| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
xl SONGS AND BALLADS |
||
|
The Night came on, a pleasant gale appears, They left each other ; and directly steers To her desired Port: safely arrived Our English Captain, and all that survived. Sixteen were wounded, and three killed outright; The Ship sore shattered, and Sails burnt in fight; Only the Sprit and Mainsail left untore, Which brought them safely to the English Shore : Where being arrived, were by his Majesty And Royal Duke welcomed most graciously. For which brave Act the King an Order gave The Captain should a Chain and Medal have. The Merchants did with honour him commend Because their goods he bravely did defend.
Prose narratives of this engagement are to be found in the Calendar of Domestic State Papers for 1671 (pp. 536, 554). 'King Charles in consideration of" that stout and memorable action of Captain Baddison . . . was pleased to order a gold chain and medal for him' (The Historians Guide, 1688, p. 82). Another merchant captain, Robert Robertson, Charles knighted for fighting an Algerine man-of-war (Le Neve's Knights, p. 2). More often weakly armed merchantmen were captured in defiance of treaties, as the narratives of captives such as Adam Elliot, taken in 1670, Joseph Pitts in 1678, and Thomas Phelps in 1684, all illustrate. A petition dated between 1671 and 1681 affirmed that since the last peace the Algerines had taken not less than 140 British ships, and had more than 1,500 English slaves, 'who suffer and undergo most miserable slavery, put to daily extreme and difficult labour, but a poor supply of bread and water for their food, stripped of their clothes and covering, and their lodging on the cold stones and bricks ; but what is more, their extreme hard and savage lading them sometimes with great burthens of chains, and shut up in noisome places, commonly |
||