The Sack Of Baltimore - Poem by Thomas Osborne Davis

Engraving of a Moorish slave auction from Pierre Dan’s Historie van Barbaryan en des zelfs Zee-Roovers (Amsterdam, 1684). There they were paraded, chained and nearly naked, while prospective buyers inspected the merchandise.

Element of surprise

At 2am on the morning of 20 June some 230 men, armed with muskets, landed at the Cove. Quickly and silently spreading out, they divided up and waited at the doors of the 26 cottages along the shoreline. At a given signal, brandishing iron bars to break the doors and firebrands to torch the buildings, they launched a simultaneous attack on the sleeping inhabitants. The terror of the population can only be imagined as they were wrested from their beds by strange men speaking an unknown language. Ironically, Joseph Whitehead, an earlier captive, described his captors’ style of dress as one that did ‘much resemble that of the ancient Irish’.
In the initial foray 100 people were seized. Thomas Corlew and John Davis were killed in the fray. Morat Rais then deployed 60 armed men in an ambush formation along the track leading to the town; taking between 120 and 140 men with him, he continued along to the main settlement, intending to mount another surprise raid.
John Hackett, singled out in subsequent correspondence as an ‘Irish Papist’, accompanied Rais on the raid. Hackett’s motivation was not explored in his testimony and must remain a matter of speculation. Repeating their tactic of a simultaneous surprise attack, the marauders entered 40 houses, rifled 37 of them and captured more victims before the alarm was raised by William Harris, who awakened his neighbours by firing a musket. As another of the inhabitants began to sound a drum to rouse the population, Rais realised that the element of surprise had been lost and retreated back along the track to the cover of the ambush site, and thence to the Cove. The corsairs lost no time in returning to their anchored ships with their booty of twenty men, 33 women and 54 children and youths, to add to the crews of the Dartmouth ship and the Dungarvan fishing-boats. Captain Hooke later claimed that an additional ‘30 men at least from Kinsale’ were taken, but no mention of these captives appears in subsequent documents. Indeed, if men were taken from Kinsale, Hooke’s delay in responding, given this forewarning of pirate activity, seems very irresponsible.

Women and children treated with relative kindness

From the narratives of ransomed captives it is possible to piece together the probable events that took place aboard ship. Many recounted an initial period of harsh treatment for the men in order to ‘break them’. For the first hour or so any male captive who did not keep out of his captors’ way was severely beaten, and in some instances actually hacked to death in a bloody frenzy. Owing to their high retail value, women and children were treated with relative kindness; curtains were erected to allow privacy, facilities for washing were offered, and they were allowed complete freedom of movement below decks. Icelandic narratives recounting a 1627 raid led by Morat Rais emphasise the kindness shown towards children by his crew.
Prior to sailing, five captives were returned to shore—two elderly people from Baltimore along with Hackett, Carew and Fawlett . Hackett was later tried and condemned to death at a sitting of Cork assizes; there appear to be no records of Fawlett and Carew’s fate. Between 3pm and 4pm , the two ships hoisted anchor and, with a total of 154 captives, began the long voyage back to Algiers and the slave auction. On 10 August James Frizell, the English consul, reported the arrival of 89 women and children and twenty men from Baltimore, two more than were claimed in the State Papers to have been taken.
Inhabitants of the town who had managed to escape in the confusion had immediately raised the alarm. On 21 June Sir William Hull wrote to the earl of Cork, expressing his concern at two good pilots having been taken from Baltimore and his willingness to send ‘two sakers and shot to Baltimore and Crookhaven , but there is a complete lack of powder’. Frantic efforts were made by local people to effect a rescue.

James Salmon of Castlehaven unsuccessfully tried to persuade a Mr Pawlett, who had a ship lying at anchor, to pursue the raiders. He also wrote to Captain Hooke, urging him to set sail with all speed. Hooke replied that he was unable to comply owing to a lack of provisions and ten months’ arrears of pay. He bluntly stated: ‘We cannot go to meet the Turks . . . until we are victualled’. It was several days before Hooke arrived on the scene, by which time the ships were long gone.
Hooke later reported a rumour that the Algerians had been captured off the coast of Spain. A vitriolic correspondence of blame and counter-blame soon erupted. The earl of Cork demanded that Captain Hooke be removed from his position, while Hooke sought to transfer blame to a Bandon supplier whom he claimed was negligent and corrupt, resulting in a lack of provisions.

Sold into slavery

The Baltimore captives were helpless victims awaiting their fate. In Algiers, Frizell reported that all had arrived alive and requested funds to pay for their release. These funds were not forthcoming, owing to the English government’s newly adopted policy of not paying ransoms, as it was believed that to do so would encourage the taking of hostages and act as a disincentive to sailors to defend their ships.
Detainees were immediately taken to the basha, an official who had a right to ten per cent of all booty, including slaves. The rest of the captives, with men and women segregated, would have been sent to slave pens. There they were paraded, chained and nearly naked, while prospective buyers inspected the merchandise. Those not sold in the initial auction were housed in storage facilities or bagnios—large, unsanitary blocks that supplied casual, and expendable, labour on a contract basis. Children had usually been removed from their families by this point and a process of acculturation had begun. There were exceptions, however. Among the 232 captives ransomed by Edmond Cason in 1646 were three children, all male, who were redeemed along with their mothers. Of the total number repatriated by Cason the majority were men, with only eighteen women, whose average price far exceeded that of the men: Elizabeth Alwin of London cost 356 and a quarter dollars, while Mary Bruster of Youghal fetched 300 dollars, the average price for a man being 150 dollars. The ransom prices were determined by the original cost price, though Cason did suspect that the figures had been inflated.
The actual sale price achieved depended on the abilities of the individual, plus an estimation of how high a ransom could be demanded for them. Hands were inspected to see whether they were calloused, and captives were tortured to reveal the identity of any wealthy individuals. Those who had skills such as carpentry or military experience were highly valued, while others were condemned to a short brutal life as a galley slave or labourer on one of the basha’s many building projects. White women were highly valued, and most would have been bought as items of prestige, destined to spend their lives as concubines; for many of them this would have been a life of comparative luxury, any drudgery being assigned to black slaves. There are few references to women being raped, although there is a report of a young woman being despoiled while still ashore during the Icelandic raid of 1627. Whether the lack of records is due to such attacks being considered unremarkable and thus going unrecorded or because they did not occur is a matter for conjecture.

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