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A huge problem along the south coast in the 17th Century, was the number of Barbary or Salee pirates who preyed on our ships.
For years they had spirited away ships and cargos but in August 1625 they came ashore.in Cornwall
Corsairs raided Mount’s Bay in Cornwall & captured 60 men, women & children & took them into slavery.
In 1626 St Keverne was repeatedly attacked, boats out of Looe, Penzance, Mousehole & other Cornish ports were boarded, their crews taken captive & the empty ships left to drift. Around 60 Barbary men-of-war prowled the Devon and Cornish coasts & attacks became an almost daily occurrence.
Those kidnapped were taken to the slave markets of the Ottoman Empire to be bought as labourers or concubines, or pressed into service as galleys slaves
There was a hub of Moorish pirates who made a base of Lundy Island in the Bristol Chaennel ,of all places - picking off ships as they approached Bristol and well as raiding around the coast .
Many attempts to stop them were made, by the navy's of various countries, but it was not until an attack by the British and Dutch in 1816 , in which more than 4,000 Christian slaves were liberated , that the power of the Barbary pirates was broken.
Piracy was a thriving profitable but ruthless business & feared throughout Britain’s coastal communities, thanks in part to letters like this:
‘The ship was surprised by a Turkish man-o-war, Matthew lost his whole estate and was taken to Saleé in Barbary, where the captain of the Turkish ship sold him for 350 Barbary ducats. He lives in misery in iron chains and is forced to grind in the mill like a horse all day long, is fed on bread and water, and insufficient of that. And is tortured to make him ‘turn Turk’. A great ransom has been set on him, which because of his losses he cannot procure.’ (Sam Willis, ‘Invasion’, BBC)
English pirates also used Lundy, men like Robert Hickes of Saltash, Captain John Piers of Padstow, and John Challice, who are known to have used Lundy as a base between 1560 and 1580. For five years, Lundy island in the middle of the Bristol Channel became the headquarters of Barbary Pirates out of the slavers port of Salee in Algeria .
They used it as a base for raids as far afield as Iceland and the chief offender was the Dutch pirate Jan Janszoon, who had become a muslim, probably having been a captive himself at some point. The Barbery pirates at Salee allowed their captives a choice, often under torture ,a gruesome death or become an ‘instant muslim’ by ’turning Turk they might then live , as a slave possibly chained to the oars of a galley or a grindstone.
After the English Civil War 1641 to 1651 having disposed of the Monarchy and with the Commonwealth in charge under Protector Oliver Cromwell the problem of Lundy & its Arab pirates was addressed. He was appalled by the impact these pirates were having on trade in ports, as well as the damage being done to to the English merchant fleet. Cromwell decreed, rather nastily, that any captured ‘Arab’ should be taken to Bristol and slowly drowned. He then commissioned Robert Blake and William Penn to clear the pirates off Lundy Island A bombardment of the little island was made and those not killed or captured, fled back to North Africa. Yet still pirates continued to mount raids on the coastal communities of Cornwall, Devon, and Dorset .
Trinity House wrote to the privy council that there were 1,200-1,400 English captives in Saleé, most of them taken within 20-30 miles of Dartmouth, Plymouth, and Falmouth,. The writers complained that the coast is not guarded by ships to defend the King’s subjects, and that ‘our friends are not restrained from arming and aiding infidels’. Spurred on by the lack of security on its shores, the Navy beefed up its defences. The spectre of the green flag of the Saleé Rovers became a thing of the past around Britain’s coast.
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A list of captives redeemed east of Algiers, by His Majesties Bounty, and at His Sole Charge, in the Months of December and January 1674/5, by Sir John Narborough, Mr Brisbatie and Mr Martin His Majesties Consul at Algiers.” (Source: London Gazette, Thursday, February 24, 1676; Issue 1072, from the Burney-Gale Archive)
Listing the men who had been captured by Barbary pirates who were subsequently ransomed from the North African city state Algiers in 1675 including, to my astonishment, the last but one in roughly two hundred names, one Robert Pomery.
Examples of Barbary Pirate captives. Kenton is in the Exe Estuary
Kenton QS/128/69/2 n.d Thomas Moale, father of Thomas Moale, aged 15 taken by pirates, for ransom £80
Kenton QS/128/69/3 n.d Jane, wife of Samuel Clarke, mate of the Societie of Topsham on voyage from Newfoundland,
taken by pirates, ransom £125 - ( about 1673, according to list on Rootsweb)
Kenton QS/128/69/4 1673 Robert Simon, sailor in the Royal Katherine, against the Dutch
Kenton QS/128/69/5 1674 John Davy, sailor on The Royal Charles
Kenton QS/128/69/6 1682 Thomas Jope, father of John Jope, sailor on the Port Marchant of Topsham, taken by Pirates
Kenton QS/128/69/7 1682 John Moale, sailor on the Port Marchant of Topsham taken by pirates (certificate)
Kenton QS/128/69/11 1683 John Whiterow, soldier on the Port Marchant of Topsham, taken by pirates
Kenton QS/128/69/8 1682 Elizabeth Hooper, widow, mother of William, sailing from Bulbao to Mallaga taken by pirates,for ransom £60
Kenton QS/128/69/9 1683 Catherine, wife of John Molle (sic) sailor on the Port Merchant of Topsham, taken by pirates, for ransom
Kenton QS/128/69/10 1683 Mary Oliver of Powderham wrote on behalf of Nicholas Wotten, sailor on the Port Merchant of Topsham, taken by pirates
rootsweb https://lists.rootsweb.com/hyperkitty/list/devon@rootsweb.com/thread/337603/
[DEV] Topsham mariners and the Barbary Corsairs - devon@rootsweb ...
The letter of Cathwrine the wife of captive John Molle, found in DRO in 2012
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