The European maritime powers recognised a duty to protect their own coasts from pirates, but had an ambivalent attitude to the growth of piracy in West Indian waters. The vessels were usually converted prizes and were similar to the ships of the Barbary Corsairs – fast, shallow-draught, and usually fitted with oars as well as sails. 1660-1725), but they rarely exceeded 2,000 men in some 20 or 30 ships. Numbers varied during ‘the golden age of piracy’ ( c. These pirates, though better known in modern times, never achieved the numbers and importance of the Barbary Corsairs. The Barbary Corsairs operated mainly in the Mediterranean and in the waters of Western Europe, leaving the rest of the world free for individualist pirates, who, by the 1660s, were to be found mainly in the Caribbean, the coastal waters of North America, and later around the Atlantic islands, off the West African coast, and in the Indian Ocean. This example soon inducedTripoliandTunisto end all acts of hostility against European nations and to restore to liberty their few remaining slaves. But there were still corsairs active as late as the 1820s, and the problem only finally ended with the French conquest ofAlgiersin 1830. Most agreed to pay protection money or tribute, and this reduced the numbers of both corsairs and victims. These countries could choose to fight the corsairs, pay them protection money or take a chance and sail into danger. The ships of the weaker European nations (and, after 1783, of theUnited States), however, remained vulnerable to attack. Documents known as ‘Mediterranean passes’ allowed the ships ofFranceandEnglandto sail unharmed by the corsairs. Cumulative defeats gradually wore them down and, by the 1680s, they felt compelled to sign a series of treaties exempting ships of the victorious European powers from attack. Each of them engaged in several fiercely fought wars against the corsair states from the 1650s onwards.īoth sides lost ships, but the corsairs, now far weaker than their Christian opponents, could less afford to lose ships and men. A political will to spend money was essential.England and France were the main combatants. Few corsairs would dare attack a large convoy.ĭefeating the corsairs still took a long time and was very expensive. By the 1680s, naval ships regularly convoyed merchantmen on the major shipping routes. The other important innovation of the 1650s was the development of convoy to protect merchant ships from pirates. Sixty years after Admiral Mansell, Admiral Herbert was able to write that ‘they find it hard to escape any of our frigates’. Such vessels, usually known as frigates, were ideal for fighting the Barbary Corsairs. The 1650s saw a huge increase in the navies of England,Holland, andFrance, including many small, fast, shallow-draught ships, often propelled by oars as well as sails. Ransom enabled the wealthier captives to get home eventually, but the fate of most poor captives was a lifetime of slavery. Raids ashore fromItaly toIceland garnered large numbers of captives to be enslaved or offered for ransom. The corsairs continued to take many prizes, both at sea and on land. There were therefore few successes in the first half of the 17 th century. ‘It is almost incredible to relate in how short a time those ships out-sailed the whole fleet out of sight,’ wrote Admiral Mansell after giving chase to Algerian pirates in 1620. Most of their ships were big and clumsy and not really suitable for chasing their much faster Muslim opponents. The navies of the Christian states at this date were relatively small and weak. The fleets of Tunis, Tripoli, and Sallee were much smaller, but still formidable, with fast, well-armed vessels manned by fanatical crews. Algiers alone had over 100 sailing ships and six galleys. Serious attempts to control the Barbary Corsairs began in the 1620s, when they were at their strongest. These Muslim pirates, who attacked Christian shipping and enslaved the captured passengers and crews, were much more dangerous than famous rascals like Blackbeard. The pirates of this period can be divided into two groups, the individualist rovers who are the heroes of our childhoods, and the Barbary Corsairs who operated from bases inAlgiers,Tunis,Tripoli, and Sallee inMorocco. It was not easy and it took about a century, from the 1620s to 1730, to eradicate piracy from the western world (with a short reprise from 1815 to 1830). Piracy and its suppression are much discussed these days, but few writers bother to investigate how piracy was dealt with in the past. With Somali pirates in the news, naval historian Peter Earle takes a timely look at how the Royal Navy dealt with pirates in their 17 th century heyday.
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