Part 51

Thomas Pellow was given as slave to Muley Spha one of the Sultan's favourite sons, but, as Pellow says, a sad villain. "My business now was to run from morning to night after his horse's heels; during which he often prompted me to turn Moor, and told me, if I would, I should have a very fine horse to ride on, and I should live like one of his best esteemed friends." As Pellow declined this invitation, "he committed me prisoner to one of his own rooms, keeping me there several months in irons, and every day most severely bastinading me.... My tortures were now exceedingly increased, burning my flesh off my bones by fire; which the tyrant did, by frequent repetitions, insomuch, that through my so very acute pains I was at last constrained to submit, calling upon God to forgive me, who knows that I never gave the consent of the heart, though I seemingly yielded by holding up my finger."

He was then, after having been instructed in the Moorish language, appointed to be chief porter to the Sultan's harem, where resided the Sultana and thirty-eight concubines. He received strict orders that no one should be admitted without due notice. On one occasion the Sultan arrived and knocked to be admitted without having previously intimated his intention of paying a visit to his harem. The outer porter made no difficulty in admitting him, but Thomas Pellow absolutely refused to admit His Majesty as he had received no notice that he was coming, and when the Sultan continued to knock, he discharged his blunderbuss through the door. The Sultan was so delighted at his trustworthy character and behaviour on the occasion, that he cut off the heads of the two complaisant door-keepers, and promoted Pellow to be one of his bodyguard.

After a few years the Sultan, "being on the merry fun, ordered to be brought before him eight hundred young men, and soon after as many young women, and he told the men, that he had on several occasions observed their readiness in obeying him, he would therefore give every one of them a wife; and which indeed, he soon did, by giving some by his own hand (a very great condescension), and to others by the beckoning of his head, and the cast of his eye, where they should fix. After they were all coupled and departed, I was also called forth, and bid to look at eight black women standing there, and to take one of them for a wife, at which sudden command, I (being not a little confounded) immediately bowing twice, falling to the ground and kissing it, and after that the Emperor's foot, humbly entreated him that he would be graciously pleased to give me one of my own colour. Then, forthwith sending them off, he ordered to be brought forth seven others, who all proved to be mulattoes, at which I again bowed to the ground, still entreating him to give me one of my own colour; and then he ordered them also to depart, and sent for a single woman, full dressed, with two blacks attending her. I being forthwith ordered to take her by the hand and lead her off, perceived it to be black also, as soon after I did her feet; at which I started back, and being asked what was the matter, I answered him as before; when he, assenting, ordered me to lift up her veil and look at her face; which I readily obeying, found her to be of a very agreeable complexion, the old rascal crying out in the Spanish language, _Bono, bono_, ordering me a second time to take her by the hand, lead her off, and keep her safe."

By this wife Pellow had a daughter. The Sultan was a monster of cruelty, but according to Pellow there was not much choice in rotten apples; he saw the rise of several, and one was as bad as another. He says of the first he served: "He was of so fickle, cruel, and sanguine a nature, that none could become for one hour secure of life. He had many despatched, by having their heads cut off, or by being strangled, others by tossing; but scarce would he on those occasions afford a verbal command, he thinking that too much--generally giving it by signs or motions of his head and hand.

"The punishment of _Tossing_ is a very particular one and peculiar to the Moors. The person whom the Emperor orders to be thus punished is seized by three or four strong negroes, who, taking hold of his arms, throw him up with all their strength, and at the same time turning him round, pitch him down head foremost; at which they are so dexterous by long use, that they can either break his neck at the first toss, dislocate his shoulder, or let him fall with less hurt. They continue doing this as often as the Emperor has ordered.

"The Emperor's wrath is terrible, which the Christians have often felt. One day, passing by a high wall on which they were at work, and being affronted that they did not keep time in their strokes, he made the guards go up and throw them off the wall, breaking their legs and arms, and knocking them on the head. Another time he ordered them to bury a man alive, and beat him down along with the mortar in the wall.

"In the year 1721 the Emperor despatched El Arbi Shat, a man of one of the best families in Barbary, being descended from the Andalusian Moors, and deserved the esteem both of his own countrymen and of us. Part of the crime laid to his charge was for going out of the country without the Emperor's knowledge, and having been friendly himself with Christian women, and often been in liquor. He was also accused of being an unbeliever. Early one morning he was carried before the Emperor, who commanded him to be sawed in two; upon which he was tied between two boards and sawed in two, beginning at the head and going downwards, till the body fell asunder, and must have remained to have been eaten by dogs, if the Emperor had not pardoned him--an extravagant custom, to pardon a man after he is dead, but unless he does so, nobody dares bury the body."

Pellow describes the condition of the Christian slaves: "The severest labour and hardships inflicted on malefactors in Europe are levity compared with what many worthy persons undergo in this modern Egypt. At daybreak the guardians of the several dungeons, where the Christian slaves are shut up at night, rouse them with curses and blows to their work, which consists in providing materials for the Emperor's extravagant buildings, stamping earth mixed with lime and water, in a wooden box near three yards long and three feet deep, and of the extended breadth of the wall. Their instrument for this is a heavy wooden stamper. Others prepare and mix the earth, or dig in quarries for lime stones; others burn them. Some are employed to carry large baskets of earth; some drive wagons drawn by six bulls and two horses, and, after the toil of the day, these miserable carters watch their cattle in the field at night, and in all weathers, as their life must answer for any accident. The task of many is to saw, cut, cement and erect marble pillars, and of such as are found qualified, to make gunpowder and small arms; yet does not their skill procure them any better treatment than those who, having only the use of their limbs without any ingenuity, are set to the coarsest works, as tending horses, sweeping stables, carrying burdens, grinding with hand-mills. They have all their respective taskmasters, who punish the least stop or inadvertency, and often will not allow the poor creatures time to eat their bread. After such a wearisome day, it frequently happens they are hurried away to some filthy work in the night time. Their lodgings in the night are subterranean dungeons, round, and about five fathoms diameter and three deep, going down by a ladder of ropes, which is afterwards drawn up, and an iron grate fastened in the mouth; and here they lay upon mats. Neither has their fare anything more comfortable in it, consisting only of a small platter of black barley meal, with a pittance of oil per day. This scantiness has put several upon hazarding a leap from very high walls only to get a few wild onions that grow in the Moors' burying place."

Pellow developed considerable military ability and was employed in military operations against rebels; he was made a captain, and was present at several sieges, and witnessed the barbarity wherewith were treated the men of a captured town. On one occasion the troops were required to cut off the heads of all the male inhabitants and bring them to the Sultan; but as the number was so great and the stench threatened to breed a pestilence in the army, the general was compelled to slice off the ears and pickle them in barrels and convey these only to the Sultan at his capital, who graciously under the circumstances accepted the ears in lieu of the heads.

Pellow was several times wounded, and he made occasional abortive attempts to escape. When wounded, returning from one of his expeditions, he received news that his wife and daughter were dead, and he calmly observes: "I must own that it gave me very little uneasiness, as I thought them to be by far better off than they could have been in this troublesome world, especially this part of it; and I was really very glad that they were delivered out of it, and therefore it gave me very little uneasiness."

It is startling to think that in the reign of George I there should be such numbers of English as well as French, Spanish and Italian captives in Morocco and Algiers and Tunis, and that their redemption should have to be the work of private charity, and not be a determined undertaking of Government.

In 1791 England framed a treaty with Morocco giving our merchants freedom to sail the seas unmolested, and permitting renegades to return to their old faith and obtain their liberty on certain conditions. But captives continued to be taken by the corsairs as of old: "Shall a Moslem," asked one of the sultans, "be a slave to his word, like a dog of a Christian?" In 1800 Muley Suliman agreed with Spain for a reciprocal interchange of captives, and similar contracts were entered into with other powers. In 1817, acting under _force majeure_, Suliman was compelled to disarm his war vessels, and promise to put an end to this atrocious system, that had lasted too long. But although piracy was no longer officially recognized, it did not wholly cease. Whether the Sultan connived at the infraction of treaty, or whether the inhabitants of the Riff shore acted independently of him, merchant vessels continued to be boarded and taken and the crew enslaved.

In 1828 the English established a blockade of the Morocco coast in retaliation for the continuance of these outrages, and in 1829 the capture of an Austrian vessel by pirates led to the bombardment of the ports of Tetuan, Azila, Rabat, and Sallee. At length the insolence of the Moorish corsairs led to the Spanish war of 1859-60, which taught the Moors a salutary lesson.

In 1856 Sir John Drummond-Hay succeeded in recovering some captives, and in exacting an assurance that similar conduct should not recur. But although attacks by piratical ships on the high seas were brought to an end, wrecking was pursued with zest and impunity. Any vessel that was cast upon the coast was regarded as a legitimate prize, and its crew who came ashore were carried into the interior and enslaved. In this way Riley, Adams, and Puddock were able to write their experiences, on their escape from captivity.

Sir Arthur Brook in 1831 wrote that "the country Moors on all parts of the coast are constantly on the look out for Christians, and instantly make prisoners of all who have either landed accidentally or have been shipwrecked. Parties that are occasionally formed, as ours was, to visit Cape Spartel are even subject to this, and in one recent instance the lady of the English Vice-Consul, who had strolled to a short distance out of sight of the guard that attended her, was on the point of being made a prisoner by a body of natives who surrounded her and her party, thinking they were alone, until undeceived by the timely appearance of the escort."

A visitor to the Riviera will see the little towns and villages walled up, and with strong gateways and towers. They were protections against Algerine and Moroccan corsairs, who would land and raid the coast for captives; and there are old men still living who had heard from their fathers piteous stories of their being taken and carried off into bondage and cruel slavery in Africa.

There are still, and there have been in the past, numerous Europeans who have been renegades, and have lent their wits and experience to the Moors, but they are nearly all scoundrels of the worst description, _forçats_ who have escaped from the prisons in Spain or Algiers, and other vagabonds unable to show their faces in Europe. Dr. Brown writes: "I know of no British renegade--the last and the most respectable of the order, a Scotchman, who lived at Rabat, much esteemed for his intelligence and honourable conduct, having died two years ago. Were the history of these turncoats fully known, the story of their lives would be a curious chapter in the annals of human nature. One of the most romantic of these tales was that of an old white-bearded man who, when the French military commission first entered Fez in 1877, was seen silently and sad-eyed, supported by two attendants, contemplating a uniform with which in days gone by he was very familiar. This aged renegade was known as Abd-er-Rhuman; but his christened name was Count Joseph de Saulty, formerly a lieutenant of engineers in the army of Algeria. In a weak moment he eloped with the commandant's wife, and remained in Tunis until she died. Then, becoming painfully anxious of the grave position in which he was placed as a deserter from the colours, he passed into Morocco, changed his faith, and as a military adviser of the then Sultan rose high in the imperial favour. He died in 1881, and is buried at the gates of Fez, though so thoroughly did he put the past behind him, that his son, now occupying a high position in the Court, is entirely ignorant of any language except Arabic. Another renegade of note was the English officer still remembered as Inglis Bashaw under whom Muley-el-Hassan, the present Sultan, learned the art of war, and who was the first individual to impart anything like discipline to the Moroccan army. Why he came to Morocco is not known, and so jealously was his identity kept dark, that in a recent work by the Viscount de la Montonère his real name is declared to be unknown. At this date there can be no reason for concealing that it was Graham; and I have been told by those who have every reason to know that, like so many others who incur the jealousy of the Moorish dignitaries, he died of poison."

The time of Morocco piracy is at an end, but that on land there are still captures has been of late years but too evident--the last being the capture of Sir Hugh Maclean.

But to return to Thomas Pellow.

After several ineffectual attempts at escape, and after incurring hairbreadth escapes, Pellow succeeded eventually in making his way to Gibraltar. But even there he was not safe. A Jew, agent for the Sultan of Morocco, claimed him, and demanded that he should be surrendered, as a Mussulman and as a subject of the Moorish Sultan. But General Field-Marshal Joseph Sabine, then Governor of Gibraltar, answered peremptorily that, as an English-born subject, he was an Englishman, and could not be surrendered. He went on board a vessel for England and reached Deptford, "and going on shore, directly to the church, returned public thanks to God for my safe arrival in Old England."

He remained in Deptford, very kindly received by a brother Cornishman, William Jones, and there, finding no vessel bound for Falmouth, he went to London and thence embarked on board a vessel commanded by Captain Francis, who readily offered him a passage to Truro.

He landed at Falmouth. The news of his coming had spread. "My father's house was almost quite at the other end of the town. I was, before I could reach it, more than an hour; for notwithstanding it was almost dark, I was so crowded by the inhabitants that I could not pass through them without a great deal of difficulty--every one bidding me welcome home, being all very inquisitive with me if I knew them, which, indeed I did not, for I was so very young at my departure, and my captivity and the long interval of time had made so very great an alteration on both sides, that I did not know my own father and mother, nor they me; and had we happened to meet at any other place without being preadvised, whereby there might be an expectation or natural instinct interposing, we should no doubt have passed each other, unless my great beard might have influenced them to inquire further after me."

He returned to Penryn on the 15th October, 1738, his birthday.

His narrative concludes with a touching account of his gratitude to God for having brought him back, and an expression of his earnest desire to serve God truly all the rest of his days upon earth.

THE ORIGIN OF THE ROBARTES FAMILY

Colonel Symonds, who accompanied Charles I when he was in the West, says in his diary: "A gentleman of the county told me the original of the Lord Roberts his family. His great-grandfather was servant to a gentleman of this county--his hynd. Afterwards lived in Truro, and traded in wood and fferzen--got an estate of 5 to £600. His son was so bred, and lived there too, putt out his money, and his debtors paid it him in tynn. He engrossing the sale of tyn, grew to be worth many thousands--£30,000. His son was squeezed by the Court in King James his time of £20,000, so was made a Baron, and built the house of Lanhydrock, now the seat of Lord Roberts" (pp. 45, 46). The hind, who founded the family, and sold wood and furze for the tin smelting, was Richard Roberts of Truro, who married Joan Geffrey of S. Breage, and died in 1593. His son, who continued the wood store and got paid in tin, was John Roberts, who married Philippa, daughter of John Gaverigan, of a very ancient family. He died in 1615.

Before the introduction of coal in tin smelting, the fuel employed was peat, furze, i.e. gorse that produced a quick, fierce blaze, and wood. Rapidly the trees in Cornwall were disappearing, as the produce of tin ore became greater, and the lack of the necessary fuel was becoming a serious impediment.

Carew, speaking of the woods in Cornwall, when he compiled his Survey, says that in the west of the county they were scarce, and the few that were preserved were principally employed in making charcoal for the blowing-houses. "This lacke," he adds, "they supply either with steam-coal from Wales, or dried turfes, some of which are also converted into coal to serve the tinners' turne."

From the charters of King John and Edward I we learn that power was granted to the tinners to take turf and wood where they could for the purpose of smelting the ore; but as the woods disappeared, and the turf was being used up in the neighbourhood of the works, they could not travel to great distances to procure the needful fuel. Richard Roberts saw his opportunity and seized it. He made contracts with the owners of coppices and furzy downs and peat bottoms, and gathered his supplies in one great store at Truro. He did more--he obtained coals from Wales, and sold to the mining adventurers at a handsome profit to himself, thus saving them the waste of time in wandering about obtaining fuel where they could. Thus he laid the foundations of a business that was largely increased by his son John. But this latter embarked on another branch of money-making. He lent cash to the adventurers in the mines. "As poor as a tinner" was a proverbial expression in Cornwall, and "a tinner is never broke till his back is broke." But if the working miner remained poor, the moneylender waxed wealthy on the miners' work.

Carew observes that the parishes in which the tin was worked were in a "meaner plight of wealth" than those which were agricultural. Vast amounts of tin were raised, but little of the profit stuck to the hands of the toilers in the mines.

Tinning was not carried on by large companies, but by small men; three or four would combine to take a set. They cut four turves at the bounds, paying a certain sum down to the Duchy or to the private owner of the land, as rent; and also owing a toll of the tin raised to the proprietor of the land. These small men were without capital, and they were constrained to borrow of Roberts, and he let them have the requisite money at a rate of interest we should consider extortionate. Queen Elizabeth was unable to borrow money of the estates of Holland under 25 per cent, and we may judge what would be the rate of interest demanded by the usurer of the working miner.

But that was not all. The miner did not pay the interest in cash, but in tin, and tin at the value pretty arbitrarily laid down by the moneylender, so that he had the adventurer in two ways. Nor was this indeed all. He often advanced to the miner not cash alone, but the tools for his trade, the timber for shoring up the shafts, and the machinery, such as it was, for pumping the water out of the mines.

There was an additional means of getting money, and also of acquiring lands. Carew gives us a curious account of the manner in which the London merchants of his time took advantage of any want of money Cornish gentry in London might experience in order to defray their expenses there, by binding them to furnish tin for money advanced, at great ultimate loss to the Cornish men. They also had their agents in Cornwall, who advanced money to the needy tinners, partly in wares and partly in money, upon agreement that they should furnish certain quantities of tin at the next coinage, by which the tinners experienced great loss.

With regard to the loans to the adventurers, Roberts possessed the inestimable advantage of being on the spot, and so prepared to supply them with the fuel and the capital they needed. But there were Cornish gentry who wanted to go to London, and desired loans to cover their expenses in town. They went to Roberts: he furnished the supplies. As may be well expected, these gentry did not make money in London, they became greatly impoverished there, and Roberts, we may infer, was able to take their estates, or large slices out of them, on the security of which he had made the advances.

How hard the work of the poor tinners was, on whom the usurers preyed, we learn from Carew. "In most places," he says, "their toyle is so extream, as they cannot endure it above four hours a day, but are succeeded by spels; the residue of the time they weare out at coytes, kayles, or like idle exercises."

Richard Roberts, the son of John, amassed great wealth, and was knighted 11 November, 1616. At this time he was threatened with prosecution by the Privy Seal for usury, and he only escaped trial by paying a bribe of £12,000. He bought a baronetcy of James I in 1621, and was created Baron Truro in 1625. One of the charges brought against Buckingham, when impeached in the House of Commons, was that he had received a bribe of £10,000 from Richard Roberts for negotiating for him his elevation to the Barony of Truro. This is confirmed by the deposition of Roberts himself (_Calendar State Papers_, 1677-8, p. 220; cf. 1625-6, p. 298).