shouting,
screaming and hurling abuse, and hammering on the sides of the
approaching vessel.
A
few ships resisted, or scuppered their vessels rather than surrender.
The Dutch in particular had a reputation for going out with a bang,
setting fire to the ship’s powder magazine when it was clear that
further resistance was pointless.
Once
aboard, the pirates set about releasing any Muslim slaves, and put
Christian crew in their places at the oars. The vessel was plundered for
anything of value in the cargo or in the personal possessions of those
on board, but the main object of the attack was to take slaves, which
were as good as money on return to Barbary.
Furthermore,
much of the value of the slaves lay in their social status. An English
nobleman was a very worthwhile prize, because his family could be relied
upon to redeem him with the payment of a considerable ransom. A servant
or labourer, on the other hand, had a far lesser value.
The
anticipation of imminent capture occasionally produced some tragi-comic
effects on board Christian ships. Wealthy passengers did their utmost
to conceal valuable jewellery: some went so far as to swallow heavy gold
coins or precious stones; others threw their valuables overboard rather
than surrender them to “The Turk”. Aristocrats tried to reduce the
inevitable ransom demand by swapping clothes with their servants.
The
corsairs had answers to most of these ruses. The threat of basinado
alone was often enough to extract the location of hidden treasures. Some
pirate crews administered a powerful emetic mixture to outwit the
swallowers. The crafty change of clothes was perhaps the simplest of
tricks to see through — merely by examining the hands of captives, the
corsairs could quickly sort out the smooth-skinned noblemen from the
callused, rough labourers.
The
treatment of women has been widely misrepresented in the past,
especially by those campaigning for the suppression of piracy. Far from
suffering a fate worse than death, women seem generally to have been
treated reasonably well. One account, written in 1719, describes the
consideration with which a corsair treated his female captives. A group
of women on board the ship seized by the pirate captain is advised to
remain in their own vessel, rather than entering the galley that took
them in tow:
“That
she was at her own option, whether she would remove into the cruiser,
or continue in the tartan, [A small ship with a large lateen sail and a
foresail] where indeed she might be much quieter and more at liberty
than on board his ship, wherein were nearly two hundred, between Turks
and Moors, among whom there was no very safe trusting either herself or
the young females she had with her”
Other sources suggest that Janissaries or crew who molested women passengers were themselves severely punished.
If the ship itself was suitable for use in the Barbary fleet, the corsairs would put a crew on board and sail it home.
The
speed advantage of the corsair ships was so great that capture (or at
least engagement) was almost inevitable once the prey was in sight.
However
the corsairs were not above subterfuge if change of wind came to the
aid of their target. Flying false colors was an age-old pirate trick,
and it was as effective in the Mediterranean as it would later prove to
be on the Spanish Main. 17th century traveler Le Sieur du Chastelet des
Boys described his relief when six Dutch ships appeared, just as a
Barbary corsair was closing in for the kill. However, his relief turned
to horror when
…
the Dutch flags disappeared and the masts and poop were simultaneously
shaded by flags of taffeta of all colors, enriched and embroidered with
stars, crescents, suns, crossed swords and other devices …
The
similarities between Christian and Muslim ships were so great that the
true identity of the attackers often did not become clear until the ship
was alongside. To make the disguise complete, the Janissaries hid from
view; perhaps renegade Christian members of the crew (see below) stood
at the deck rail with a welcoming wave. Since the innocent victims
expected turbaned Turks, they were easily taken in.
Not
all of the Barbary corsairs raids took place at sea. The pirates
frequently landed on the coasts of their adversaries, carrying off
livestock and valuables, and taking captives for auction in the slave
markets of the Barbary states. The larger raids, by small fleets of
galleys, were sometimes highly organised, with help from renegade locals
who knew the area. Religious motives also played a part: some corsairs
groups desecrated churches in the course of their raids.
Those
taken captive by the Barbary corsairs often commented on how
disciplined the crews and Janissaries were about the division of the
spoils. There were well-established rules about who was entitled to
what: the ship’s equipment and cargo, for example, were part of the
prize, and had to be accounted for. But the possessions of passengers
and crew could be pillaged with impunity. Those who broke the rules and
cheated their comrades could expect swift retribution.
Islamic
law reserved a portion of the goods seized “for God”. In practice this
share — usually 1/7 or 1/8 — went to the state as the embodiment of God
on earth. Port fees and payments to officials took a share, and the
expenses of the ship had to be paid. What remained was divided equally
between the ship’s owners — often a consortium of investors — and the
crew. Those seamen who had distinguished themselves during the
engagement in which the vessel was seized got a bonus, and the remainder
of the crew’s share was divided in proportion to seniority. The captain
received 12 times more than a sailor, and a janissary could expect half
the sailor’s share.
Those
whom the corsairs captured eventually found their way back to the
Barbary states, facing at worst indefinite slavery, or at best, a long
wait for a ransom to arrive. First, though, they had to endure the
humiliation of the slave auction. In an initial sorting procedure the
Dey creamed off the very best captives; the remainder were taken to a
slave market …
There are ready the dilaleen or auctioneers, who walk them up and down the street, publishing the quality, profession &c. of each, specifying the last price has been offered, ‘till no higher bidder appears.
A description of a slave auction, from Morgan, J. Several Voyages to Barbary; London 1736, page 43
This
sale, though, was just a preliminary to the main event that took place
later in the Dey’s courtyard. There the Dey was entitled to buy any
slave at the price originally bid, and a second auction followed, at
which the prices generally rose much higher.
The
difference between the winning bids at the first and second auctions
went into the public purse, and the first lower bid was divided up
according a time-honored formula (see below).
In Algiers, those slaves who did not join the join the Dey’s retinue ended up in one of three bagnios, or slave prisons …
“… wherein they are every evening locked up after each has answered to his name, and all have been exactly counted. They are by day employed in different services of the public … in the vilest offices and drudgeries at the Dey’s house; in public works, which consist chiefly in demolishing walls, hewing rocks, drawing carriages laden with materials for building &c.”
This
description was written by a traveler aiming to whip up support for the
redemption or ransoming of bagnio slaves. Not all were worked to death
in quarries or on building sites. An editor commented in a footnote
“As for the slaves at Algiers, they are not indeed so unhappy: the policy of those in power, the interest of particular persons, and the somewhat more sociable disposition of those who inhabit the towns occasion their lot to be less rigorous, at least for the generality of them…”
Slaves
earned a small amount of money, could rest on the Muslim Sabbath, and
daily for three hours before sunset. Arguably they lived better than
many in England at the time, where enclosure had created a class of
landless, rootless poor. A few enterprising slaves even borrowed money
and set up bars in the bagnios, eventually earning enough to buy their
freedom. “… but still they are slaves, always hated on account of their
religion; incessantly overburdened with labor”
There
was one other route to freedom open to slaves: by apostatising —
renouncing the Christian religion — slaves could throw off their chains
and theoretically become the social equals of their gaolers. In the eyes
of Christendom they were exchanging discomfort and imprisonment on
earth for eternal torment in the afterlife, but this prospect does not
seem to have had much of a deterrent effect.
On
the contrary many slaves apostatised. Christian sailors captured by the
Barbary corsairs often seemed casual about “changing sides” and would
as happily crew a galley as serve on a European merchant ship.
Furthermore, the Barbary States even acted as a magnet to Christian
freemen eager to “take the turban”.
However,
it would be misleading to represent this change of allegiances as a
Pauline conversion taken after many months of silent contemplation and
prayer. Many converts to the corsair cause had motivations that were
anything other than religious. Indeed, Western European mariners have
never been known as a particularly god-fearing crowd, and as late as
1812 a ship’s chaplain commented that
…to convert a man-’o’-war’s crew into Christians would be a task to which the courage of Loyola, the philanthropy of Howard, and the eloquence of St Paul united, would prove inadequate”
A ship’s chaplain’s complaint in 1812, from C. Thompson, Sailor’s Letters, 1757, quoted by Christopher Lloyd, The British Seaman, London, 1970 pg 216
Motives
Life
on a corsair ship must have seemed attractive to those used to serving
in a vessel from either a European navy, or from the merchant fleet.
European sailors were used to very harsh discipline, punishing work
routines that broke the health of or killed many, a social status only a
little above that of barnacles and negligible prospects for
advancement. By contrast, in Barbary their skills were in demand, and
they could expect to share in the successes of the ships on which they
served. There were fewer barriers of class and creed to prevent their
rise, and if they openly embraced Islam they could enjoy reasonable
social status and living conditions.
The
ranks of the renegade Christian sailors were swelled by those from
bagnios seeking a way out of punishing labor and a life of servitude.
Some were under relentless pressure to embrace Islam, but many were
undoubtedly seduced by the exoticism and lush, leisurely life-style of
the narrow green fringe where Africa meets Mediterranean, as a European
redemptionist observed:
[Slaves in the bagnios are] everlastingly in danger of renouncing their faith; either through debauchery, if they have a little liberty, which is but too frequently in the Cafe, or through despair, if their treatment is too rigid.
The
word debauchery is used here in its obsolete sense, to mean corruption
or seduction from religious duty, rather than through indulgence in
pleasures of the flesh. From Morgan, J. Several Voyages to Barbary London 1736 42
Freed
slaves and those who came voluntarily to Barbary were probably
outnumbered by a third group of former Christians: those who had been
taken as children by the Corsairs, and raised as Muslims. Most came from
Greece and Albania, and the Barbarossa brothers, the most famous of
all, were from a Greek family.
Life of a renegade in Barbary
Those
who apostatized could amass considerable wealth and power in the
Barbary states: they could aspire to high posts in the civil and
military hierarchies. The influence of Christian renegades reached a
climax in the late 16th century, when up to two thirds of the galleys
and galleots operating out of Algiers were commanded by renegades.
Even
those with little ambition could live well. Though the Barbary states
were notoriously military, their economies were solidly founded on
agriculture, and visitors to Algiers commented on the abundance and
variety of food available compared to northern Europe cities. Moderated
by the ocean, the climate on the coast was pleasant, and the streets
themselves were kept clean and dotted with fountains and well-tended
gardens.
The
religious and political atmosphere in Barbary was largely one of
tolerance and freedom from doctrinal excesses, and the Western European
renegades seem to have got away with some appalling behavior that would
at the very least have raised eyebrows in their homelands:
“They carry swords at their side, they run drunk through the town … they sleep with the wives of the Moors … every kind of debauchery and unchecked license is permitted to them”
Indeed,
even before embarking for Barbary, one renegade corsair made no secret
of his hankering for such a life, harking back to an earlier, happier
pirate era:
“Where are the days that have been, and the seasons that we have seen, when we might sing, swear, drink, drab [go whoring] and kill men as freely as your cake-makers do flies …”
The
Barbary regimes tolerated these snakes in their African Eden because
they brought back valuable prizes and shared the booty with their hosts.
But some of them were clearly extremely difficult guests who overstayed
their welcome.
Renegade roll call
Dutch renegade Simon Danser was
born Simon Simonsen of Dordrecht, and turned pirate after an
apprenticeship as an ordinary seaman. He moved his base from Marseilles
to Algiers in 1606, capturing 40 ships over the next three years. In one
spectacularly successful month, he took 23 vessels, and earned the
nickname Captain Devil.
However,
Danser was as imprudent as he was ambitious, and by 1609 he was
starting to become an embarrassment to his Barbary hosts: he had begun
to force English and Dutch sailors to serve on his vessels against their
will; he refused to apostatize; he was accused of taking Moorish lives.
Finally, when he took a Spanish ship and 10 Jesuit passengers, the
Spanish and French protested to the Sultan. Now persona non grata,
Danser sailed for Marseilles hoping to ransom his prisoners and obtain a
pardon, and he left with bronze cannon from the regency as a prize for
his French patron. In France, he was able to rejoin his family and live
in some style, but he had made many enemies of French merchants, and
never went out without a posse of armed heavies.
Danser’s
demise came when the French king asked him to travel to Tunis to
negotiate the release of captured French ships. The trip started well
enough, but when Danser accepted an invitation for dinner with the Bey,
he walked into a trap. He was confronted with all his past crimes, and
summarily beheaded.
“Speaks
little, always swearing. Drunk from morn till night. Most prodigal and
plucky. Sleeps a good deal. A fool and an idiot out of his trade.”
This eyewitness description of renegade corsair John Ward suggests
that he epitomized the loutish European pirate in Barbary, and he is
certainly among the most famous renegades. Born in Faversham, Kent, in
1553, Ward went to sea as a fisherman, and later enlisted in the navy.
Before long, though, he and like-minded tars set off on their own
account. They captured a bark, sailed it to Ireland, and there seized a
French merchant ship. This they sailed to Tunis where Ward began his
career as a corsair, with the help of the mysterious Ryvas Garibalddy. By 1606 he commanded a small fleet, employing 500
seamen.
A
pamphlet of the time detailed 23 English ships captured by Ward, and
the Venetians complained constantly of his attentions. In fact it was
the capture of a Venetian galeasse that dramatically increased Ward’s
notoriety. The Reinera e Soderina was valued at £100,000, and though
direct comparisons with the present day values are difficult to make, a
craftsman of the time earned a pound for three weeks work, so the prize
might have been worth £90 million in modern money. Ward may have
realized that he had overstepped the mark with this seizure — or perhaps
he was simply homesick — for in 1609 he tried unsuccessfully to obtain a
pardon from the English king, James I.
He
lived out his life in Tunis, under the protection of successive Beys.
Ward converted a castle there into a “…a fair palace, beautified with
rich marble and alabaster stones”, where he lived in some luxury with 15
of his crew. He died of the plague in 1622.
Ransoming arrangements
Penniless
Christians in Barbary who refused to apostatise had little hope of
release from their yoke unless they were fortunate enough to be bought
out of slavery by a religious redemptionist organisation. These
charities collected money in European nations on the premise that the
funds would be used to buy the freedom of slaves in Barbary. Indeed,
when the fathers eventually reached the Barbary coast, they occasionally
had sufficient funds to redeem a handful of captives. However, more
often, the expenses of collecting funds and travelling to their
destination consumed the vast bulk of donations.
So
once they arrived in Barbary and had spent what little remained of
their funds, the redemptionist fathers played the role of
intermediaries, passing messages between the enslaved and their
families, making credit arrangements, ensuring that the release took
place as planned, and finally, securing a passage for the ransomed slave
on ships home. The most well known redemptionist figure is Father
Pierre Dan, a priest who visited the Barbary coast in the early 17th
century. His 1637 book, Histoire de Barbarie & de ses corsaires is
the most comprehensive surviving description of the conditions for
Christian slaves in Barbary; naturally, though, it can hardly be
described as a balanced view.
Slaves
from wealthy families in the bagnios of Barbary could expect their
period of imprisonment to be mercifully short, with the help of the
redemptionist fathers. Some instead used the services of professional
intermediaries, often Jewish merchants and agents, who would loan them
the price of their freedom. This approach had the disadvantage that the
middle-men were not charities: they expected a fee in proportion to the
size of the ransom.
Sailors or innovators?
Christian
renegades are generally credited with introducing the “round ship” to
the Barbary Corsairs and certainly there is evidence that the decline in
the use of galleys, and a corresponding increase in broader,
fully-rigged ships coincided with the period when renegade influence was
at its strongest. However, the suggestion that Christendom introduced
the round ship to the Islamic world is an over-simplification, and is in
stark contrast to the predominantly northwards and westward flow of
nautical innovation. Both the stern-post rudder and the magnetic
compass, for example, reached Europe via the Arab world.
Nor
were round ships with square sails new in the region. In the days of
the Roman Empire the corbitae which carried grain from North Africa to
Italy were similar to the northern European cog, and it seems unlikely
that this tradition of shipbuilding ever died. Indeed, T.C. Lethbridge,
writing in Singer’s Oxford History of Technology comments that:
“With the shifting of the center of power from Rome to Byzantium, a most serious gap appears in our knowledge of Mediterranean shipping, which has given an erroneous impression of the importance of northern vessels in the general trend of the shipwright’s art. With the exception of the building of great warships, it is improbable that any of the constructional skill of the Mediterranean shipbuilders was ever lost.”
More
recent commentators on Arabic shipbuilding even dispute Lethbridge’s
exclusion of warships, pointing out that Arab shipwrights constructed
warships that carried 1500 men. However, it does appear that the narrow,
lateen-rigged galley was the traditional pattern for Muslim fighting
ships, and the slower, rounder design was reserved for merchant
shipping. Lethbridge continues…
“about the beginning of the 14th century … the northern type of ship (cog) with a single mast, square sail, and stern-post rudder was adopted by the Italian merchants.”
It
seems improbable that the Barbary Corsairs had not studied such vessels
and enslaved their crew by the start of the 17th century. To suggest,
as Lloyd does, that
“…The two pirates who did most to introduce the square-rigged ship into the corsair fleets of the Western Mediterranean…were John Ward and Simon Danser”
is perhaps simply a justification for the antics of the Christian rogues in Barbary.
One
source of this story was the redemptionist Father Dan, who stated of
Ward that “He was the first who taught the corsairs of Algiers the use
of round ships”. Peter Earle is more cautious: “The introduction of such
ships into the fleets of Tunis and Algiers is normally credited to
English and Dutch privateers…”
Perhaps
the most charitable explanation for this confusion is that the influx
of Christian renegades popularised the use of the round, fully-rigged
ship from Barbary ports, where seamen had previously dismissed the
design as too slow for corsair use.
The Christian Corsairs
Close
to Sicily the Mediterranean is less than 95 miles (150 km) across. This
barely counts as a narrows when compared to, say, the straits of
Gibraltar or the Bosporus, which closes to just a kilometre at Istanbul.
Nevertheless, the Straits of Sicily funnel all eastbound and westbound
Mediterranean shipping past a succession of islands, ranging from the
small to the absolutely tiny.
Some
are little more than waterless rocks, but one group of three is
slightly more hospitable. Malta has an area of 95 sq mi (246 sq km),
roughly the size of Martha’s Vineyard, or twice the area of Jersey. It
has a magnificent deep-water harbour, and from its rocky heights a
sharp-eyed observer could spot a tall ship nearly 37 mi (60 km) away on a
clear day. Gozo, which lies about 3 mi (5 km) to the northwest, is less
than half the size, but is still capable of supporting a substantial
farming population.
Tiny Comino guards the channel between the two bigger islands.
It
was to Malta that the Knights Hospitaler decamped when they abandoned
Rhodes to the Ottoman forces besieging the island. The Knights’ journey
was not a direct one, though. They had become rather an nuisance to the
major European powers, and considerable diplomatic manoeuvring was
needed before they could find a new base.
The
Knights arrived at a time when the island’s fortunes were in decline.
In the early middle ages Malta had prospered and thrived for two
centuries under Arab rule. The Arabs brought new crops and irrigation
techniques; they fortified some of the towns; the local people adopted
and adapted their language; and the population increased. But Islamic
influence had been falling since the bloodless conquest of Malta by the
Normans in 1091; during the 13th century all Moslems had been deported;
and by the 15th Malta was a fiefdom: a possession of the kingdom of
Aragon (the northeast “corner” of Spain, bordering the Pyrenees and the
Mediterranean), but ruled from Sicily.
The
economy of Malta had been disrupted by a series of attacks, launched
against Arab territory by the Sicilian masters of the islands. The raids
inevitably brought reprisals, leading to the abandonment of some of the
most isolated farming hamlets. Plague and drought had taken their toll
too, and the resources of the Maltese had been further sapped by a cash
payment to the Aragon overlords in 1428 which they hoped would buy them
greater autonomy.
For
the Knights, Malta was not an ideal base: it was far from
self-sufficient, relying on imports from Sicily for at least half the
year’s food. The fortifications on the island were dilapidated. And as
part of the deal they had struck with Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor
who then controlled Spain, the Knights also had to accept responsibility
for one of Christendom’s last toe-holds in Africa — Tripoli.
Nor
were the Maltese particularly pleased with their new landlords. They
felt they had negotiated a greater degree of independence a century
earlier, but the islands had once more been reduced to a fiefdom, handed
out as a gift by a remote and uninterested king. However, the Maltese
were given no choice in the matter, and could do little but accept the
liveried and arrogant aristocratic cuckoos who had settled among them.
At
first, the Knights looked upon Malta as a temporary home, hoping for
something better. But a planned stay of months turned to years, and
years to decades. Eventually it became obvious to all but the most
gung-ho of the order that hot, arid Malta was the end of the line.
While
they regarded Malta as a waiting-room, the Knights did little to
develop its undoubted military potential. They tried instead to make do
with the fortifications that were already in place. Eventually, more
than a decade after they arrived, the Order commissioned a study from a
military engineer. He recommended the fortification of the peninsula of
Sceberras, which stuck out like a licking tongue towards the mouth of
the harbor. This scheme, though logical, was deemed too expensive, and
the Knights instead opted to strengthen their existing defences around
Birgu on the south side of the Grand Harbour.
It
was left to the Turks to demonstrate the myopia of this decision. In
1551 they landed a huge fighting force in Marsamxett, the inlet to the
north of Sceberras, and over-ran the peninsula. The Knights beat off the
attack, but the Ottoman fleet sailed on to defeat Gozo, taking away
with them some 5,000 of the islanders. Their next stop was Tripoli,
where they defeated the Knight’s small garrison, and returned the town
to Arab rule once more.
The
shock of this attack galvanised the Knights into action, and belatedly
they began to fortify Sceberras. They built a star fort, named for St
Elmo, at the tip of the island in 1552, and by the 1560s were planning a
fortified town on the body of the peninsula. Before work could start,
though, the Knights had to cope with an immediate Ottoman threat.
The siege of Malta
Turkish
naval power had dealt the Knights some severe blows in by early 1560s.
Besides the 1551 humiliation, there had been frequent raids and
skirmishes. Indeed, apart from a 5-year period from 1555, landings and
battles had become almost an annual fixture, with the smart money on the
Ottoman team.
The
play-off came in 1565. The Knights had known for some time that Turkish
forces were planning a decisive action against the island. They
postponed the building work that would have strengthened Sceberras, lest
the attack, when it came, should catch them with the walls half built.
They instead concentrated their energies on making the most of their
existing fortifications.
The
Turks landed in the third week of May in 200 ships, and quickly decided
to lay siege to Fort St Elmo. This proved to be a mistake, locking the
Turkish forces into a slow war of attrition. The fortress resisted for a
full month, during which the besieging forces lost as many as 8,000
men, including their legendary commander, Dragut. The morale of the
garrison sank very low, but reinforced by sea each night, they managed
to resist against overwhelming odds. When the fort finally fell, there
was carnage: the Turks killed and mutilated those they captured, and
floated them across the harbor towards the Knights’ positions. The
Christians replied by decapitating some of their Moslem captives and
firing the heads from cannons.
When
St Elmo had fallen, the Turkish forces concentrated their efforts on
the Knight’s heavily defended headquarters at Senglea and Birgu.
Reinforcements arrived from Algiers, and the Moslem forces succeeded in
breaching the Knights’ defenses. For a time defeat stared the
Hospitalers in the face. However, a combination of luck and brilliant
leadership saved them. Through a series of strategic blunders the Turks
failed to capitalise on their successes; heavy losses demoralised them;
and finally, time ran out. The weather began to change, and the
attackers would have faced problems getting their troops off the island
if they delayed lifting the siege. In early September news reached the
Turks that reinforcements had arrived from Sicily, and the retreat
began.
The
Knights of St John and the Maltese people had fought heroically against
overwhelming odds during the siege, and they deeply resented what they
saw as a lack of support and backup from other Christian nations. The
Order suffered terrible losses during the protracted battles, but in the
long run, the siege proved to be pivotal. In its aftermath, the Knights
made a whole-hearted commitment to the island; they spent huge sums of
money fortifying the harbour area; and under their benevolent oligarchy,
the islands began to flourish once more. Much of the expansion that
followed was centred on Malta’s magnificent harbour.
The navy of the Order
In
its shipyards the Knights built and repaired their navy. They had not
wasted the time spent on Cyprus and Rhodes. These island homes demanded
that they master warfare on sea as well as on land, and accordingly they
had developed a powerful naval force, building and equipping war
galleys. Rhodes was in a strategic location in the Mediterranean, and as
trade between Christian and Arab worlds had grown, the Knights found
themselves in an increasingly important position.
When
they first came to Malta, the Knights brought just three galleys, but
their fleet was eventually expanded to total eight, plus a number of
smaller ships. The Knight’s galleys had a legendary reputation for speed
and manoeuvrability; they could sail very close to the wind, and their
3-foot (1 metre) draught allowed them to pursue their quarry in the
shallowest water.
The
Santa Anna, completed in 1524, was the most powerful warship in the
Mediterranean. She carried 50 heavy cannon, and could transport and arm
600 Christian warriors. This floating fort was equipped to stay at sea
for up to six months at a time. Even lesser ships of the fleet could
operate through the Mediterranean winter, when storms blew the corsairs
of Barbary and Malta back to port.
Later galleys sacrificed fire-power for show:
“They
were superbly ornamented, gold blazed on their numerous bas-reliefs and
carvings on the stern; enormous sails, striped blue and red, carried in
the centre a great cross of Malta painted red. Their gorgeous flags
floated majestically … Their construction, however, was little adapted
either for fighting of for standing foul weather. The Order kept them as
an emblem of their ancient splendour.” Luke 109
This
description, though, was written in the late 18th century when the
Order’s navy played a token role. In earlier years, the huge Maltese war
galleys performed very practical functions.
Until
1576, they effectively sailed as part of the Spanish fleet. Together,
the warships engaged the vessels of the Ottoman navy, aiming to prevent
Turkish domination of the Mediterranean. Later, their role changed to
that of a corsair-chaser, harassing the galleys of Barbary, and guarding
Christian merchant shipping. Their effectiveness, as H.J.A. Sire points
out, can be judged from the fact that Algiers became the principal base
for the Barbary corsairs: it was three times as far from Malta as Tunis
and Tripoli.
Not
all the ships of the Order’s navy were galleys. From 1478 the Knights
had been using three- and four-masted carracks (a wide-bodied ship of a
design that immediately preceded the galleon) as supply vessels, to
extend the range of the galley fleet, and this practice continued until
the middle of the 17th century. These round ships were then abandoned
until 1705, when the order began to reduce the number of galleys,
replacing them with ships-of-the-line. It was with this combination
fleet of galleys and round ships mixed roughly half-and-half that the
Order’s navy was eventually to crush the activities of the Barbary
corsairs in the late 18th century.
The Knights and the Corsairs
In
addition to building up a powerful naval presence on Malta, the Knights
also encouraged and systematically organised of the island’s corsairs. A
small corsair fleet predated the Knights arrival; indeed, Malta’s
excellent harbour had often acted as a magnet for privateers and
near-pirates, just as it had for legitimate shipping. In the
pre-Hospitaler period the corsairs were licensed by Sicily to raid
Turkish shipping; after 1530 they fell under the Knight’s jurisdiction.
Initially,
the system continued almost unchanged, and cultivated by the Order, the
corso grew rapidly. By the end of the century the trade had become so
busy, and involved ships of so many other nations, that some Knights
became alarmed. However, in 1605 the Grand Master (the head of the
Order) decided against reducing the scale of the corsairs’ activities,
and instead opted for greater regulation. He set up a commission, the
Tribunale degli Armamenti, to control the trade.
The
five commissioners appointed by the Grand Master set the ground rules
for Maltese corsair activity in the 17th and 18th centuries. Corsairs
using the islands were to fly the flag of the Order; they could attack
only Moslem shipping; and they had to respect safe-conduct passes issued
by Christian monarchs. The commission also set out the procedures to be
followed if any of the corsairs broke the rules. These provided for
injured parties to bring a case in specially-convened Maltese courts,
with the Vatican as the final court of appeal. Corsairs that were judged
to have overstepped the mark sacrificed the cash surety that they were
obliged to lodge before setting sail.
The Maltese galleys
The
galleys of the Maltese corsairs were similar to the Barbary ships in
many ways, but the differences between the two types of vessel highlight
the different skills of the mariners in each fleet, and how they
deployed them. The Maltese were far more reliant on gunnery than their
Barbary counterparts, so their ships were better armed. This in turn
meant that the ships had to be more heavily constructed, for gunfire
would “shiver the timbers” of a lightly-built craft.
Both
the corsair galleys and those of the Order’s navy were rowed
principally by slaves. Most were Moslems, but Christian riff-raff took a
few of the seats on the benches. Some were serving sentence for crimes
committed in Italian city-states. There was also a sprinkling of oarsmen
who were nominally free, though debt-slavery might be a better
description of their condition; their small earnings at the oars went
towards paying off the capital sum for which they had exchanged their
freedom. These wretches were called buonavoglia. The word literally
means “free-willer” but in the Maltese language it still connotes a
rascal. They received virtually the same treatment as the slaves, among
whom they were liberally sprinkled in order to prevent rebellion.
Buonavoglia did, however, enjoy privilege as free men: they were allowed
to wear moustaches, and were chained by only one shackle.
The
conditions for Muslim slaves on board the Maltese galleys were if
anything worse than those of their Christian counterparts on Barbary
vessels, as this description makes clear:
“Many
of the galley slaves have not the room to sleep at full length, for
they put seven men on one bench; that is to say, on a space about ten
feet long by four broad; at the bows one sees some thirty sailors who
have for their lodging the floor space of the rambades (the platform at
the prow) which consists of a rectangular space ten feet long by eight
wide. The captain and officers who live on the poop are scarcely better
lodged … the creaking of the blocks and cordage, the loud cries of the
sailors, the horrible maledictions of the galley slaves, the groaning of
the timbers are mingled with the clank of chains. Calm itself has its
inconveniences as the evil smells which arise from the galley are then
so strong that one cannot get away from them in spite of the tobacco
with which one is obliged to plug one’s nostrils…”
The smell of the galley is mentioned by other writers: one account states that the stench carried a mile down-wind.
The
crews who sailed the ships were often Maltese, but their numbers were
supplemented by mariners of many other nations. This was not unusual on
any ship: some writers have described the sailors of the day as
essentially stateless, serving on ships of any nation that would pay
them.
The
Knights themselves sailed on board the galleys. Some captained corsair
ships, and there would be as many as thirty knights on the largest naval
vessels. And like the Barbary corsair ships, these Maltese vessels also
carried a group of paid soldiers, the Christian equivalent of the
Janissaries.
Where they hunted
The
Knights licensed corsairs to patrol specific regions of ocean: the
ships were not free to hunt where they chose. The Aegean was out of
bounds, as was the northern Mediterranean to the west of Italy. Corsairs
were supposed to concentrate on either the Barbary Coast, or the Levant
— the eastern Mediterranean. Seizures close to the coast of Palestine
were progressively excluded to Maltese corsairs after reprisals against
pilgrims there; at first the exclusion zone surrounded just three of the
principal ports to a distance of ten miles, but it was later extended
to exclude all waters within fifty miles of the coast. Licenses were
granted for either region, or for both.
Even
with these restrictions, the Corsairs were free to roam over vast
stretches of the Mediterranean. In practice they hunted in the few areas
where shipping traffic was at its densest — the equivalent of
modern-day shipping lanes. The most lucrative of these crossed the Sea’s
eastern end, connecting Constantinople and Egypt. Heavily-laden Ottoman
merchant ships traveled in convoy on this route and their substantial
protection made them invulnerable to attack by all but the most powerful
of the Knights’ galleys. A few of the more intrepid corsairs tried to
cut out ships from the convoy, but it was generally safer to pick on
smaller fry around the more important islands in the region: Rhodes,
Crete, and Cyprus.
The chase and capture
The
tactics of the Maltese corsairs differed substantially from their
Barbary counterparts. Instead of relying on boarding to take possession
of a vessel, the Maltese ships made far greater use of gunnery. Their
gunners were more skilled, and the ships carried more cannon, often of a
larger caliber. As the corsairs closed on what was obviously a hostile
ship, they first attempted to bring down the rigging, perhaps by firing
chain shot — a length of chain with a cannonball fixed at each end. When
the victim had been comprehensively crippled, they would come alongside
to take the prize, perhaps peppering those on deck with small-arms fire
first to encourage an unresisted boarding. In a prolonged battle, the
Maltese sailing ships used their height advantage to drop primitive
grenades onto the decks of their adversaries.
More
often than not, though, such desperate tactics were not needed. The
corsairs generally picked as targets much smaller vessels that were
unlikely to put up any resistance. They would hail the ship, then come
alongside and question the crew about their destination, the ownership
of the cargo and the nationality of the vessel, crew and passengers. If
there was any suggestion at all that the ship was carrying Turkish goods
or passengers, the Maltese would board and carry out an inspection.
The
Maltese corsairs staunchly defended their right to carry out this
procedure, which was called a visità . Their justification — as ever —
was that it was simply a continuation of the war against the infidel. In
an era when the Cross and the Crescent were bitterly opposed, this
argument had some merit. But as the memory of the Crusades faded, it
seemed more and more like a feeble excuse for piracy.
The
visità was a cause of considerable friction between the Maltese and the
other maritime nations of the Mediterranean. Even if the rummaging
caused no real damage or injury to the crew and passengers (and it often
did), a visità would nevertheless delay the voyage. The Maltese
corsairs knew that the captain of any merchant vessel would have been
keen to discharge his cargo, and load another, and the delay imposed by a
visità was a potent bargaining chip. The very threat was sometimes
enough to extract a ransom — effectively a bribe — from a master in a
hurry.
Often
Maltese corsair vessels joined forces creating a small flotilla, in
order to intimidate their victims more effectively. Even the smallest of
ships in the group could then pursue a likely-looking target, with the
implied power of the whole group hovering on the horizon. When acting in
concert like this, the corsairs divided any booty they captured equally
between all participating ships.
What they seized
What
were the precious prizes that the corsairs hoped to find on board their
victims ships? One effect of inhaling the romantic smoke screen that
surrounds any account of piracy is to make the imagination more vivid.
Perhaps they seized spices from the orient? Gold and precious stones?
Maybe nubile Egyptian virgins bound for secret harems in Constantinople?
The truth was, sadly, more prosaic. Much of the trade in the
Mediterranean was in foodstuffs and other essential goods, and a corsair
ship was more likely to capture grain, cotton and ox-tails than gold,
coral and onyx. Coffee, beans, flax, rice and sugar were also among the
commonest cargoes.
Just
as important as the cargo, though, was the ship itself and any Turkish
passengers that might be on board. Both could be ransomed on the spot
or, if they were considered very valuable, returned to Malta in the
hands of a prize crew. From the only extant ledger of a cruise, it would
appear that corsair captains tried to convert their seizures into cash
at the earliest possible opportunity. Sometimes they were able to
extract a ransom for the return of a ship and its cargo the following
day; on other occasions captive Turks or cargo might stay on board for
two or three weeks before the Maltese could locate a buyer. Some cargoes
were not sold but eaten, since the corsairs often took the opportunity
to resupply their own food stocks from those of their victims.
The fate of those they captured
The
corsairs revealed the true nature of their calling in the way they
dealt with passengers and crew of the ships they ‘visited’. Moslems, of
course, did not expect to be well treated by those who claimed a holy
mission against the infidel, but there were often unpleasant surprises
for Christians, too. French traveler Jean Thévenot described how he was
stripped naked by the corsairs, then left shivering in a shirt. Only the
monks on his ship were spared the same treatment. Thévenot was prudent
enough to hand over his gold ring as soon as it was spotted — the threat
of a flogging was usually all the corsairs needed to discover the
hiding places of other valuable items.
Thévenot
was eventually dumped on the Palestine coast, and must have counted
himself lucky to escape with his life. It was not uncommon for corsair
masters to set Christian captives adrift in a small boat, leaving them
to find their own way to land.
Moslems
who were unfortunate enough to be taken back to Malta faced an
experience which closely mirrored that of Christian captives in Barbary.
The thriving slave market on Malta was the second biggest in the
Christian world, and captives auctioned there found themselves at work
for the Order or for private individuals on the islands. A few were sold
on the international slave market, perhaps to pull on the oars of a
Venetian galley.
The conditions of slaves in Malta
Those
slaves who were not chained to a galley oar or sold abroad slept under
lock and key in three large slave prisons built in the area surrounding
the Grand Harbour. By day they worked outside the prisons doing all
manner of heavy labor and menial work. Some slaves had domestic roles in
households on the island. Others worked in quarries or on building
sites: the grand fortifications that the Knights threw up to defend the
port after the siege would have been impossibly costly had much of the
labor force not been unpaid. The badges of rank of Maltese slaves were
their Arab clothing — Christian clothes were forbidden to them — cropped
hair and an iron ring on one leg.
Just
as in Algiers, Maltese slaves were permitted to run businesses in an
attempt to raise enough money to buy their freedom. In Malta, though,
the scale of such activities was more limited. Slaves worked as barbers
or kept bars; others sold goods from stalls. All had to return to the
bagnios at night. The Knights granted exceptions only for those working
on the other side of the island, and for small groups of slaves on
galleys in the harbour.
The
similarity between the conditions of captivity of slaves in Malta and
Barbary seems uncanny, but there is a mundane explanation. If conditions
worsened for one group, the captors of the other were quick to exact
vengeance. These tit-for-tat reprisals maintained parity between the
bagnios of Barbary and Malta.
Buying freedom
For
Muslim slaves on Malta, ransoming was a possibility, just as it was for
Christians in Barbary. The process was easier for slaves employed on
the island than for those chained to the oars of galleys. Wettinger
(1954) traced the fate of 1,336 captives taken in 1685 when the knights
besieged the small Greek town of Coron on the south-west of the
Peninsula of Morea. After sharing the human booty with their allies, the
knights retained 223 slaves. Though a few were ransomed and left the
island within a year, half were still there two decades later.
Galley
slaves were so hard to obtain that many stayed at the oars until they
were too sick or too weak to row any longer. Then they would be released
without ransom. Those who remained fit might continue in the service of
the knight’s navy into old age: one buonavoglia petitioned successfully
for his release at the age of seventy (Wettinger 1965). An Egyptian
slave who had rowed a Maltese galley for half a century petitioned to be
release at the age of 80. Twice promised freedom for his exceptional
services, he had been twice cheated! Galley slaves who hoped to secure
their freedom, had to find not only the ransom, but a substitute — or
even two — to take their place at the oars. Naturally this condition was
an insurmountable obstacle for many.
On
balance, though, the system of ransoming slaves in Malta was probably
no more harsh than in Barbary. Agents existed in Malta to lubricate the
ransoming process, and some slaves were even given allowed to return to
their homes to collect the ransom payment. More often, though, one or
two individuals would travel to Barbary to collect ransoms on behalf of a
much larger group. Their colleagues remained captive to guarantee their
safe return.
How the booty was divided
Profit
from the sale of slaves was added to the value of other seizures
recorded in a ledger by the purser on the corsair ship. At the end of
the cruise the purser’s books were used to determine the profit that had
accrued, so that the various parties that with stake in the voyage
could claim their dues.
As
in Barbary, the state — in this case, the Order — had first claim. The
Grand Master took a tenth of the profits. Next in line was a group
called the Cinque Lancie. Four of these five lances were officials who
had responsibilities associated with the voyage; the fifth lance was a
Maltese convent where the nuns prayed for the success of the trip. The
captain then claimed 11% of the profit, and what remained was divided
into three. The crew received one third, and the balance went to pay off
those who had financed the building, fitting out and supply of the
ship.
Of
these people, the first to be paid off were the bondholders, who
received their initial investment (which might have been in goods or
services, rather than money) plus an agreed percentage. There were often
numerous bondholders, drawn from every social class, so the success or
failure of a corsair voyage potentially affected whole island. The
remaining money went to equity holders, and was divided up in proportion
to their stake in the voyage. The main empty investors were wealthy
businessmen and merchants from the island’s larger towns.
This
simplified description conceals many perks and complications. The
ship’s master, for example, had to supplement the pay of senior officers
from his share, but was theoretically entitled to any loose money found
in rummaging the ship. Tradesmen such as the cook could keep tools and
equipment relevant to their craft.
Clearly
a corsair captain stood to make a handsome profit from a successful
cruise. Equally, though, he needed a lucky streak, for capture by a
Barbary vessel would inevitably lead to a somewhat less comfortable job
on board ship. This combination of risk and reward attracted characters
who, like James Dean, aimed to “live fast/die young/have a beautiful
corpse”. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the corsairs spent much of the
profit of their cruises in the brothels and bars of Valletta, but
reliable details of their lives are hard to find.
Alfonso de Contreras
The
only well-documented corsair captain was a Spaniard, Alfonso de
Contreras. Born in Madrid in 1582 to aristocratic but impecunious
parents, he fled his home as a young man to escape charges of murder and
robbery. He became a mercenary soldier, deserted, and crewed on the
galleys of Naples and Sicily before jumping a Maltese galley and
spending a year working for the Order on Malta. On his return to Sicily
he again became a sailor, hunting Barbary and Turkish vessels on board
Sicilian ships. It was on these galleots and galleons that he acquired
his real knowledge of the sea.
After
a drunken brawl that left an Italian inn-keeper dead, Contreras was
again a fugitive, but managed to escape to Malta on a galleon. Within a
few days he was once more at sea as a crew member on a corsair ship, and
a series of swashbuckling tales began. In every one he emerged as a
hero — and generally his autobiography is a shameless piece of
self-promotion.
The
ship on which Contreras was serving captured some valuable prizes, and
he describes how the captain tossed dice and cards overboard, to prevent
crew members from gambling away their share of the booty. The crew’s
reaction to this neatly illustrates both their temperament and the
conditions under which they lived. Drawing a circle on the deck, they
put lice in the middle, and placed bets on which would be the first to
cross the line.
In
fact, Contreras was easy to part from his money. “What with my prize
money and the bounty, there fell to my share more than 1500 ducats…” he
comments “… which I squandered in a short time.” Most went into the
pockets of a Maltese whore to whom he faithfully returned each time he
was on shore.
Perhaps
the most revealing aspect of Contreras’ bragging account of pirate life
is the insight it provides into the casual etiquette of raid, torture,
capture and ransom. When the ship he commanded came across a crippled
brigantine, he suspected that the Greek crew were sheltering a Turk.
Though he tortured every one of the crew, none would betray the man. But
when Contreras threatened to kill a 15-year old, the boy’s father
agreed to show where the Turk was hiding. The captive proved to be a man
of some stature, and the corsairs sailed to his home close to Athens to
collect the 3,000 sequin ransom. While this was raised, there was
feasting and games on the beach, and when a Moslem galley arrived, its
commander joined the fun. This yarn hardly paints a picture of Cross and
Crescent fighting a bitter holy war.
The
corsair captain spent much of his time in the service of the Maltese
spying on shipping off Barbary and the Levant, and dabbling in
privateering and near-piracy. Eventually, though, his adventures took
him farther afield — as far as the Caribbean — and on returning to
Europe he even secured an audience with the Pontiff. With the Pope’s
blessing, our hero returned to Malta, and was invested as a Knight of
the Order.
The development of the Maltese corsair trade
Reorganised
and regularised from 1605, the Maltese corsair trade seemed set to
develop and expand throughout the 17th century. And expand it did. The
fleet probably reached its zenith in the 1660s. According to Peter
Earle’s revealing analysis of contemporary Maltese documents (Earle,
1970: 122), there were 30 corsair vessels operating from the island in
this period, providing direct employment for 4,000 men — roughly one
fifth of the adult male population of Malta.
This
growth had a price. The corsairs licensed by the Knights were running
commercial enterprises, and given the undoubted importance of their
operations to the economy of the islands — and indeed, to the Knights
themselves — there was clearly considerable pressure on every corsair
crew to make a financial success of their voyage. Inevitably, many found
it difficult to stick to the rules governing their conduct,
particularly when pickings were slim. Just as English privateers were
tempted to interpret their letters of marquee with considerable
discretion, so too the urge to raid Christian shipping was sometimes too
great for the Maltese corsairs to resist.
In
the early seventeenth century it was Venetian ships that occasionally
suffered from the unsolicited attentions of the Maltese corsair fleet,
and merchants from the Serenissima successfully argued their case for
compensation in the Maltese courts. To emphasise the point, in 1645 the
Venetians seized those estates that the Knights owned within the borders
of the Venetian empire. Later in the century, the corsairs turned their
attentions to Greek ships. Some Maltese corsairs doubtless felt that
the Greeks were legitimate victims because they were not proper (i.e.
Roman) Christians, and instead owed their allegiance to the Eastern
Church. It was also easy for a Greek Moslem captain to pretend to be
Christian when his ship was raided. Greek ships often carried Turkish
cargoes, and this too made them vulnerable to attack. However, it is
clear that there were many Maltese corsairs who simply used these
arguments to excuse what was really a blatant act of piracy.
The
Greeks were initially also widely successful in their litigation in the
courts of the Knights, though achieving satisfaction sometimes took
years of legal action.
But
the problems the corsairs created in the Mediterranean did not end when
they stuck to the rules and avoided Christian shipping. Even when they
acted against shipping that was unambiguously Moslem, friction often
followed. Most of the Knights of St John came from France, and with the
passing of time the corsair ships came to be identified as French
privateers. Though Moslem shipping they attacked could not demand
compensation in Maltese courts, the corsairs’ activity resulted in
reprisals against French nationals elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire.
The
French naturally resented such actions against their citizens, and
brought pressure to bear on the Knights to control the worst excesses of
their corsair captains. Gradually the French crown and the Vatican
whittled away at the Knights, progressively restricting the freedom of
operation of the corsair fleet.
France
had a further reason to resent the Maltese corsairs. In the latter half
of the 17th century French merchants were actively wooing the huge
Ottoman market, and French shipping was carrying an increasing
proportion of the Moslem trade. When these ships were raided by the
Maltese, there was an inevitable diplomatic backlash. From the outset it
was clear that the Knights would eventually have to back down and rein
in the corsairs; most of the land that provided the Knights’ income was
in France, and they risked confiscation of their assets if they
continued to defy the French king.
French
shipping was thus off-limits; English and Dutch ships were generally
too well defended to be vulnerable to corsair attacks; so the Maltese
concentrated once more on the Greek vessels. The final years of corsair
history read like a tedious flag game, with rules of labyrinthine
complexity, as the corsair captains using every kind of legal chicanery
to justify their continuing harassment of the Greeks. When Greek
compensation claims in the Knights’ courts failed, the ship-owners
successfully appealed to the higher Vatican courts. So instead of flying
the flag of the Order, the corsair captains sailed under the Grand
Master’s flag — this had the advantage that there was no right of appeal
to the Pope should a compensation claim against them fail in Maltese
courts. This loophole in the rules had fallen into disuse at the
beginning of the 16th century, but it was again widely exploited towards
the end, and at the beginning of the 17th. When the Vatican eventually
ruled that there was no practical difference between the two flags, the
corsairs instead chose flags of convenience, sailing as Spanish or
Tuscan vessels. Eventually even this loophole was plugged, after further
reprisals against French commercial interests.
The
corsairs were thus defeated not by their nominal “infidel” adversary,
but by the diplomacy of their Christian allies, and by 1740 the corso
was effectively extinct. This did not, however, spell the complete end
of the Maltese galleys; the Knights retained their navy, and when an
earthquake struck Messina in 1783, they were used for the last time to
ferry relief supplies.
The Knights’ rise and fall
The
events that brought about the decline of the Maltese corsairs were
eventually to destroy the organisation that had nurtured and built up
the fleet. However, the story of the Knights sojourn on Malta did not
reach its final chapter until 1798. By then they had changed the
island’s economy beyond all recognition.
Almost
from the moment they stepped ashore, the Knights had spent freely, and
after the siege they began to invest in the infrastructure of the
islands. Under their guidance, agriculture prospered. The Order
undertook a huge program to fortify the peninsula jutting into the
island’s deep-water harbour; within the walls, the Knights created a
city, Valleta. They built shipyards, churches, a theatre, factories,
warehouses, docks. The Knights provided employment for the Maltese, and
their capital helped to feed the population on Sicilian grain in times
of shortage. In short, the power and influence of the order grew until
the Knights controlled every aspect of life on the islands.
Inevitably,
though, this patronage, and the Knights’ dissolute lifestyle caused
resentment and at times outright rebellion. Despite their vows, the
Knights were not saints, and some of the younger ones behaved no better
than the spoiled aristocrat brat set of the present day. In the early
years on the island some members of the Order became notorious for
drinking and whoring, and there were feuds between the langues
(literally “tongues” — the single-nationality fraternity lodges into
which the Knights were organised). One Grand Master, La Cassière (r.
1572-81), made the foolish mistake of interpreting the Knights’ chastity
vows quite literally: when he tried to rid Valletta of prostitutes, the
Knights arrested and gaoled him.
These
examples are extremes, but as a generality, the Knights undoubtedly
lived in some considerable luxury, which must have contrasted sharply
with the poverty and hard life of the average Maltese farmer. This
differential, together with haughty manner of the Knights, did little to
endear them to the local populace. In a 1775 rebellion, the Knights
lost the fort of St Elmo, but they quickly regained control and executed
some of the ringleaders.
In
the event, it was not pressure from within, but changes in the wider
world that destroyed the Hospitalers. By the 18th century the crusading
religious zeal that gave birth to the Order had faded. The Knights, with
their sabre-rattling and their tin-pot row-boat navy, looked
increasingly anachronistic in a mercantile world where Christian and
Muslim traded freely on land and sea.
The
final blow was the French Revolution. The Knight’s organisation was
openly — proudly — aristocratic, and a natural opponent of the
revolutionary fervour sweeping France. Noble refugees escaped the
guillotine by fleeing to the island, which hardly helped the Knight’s
cause.
The
huge French estates that provided the Knights with much of their income
were seized in 1792. When Napoleon headed for Egypt six years later, he
made a minor detour to Malta, ostensibly to take on fresh water. When
the Knights refused his request, French troops landed and the emperor
demanded the surrender of the islands. The Knights put up no resistance,
and within a few days most had been unceremoniously bundled off the
island. The Knight’s guttering candle was finally snuffed out, and the
Maltese were generally delighted.
The wider picture
Pirate,
privateer, missionary, businessman, slaver — a corsair was a mixture of
all these. But as in any famous dish, the quantities varied from recipe
to recipe. In many respects, the fight for supremacy in the
Mediterranean was as much about commerce and politics as it was about
religion.
Both
Barbary and Maltese corsairs were essentially privateers; their
licenses were little different from the letters of marque and reprisal
carried by the captains of privateer vessels from the Maritime nations
of northern Europe. Their privateering activities raked in huge amounts
of capital, and on both sides of the Mediterranean investors took a
stake in the trips, in the hope of reaping rich rewards. In this
respect, it is fair to consider the corsair trade as simply a seedy
aspect of maritime commerce. However, corsair warfare coincidentally
also admirably served the purposes of the great maritime powers.
The
ships of Holland, France and Britain are conspicuous by their absence
from descriptions of corsair raids. This is no mere coincidence: as
Christian nations, the British, French and Dutch were safe from the
crusading corsairs of Malta. And by negotiating treaties with the
Barbary regencies, they were able also to secure immunity from attack by
the Moslem corsairs.
The
result was a cozy cartel. British, French and Dutch ships could sail
the waters of the Mediterranean with impunity, while relying on corsairs
of both complexions to harass the shipping of their competitors. This
cunning arrangement allowed British and French merchantmen to take a
substantial proportion of the Mediterranean carrying trade. The French
in particular played both sides against the middle. Income from vast
estates in France flowed to Malta to finance the galleys of the Knight’s
navy and the corso. Yet treaties with the Barbary regencies — sometimes
negotiated at the smoking mouth of a cannon — gave French shipping
freedom of the Mediterranean. In France there was clear and sometimes
explicit understanding that the raids of the Barbary corsairs had
advantages; “We are certain that it is not in our interest that all the
Barbary corsairs be destroyed …” ran one anonymous French memo “… since
then we would be on a par with all the Italians and the peoples of the
North Sea.”
The
main European maritime nations put on rather a different face in
public. Naturally they deplored the Barbary corsairs and their actions.
Of course they should be suppressed. To back up this rather bogus show
of disapproval, France and Britain periodically sent fleets of varying
strength to harass the Barbary coast and give the various Beys bloody
noses.
Seen
from this perspective, the sometimes confusing events in the
Mediterranean begin to form a clearer picture of growing trade and
jockeying for commercial advantage. This overview summarises the major
developments.
Shows of force and sabre rattling
- For the last quarter of the 16th century, and the first half of the 17th, Maltese naval galleys concentrated on controlling the activities of the Barbary corsairs.
- From 1650 onwards Holland and England launched expeditions against the Barbary regencies to gain immunity for their shipping; France soon joined them.
- Between 1660 and 1675 the Maltese corsairs were at their most active, and switched their attention from the Barbary coast to Ottoman vessels plying between Egypt and Constantinople. As a result of their successes, France came to dominate the Mediterranean carrying trade.
- From 1697 having expanded their trading interests in the Levant, the French, fearful of reprisals against their merchants there, pressed for greater control of the Maltese corsairs.
- By 1670 corsair activity in Tunis had almost ceased as a result of the policing activities of the Knight’s navy, and by 1700 the Algerian corsairs had been greatly reduced
- By 1733 the activities of the Maltese corsairs were so hedged about with restrictions that the flag of the order was rarely seen at the masthead of a corsair vessel. The demand for corsair licenses all but dried up.
- By 1750 many of the smaller Christian nations had succeeded in negotiating immunity for their merchant fleets. However, lacking the naval power of the bigger states, they had to pay for the privilege in cash or in kind. The rulers of the Barbary states were the main beneficiaries and, since the treaties progressively whittled away at the livelihood of the corsairs ships, the agreements were frequently breached.
- In the early 1750s The Maltese corsair fleet, apparently extinct two decades earlier, enjoyed a revival. At first the ships sailed under the flag of Monaco and other flags of convenience, but before long the Grand Master’s pennant again flapped at the mast head.
- By 1793 the Barbary corsairs had begun to harass the shipping of the fledgling United States in the Atlantic. Th US appealed to the British for help, but were rebuffed, and instead had to pay tribute to the regencies.
- In 1798 the French occupation of Malta brought a final end to the Maltese corsair trade. However, the start of the Napoleonic Wars gave the Barbary corsairs the opportunity to renew their attacks on shipping while the mighty European navies were preoccupied with “real” warfare.
- In 1801 an American squadron visited the Mediterranean to try and resolve the corsair threat to the country’s shipping there. This was repeated for the next two years, but the third visit turned to disaster when the fleet lost a frigate and many of the crew were held to ransom.
- With the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815, the world’s maritime nations concentrated their attentions on the Barbary coast once more. The Americans sent a fleet, this time with more success, extracting indemnities from the three main corsair states.
- In 1816 a British fleet pounded Algiers, forcing the Bey to release 1600 slaves.
- In 1830 a French fleet occupied Algiers, putting a full stop to the activities of the Barbary corsairs.
The legacy of the corsairs
The
thinking of Western people is to this day influenced by a negative and
essentially racist image of the Moslem world. This may seem to overstate
the case, but the Oxford English Dictionary nevertheless still defines
“A Turk” as…
“…a
cruel, rigorous, or tyrannical man; any one behaving as a barbarian or
savage; one who treats his wife hardly; a bad-tempered or unmanageable
man.”
This
definition is not marked “obsolete”, unlike two that follow: “A human
figure at which to practice shooting.” and “A hideous image to frighten
children; a bugbear”;
Today’s
opportunist politicians quickly see the potential of the West’s
underlying distrust of the Islamic world; when it’s expedient, they do
not hesitate to use the ignorance and prejudice of the electorate to
further their own ends. We need not look far to find a example, and one
that contains ominous echoes of the hypocrisy that characterized French
and English dealings with the corsairs of Barbary and Malta. The Western
nations that allied themselves against Iraq in the Gulf War were
precisely those who provided the arms the country needed to attack its
neighbours. And though Saddam Hussein’s regime was undoubtedly despotic,
his vilification by Western politicians and news media suggests that
the OED’s evocation of a target and bogeyman are not after all so
obsolete.
Despite
the passage of more than seven centuries, echoes of the Crusades ring
through these definitions. Arguably the battle between the corsairs of
Barbary and Malta served to prolong and nurture mutual hostility between
Christian and Moslem, sustaining it from the Middle Ages to the modern
world.
Bibliography
This essay originally appeared in Pirates, edited by David Cordingly and published by Salamander Books , London, in 1996.
By far the best source on the Corsairs is Peter Earl’s Corsairs of Malta and Barbary; London 1970. The following books are also useful.
Bradford, E The Great Siege; Malta 1565; London 1961
Cavaliero, Roderic E. The decline of the Maltese corso in the XVIIIth century;published in Melita Historica Vol 2 No 4 1959
Currey, E Hamilton Sea Wolves of the Mediterranean; London 1910
Fisher, Godfrey Barbary Legend; Oxford 1957
Hough, R. Fighting Ships; London 1969
Lane-Poole, Stanley The Barbary Corsairs; London 1880
Lloyd, C, English Corsairs on the Barbary Coast; 1981
Lucie-Smith, E. Outcasts of the Sea; London 1978
Luke, Sir Henry An account and appreciation of Malta; London 1960
Morgan, J. Several Voyages to Barbary; London 1736
Sire, HJA, The Knights of Malta; London 1994
Wettinger, Godfrey The galley-convicts and buonavoglia in Malta during the rule of the order; published in Journal of the Faculty of Arts, University of Malta; vol III No 1, 1965
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