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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2015
The College of St Omers was founded in the Spanish Netherlands by Robert Persons S.J. in 1593 to provide an education for English Catholics. Those who wished to study for the priesthood would then proceed to one of the Jesuit-managed seminaries on the continent, among which was the College of St Gregory in Seville founded by Persons in 1592; many of its alumni joined the Society after ordination, as was the case with both William Appleby (hereafter WAp) and William Atkins (hereafter WAt); a full account of this institution can be found in CRS 73 (1992); cf. also WAt pp. 206–8. Intending students normally travelled by sea, as was the case with the twelve who set off in 1622 and were captured by Moorish pirates en route. The twelve ranged in age from adolescents to mature adults like WAp (aged 31) who had presumably been at St Omers for a period of probation rather than for the normal course of studies.
1 To ‘stricke saile’ is to lower the topsail on meeting another ship as a sign either of submission or respect.
2 ‘atwart’ is a 17th century form of ‘athwart’.
3 Murderers are small cannon.
4 Lacuna of about 8 letters.
5 ‘bounce for bounce’ = ‘shot for shot’ ‘bounce’ means the report of a gun.
6 Apparently sic; ‘spell’ can mean fragment, but the Captain was struck by a ricochet (cf. WAt p.218) rather than by a fragment.
7 This incident happened to WAt; cf. p.217. So WAp’s ‘Lovet’ is presumably an alias.
8 ‘sorte’ = ‘set’ here and at p.61.
9 ‘glade’ = ‘rejoiced’.
10 ‘our sides’ should perhaps have been deleted by WAp.
11 By ‘rogues’ he means their Admiral, Jacques Bamberge (WAt p.219), and the other captains in their convoy.
12 The quotation is a fragment of Ennius preserved in Cicero’s de Amiciţia.
13 I have failed to find any information about the ‘Richmondes capp’.
14 Thomas Conyers kept their common purse; cf. WAt p.223.
15 According to WAt p.222 he fell overboard in a scuffle.
16 The Dutch (i.e. German) speaker was George Champian; cf. WAt p.221; the speaker of Spanish was of course JW.
17 ‘skipjack’ is given by OED as a small boat in US usage from late 19th century onwards.
18 ‘cast’ = ‘vomit’.
19 As a verb ‘stark’ means ‘stiffen’, so perhaps ‘we braced ourselves’.
20 ‘at duly’ presumably means ‘at the appropriate time’.
21 26 August was a Friday.
22 ‘sennet’ = ‘sennight’, i.e. a week.
23 ‘thirde’ is error for ‘second’.
24 Apparently sic ; error for ‘lesse’?
25 Portugal was ruled by the Spanish crown from 1580 to 1646.
26 Dan2 p.209 explains that the river which served as the harbour at Salé was only 1½ ft deep at low tide, so the Salé ships were necessarily small and of shallow draught.
27 WAp of course believes strongly in divine providence in general and in particular that the 12 were preserved by divine protection. That apart, his account is markedly free of supernatural events; however, his belief expressed both here and at pp.44–5 that the Moors could use ‘juglinge trickes’ with sword and arrows to discover who and what were aboard distant ships is plainly sincere and shared by WAt p.239. Dan1 p.297 & Dan2 p.238 describes the use of arrows to discover the outcome of proposed assaults on Christian shipping. Two arrows were held close to one another, each representing one side in the contest; after suitable incantations the arrows would approach one another however hard those who held them tried to prevent it—‘quelque effort qu’on fasse pour les retenir’—and the arrow which gained the advantage indicated the potential victor.
28 ‘hole’ = ‘hold’; cf. OED sv. ‘hole’ 6.
29 The Germans were Anabaptist pacifists, probably of the Mennonite sect; cf. WAt p.223 & n26.
30 ‘hale themselves’ seems to mean ‘hauled themselves up’.
31 ‘faulchions’ = ‘broadswords’.
32 Spanish ‘arriba, Christiano’ = ‘up, Christian’.
33 WAp is here drawing a clear distinction between Moors and Turks. This distinction is not primarily ethnic; thus ‘turned Turke’ at pp.48 & 54 seems only to mean converted to Islam; nor is the distinction always clearly maintained. Where it is maintained, it appears that Turks are to be understood as the subjects of the Turkish Sultan; cf. p.60 where he refers to the pirates both at ‘Turkes’ and as ‘men of Argeares’ (i.e. Algiers), whereas Moors are the subjects of the King of Morocco. Of course, that ethnic Turks could be found among the numerous races present at Salé is likely in itself and seems to be confirmed by the names given by WAt for the times of prayer there; cf. WAt pp.249–50 & n.78. WAt distinguishes between Moors and Turks on the basis of the formers’ more precise compliance with the teachings of Islam, but it may be noted that at p.272 he treats Algiers as part of Turkey.
34 Those who are to take the profit are the Patrons among whom the 12 were distributed on arrival at Salé; here and at p.60 it is implied that they were the actual employers of the pirates. However, it may rather be the case that they had contributed to the costs of the expedition; cf. Dan2 p.298 for similar arrangements at Algiers.
35 WAt p.239 states that it was by WAp’s own advice that the 12 rowed with deliberate incompetence, ‘for if once they perceive us able for it, wee shall be kept to it all our lifetimes, without hope of releasement’.
36 ‘doged’ = ‘spiteful’.
37 Spanish ‘boga, Christiano’.
38 ‘overwharte’ = ‘overthwart’ i.e. across.
39 For JW’s account of this event, see Appendix p.80; the fish are presumably tuna.
40 Spanish ‘Que quieres?’ = ‘What do you want?’
41 The captains are the Governor’s fellow-officers, based like him in the Casbah or Castle.
42 no vendere obviously means ‘no sell’; no force presumably represents part of either ‘forcejar’ (= ‘to struggle’) or ‘forzar’ (= ‘to use violence on’).
43 WAt’s sleeping arrangements were less comfortable; cf. WAt p.243.
44 The merchant is named as John Agoretta at WAt p.247, and as Jehan de la Goretta at JW p.41.
45 The Governor was Abd el-Aziz ez-Zarouri (WAt p.253 n.86). He was removed from office in 1625, two years before New Salé declared its independence of the King of Morocco, whose authority the Governor—with manifest difficulty—represented.
46 The Clarke or Scrivener was the receiver of the 10% levy paid by the corsairs on their booty; cf. WAt p.244 n.65; Dan1 pp.173–7; Dan2 p.210 ‘ce qu’ils tirent des prises que font les Corsaires, dont ils payent dix pour cent à leurs receveurs, qu’ils appellent escrivains’.
47 Larbies are called ‘Alarabes’ by JW p.45 and WAt p.428; Spanish employs both ‘Alarabe’ and ‘Alarbe’ for ‘Arab’. Horozco p.40 writes, ‘Alarabes, que son los antiguos y originarios naturales de la tierra’; by this he may mean the indigenous Berbers, but the distinction between Berbers and Arabs might well have been unclear to our authors.
48 ‘of ray’ = ‘array’.
49 JW p.40 calls it a ‘Church’; WAt p.249 uses the correct term ‘Mosque’.
50 WAt p.250 has the same mistranslation. An adequate summary would be: ‘God is great, God is great; there is no god but God, and Mohammed is his messenger. Come to prayer, come to prayer.’
51 This misunderstanding is no doubt due to the Islamic lunar calendar; cf. WAt p.251.
52 For the obligation imposed by dhimmi status on the Jews to wear distinctive clothing, cf. Martin Gilbert In Ishmael’s House (Toronto 2010) p.32. The Jews of Algiers were likewise obliged to wear black caps and garments; cf. Dan2 p.89; even the Christians were permitted to mistreat them: ‘il est permis à chascun, & mesme aux Chrestiens, de leur faire mille affronts’. Dan had visited Algiers in person.
53 ‘brablinge’ = ‘brawling’.
54 This use of ‘nother’ to mean ‘no other thing’ rather than ‘neither (of two)’ seems exceptional.
55 The slave was French; he had intended to swim the river to Old Salé which was under the King of Fez; cf. WAt p.248.
56 WAt says that he lost both ears and had his nose slit; this perhaps illustrates the way in which human memory tends to make atrocities even more atrocious.
57 ‘previall’ = ‘preliminary’.
58 Vergil Aeneid 3.56–7.
59 sic; presumably error for ‘captaines’.
60 i.e. specially employed for that purpose by the patrons.
61 ‘us’ possibly omitted, but cf. OED sv ‘with’ B for this adverbial use, which was obsolete by the 17th century.
62 This difficulty is not mentioned by WAt p.258, who says merely ‘wee entered into one of the pinaces with our marchant’.
63 ‘cellar’ signifies a case or box of bottles; cf. OED sv 4.
64 The poisoning of 10,000 persons would be a remarkable achievement, and WAp’s report is an interesting example of how quickly exaggeration and distortion affect oral tradition. There is no report of poisoning in Squire, William, Newes from Mamora (London 1614)Google Scholar. The dispatch which he is translating is dated 7 August 1614, i.e. immediately after the capture, and there is then no anxiety about the water supply: ‘There a well of reasonable good ware [sic; presumably error for ‘water’] was found, and more they looke and hope for’. However, Horozco p.40 states that soon afterwards, when large numbers of would-be settlers arrived, the inadequate water-supply and the poor-quality foodstuff imported from Spain led to illness characterised by abdominal pain and swelling (‘hinchazon y dolores de vientre’). On pp.50–1 he states that few escaped the illness and that more than 2000 died of it, many on the streets of Cadiz and Gibraltar having returned to Spain. This he contrasts with the not more than 250 who died either fighting or in the perilous crossing of the bar.
65 WAp seems to have muddled his dates at this point. According to WAt pp.256–9 they went aboard ship on Saturday 8 Oct; set sail in the very early morning of Friday 14 Oct and arrived at Mamora that evening; the merchant died and was buried on Saturday 15 Oct. WAp agrees with the latter date, and it is one that the 12 would have been likely to remember so that they could thereafter pray for their benefactor on the anniversary of his death. WAp states that they left Mamora on Tuesday 18 October; this too would have been easy to remember as it is St Luke’s Day, which is how WAt p.262 identifies it.
66 He is called John Bravo de Laguna at WAt p.256; the surname is not uncommon.
67 WAt p.260 calls it a ‘good and wholesome diet and now and then a good cupp of sack.’ WAp’s bad health perhaps made him less able to appreciate it. The ‘filthy and foul mistes’ are caused by the cold waters of the Atlantic; Horozco p.40 includes ‘espesas neblinas’ (‘thick mists’) among the causes of the settlers’ ill health.
68 ‘furre daile’ = planks of fir wood.
69 ‘behinte’ is a northern dialect form for ‘behind’. The next word looks like ‘theils’; ‘them’ is probably the easiest emendation.
70 There is a small lacuna here which could have held a numeral, e.g. ‘7’ which would give approximately the correct distance.
71 i.e. tokening = ‘prospects’.
72 WAt pp.262–3 gives a highly coloured account of this incident and states that there were two merchants; crossing the bar was indeed dangerous; cf. n.64.
73 After ‘live’ the MS is damaged at the crease; three words or so are lost.
74 The two who left the company were JW and Peter Edwards. WAp puts the blame on the master of the other ship. WAt pp.264–5 states that they left ‘contrarie to all faith and former constancie to one another’. It may be that WAt was influenced by JW’s later apostasy. Alternatively WAp, while still at Seville, may not have wished to speak ill of a fellow student.
75 We know from WAt p.265 that the seriously ill member of the 12 was George Champian.
76 The loss of the bottom corner of the page has produced a lacuna of 7 lines each containing approximately 7 words.
77 ‘Sally’ must be an error for ‘Mamora’.
78 The Bishop was Heitor de Valladores Sottomaior; cf. L.M. Jordão, Memoria Historica sobre os Bispados de Ceuta e Tanger (Lisbon 1858) p.49.
79 ‘2’ is an error for ‘1’.
80 WAt p.271 states that the 6 were taken into custody at the church door after Mass; this is far more likely as the authorities would have known precisely when and where they could be found. WAp’s ‘hospitall’ is therefore almost certainly an error.
81 WAt pp.270–1 treats it as a matter of fact that the Huguenot captain proposed to sell both the ship and his Catholic passengers at Algiers. WAp makes no specific allegation; however, suspicion does naturally arise from the fact that the captain first procured a written acknowledgement that the 10 had left his ship of their own volition and then obtained an order compelling them to come on board. It may be that having to leave no less than 4 potential witnesses behind led him to abandon his original intentions; at any rate he apparently tried at first to sail north-west to Cadiz rather than east to Algiers, and he then put in to Gibraltar. That nothing could be proved against him seems to follow from WAt p.273 ‘our Captaine and his mate were discharged for knaves from all command in our ship, and for a more and sufficient reward of their former charge were permitted to depart free from all punishment due for their treacherie’.
82 Damage at the crease has led to the loss of about 7 words.
83 The damage referred to at n.76 has resulted in the loss of 7 lines, each containing approximately 6 words.
84 ‘Apes Hill’ is Jebel Musa (851m) some kilometres west of Ceuta. Jebel Musa and the Rock of Gibraltar were the ancient ‘Pillars of Hercules’, marking the boundary of the Mediterranean.
85 WAp left Spain in 1628; cf. CRS 73 p.50.
86 In fact the town’s name commemorates its rebuilding by Queen Isabella in 1483.
87 Lacuna of about 5 words.
88 A corner of this page has also been lost, containing 7 lines at around 7 words per line.
89 i.e. arrested as vagabonds in accordance with 14 Eliz. c. 5.