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Recollections of Slavery
An English ship confronts Barbary corsairs in 1678.
An English ship battles with a ‘Barbary’ ship and two galleys. Barbary was the name for the North African coast, specifically the regencies of Algiers and Tripoli, the Beylik of Tunis, and the Sultanate of Morocco, at that time governed by the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Pirate ships or corsairs (a word also used for the pirates themselves) would scour the Atlantic coasts of Europe looking for slaves: see Pirates at Penzance.
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An English ship battles with a ‘Barbary’ ship and two galleys. Barbary was the name for the North African coast, specifically the regencies of Algiers and Tripoli, the Beylik of Tunis, and the Sultanate of Morocco, at that time governed by the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Pirate ships or corsairs (a word also used for the pirates themselves) would scour the Atlantic coasts of Europe looking for slaves: see Pirates at Penzance.
Introduction
On February 8th, 1661, Samuel Pepys, a civil servant with the Royal Navy, popped over to the Exchange to meet William Warren, who supplied wood for the nation’s warships. Warren was unavailable, but the convivial Pepys invited some Naval officers to the nearby Golden Fleece tavern, where he listened open-mouthed to their recollections of life in the slave compounds of Algiers.
AT the office all the morning. At noon to the Exchange to meet Mr Warren the timber merchant,* but could not meet with him. Here I met with many sea commanders, and among others Captain Cuttle,* and Curtis,* and Mootham,* and I, went to the Fleece Tavern* to drink; and there we spent till four o’clock, telling stories of Algiers,* and the manner of the life of slaves there. And truly Captn Mootham and Mr Dawes* (who have been both slaves there) did make me fully acquainted with their condition there: as, how they eat nothing but bread and water. At their redemption they pay so much for the water they drink at the public fountaynes, during their being slaves. How they are beat upon the soles of their feet and bellies at the liberty of their padron.* How they are all, at night, called into their master’s Bagnard;* and there they lie. How the poorest men do use their slaves best. How some rogues do live well, if they do invent to bring their masters in so much a week by their industry or theft; and then they are put to no other work at all. And theft there is counted no great crime at all. Thence to Mr Rawlinson’s,* having met my old friend Dick Scobell,* and there I drank a great deal with him, and so home and to bed betimes, my head aching.
Original spelling
* Sir William Warren was a timber merchant who, as a supplier of timber to the Royal Navy, was Pepys’s long-standing business partner.
* Captain Cuttle was not the more famous Captain Cuttle of Charles Dickens’s novel Dombey and Son, but John Cuttle, appointed captain of the Hector in 1664. He was killed in action against the Dutch the following year, when on August 3rd-4th Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Tiddiman rashly mounted a attack upon a Dutch convoy in the port of Bergen.
* Edmund Curtis commanded the Newcastle in 1660.
* Peter Mootham, a commanding officer from 1652, was appointed captain of the Foresight in 1660 by the Duke of York (the future James II), and then to the Princess five years later. He was killed in action against the Dutch during the Four Days’ Fight on June 1st-4th, 1666.
* The Golden Fleece stood near the Royal Exchange at Fleece Passage in Cornhill.
* Algiers, a city in North Africa on what was then known as the Barbary Coast. In Pepys’s day, Algiers lay within the Turkish Ottoman Empire, which had taken over the lands of the fading Roman Empire following The Fall of Constantinople in 1453, and expanded them in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Algiers was a centre of slave trafficking until 1816, when the Royal Navy, fresh from inflicting humiliation on Napoleon Bonaparte and emboldened by Parliament’s recent resolution to end the slave trade, swept into Algiers and released thousands of slaves. See The Bombardment of Algiers.
* John Dawes of Putney was created a baronet in 1663. His third son, William, the third Baronet, served as Archbishop of York from 1714 to 1724.
* Pepys uses the Ottoman word for a master or boss, padrón, derived from Italian thanks to the Lingua Franca, a mixture of Italian with French, Greek, Arabic and Spanish used in the eastern Mediterranean.
* Strictly speaking, a bagnard (a word of French origin) is a prisoner, the inmate of a bagne. Pepys uses the word for the gaol itself.
* Daniel Rawlinson was the genial and staunchly Royalist host of the Mitre Tavern in Fenchurch Street. He managed to survive the Interregnum, but his hostel was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. Happily, it was afterwards rebuilt. His menu included venison pasty, a dish of which Pepys was endearingly fond.
* Richard ‘Dick’ Scobell was one of Pepys’s drinking partners. His wife is described as ‘wealthy and pretty’, and ready for fun of the kind that Pepys liked so much.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) studied at St Paul’s School in London, and at Magdalene College, Cambridge, graduating in 1653. He married Elizabeth St Michel (1640-1669) two years later, and the couple at first relied on the hospitality of Samuel’s cousin Sir Edward Montagu (later Earl of Sandwich). Sir Edward brought Samuel into Naval administration, and after Pepys had escorted Charles II home across the Channel to his Restoration in 1660 he was appointed Clerk of the Acts at the Navy Office, work in which he excelled. Promoted Secretary to the Navy in 1673, he also served as a magistrate and as MP for Castle Rising and later Harwich; but in 1679 Pepys was relieved of his Navy post and briefly remanded to the Tower on suspicion of Popery. He was reappointed in 1684 but retired in 1690 after more charges were laid, following the Glorious Revolution. Pepys is best known today for his diary, which he began on January 1st 1660 and kept up until May 31st, 1669, when his eyesight began to fail.
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Best. Great. Week.
2 Many. Rogue. Theft.
3 Friend. No. Their.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Verb and Noun Find in Think and Speak
Many words can serve as noun or verb depending on context: see if you can prove this with the examples below. Nouns go well with words such as the/a, or his/her; verbs go well after I/you/he etc..
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Make. 2 Water. 3 Use. 4 Pay. 5 Lie. 6 Man. 7 Deal. 8 Count. 9 Till.
Variations: 1.if possible, use your noun in the plural, e.g. cat → cats. 2.use your verb in a past form, e.g. go → went. 3.use your noun in a sentence with one of these words: any, enough, fewer, less, no, some.
Confusables Find in Think and Speak
In each group below, you will find words that are similar to one another, but not exactly the same. Compose your own sentences to bring out the similarities and differences between them, whether in meaning, grammar or use.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
High Tiles Find in Think and Speak
Make words (three letters or more) from the seven letters showing below, using any letter once only. Each letter carries a score. What is the highest-scoring word you can make?
Your Words ()
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