Page:Daring deeds of famous pirates; true stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers (1917).djvu/110

 freights and of men held captive in slavery we have only to mention the following: The Salomon of Plymouth had been captured with a load of salt and a crew of thirty-six men. The Elizabeth of Guernsey was seized with ten Englishmen and a number of Bretons, her value being 2000 florins. The Maria Martin, under the command of Thomas More, with a crew of thirty-five, had been taken while returning from Patrasso in Morea. Her value was 1400 florins. The Elizabeth Stokes of London, under the command of David Fillie of London, whilst bound for Patrasso, had been also captured, but her value was 20,000 or 30,000 florins. The Nicolas of London, under the command of Thomas Foster, had also been seized, at a loss of about 5000 florins. So also in like manner could be mentioned the Judith of London, the Jesus of London, the Swallow of London.

But England, of course, was not the only country which suffered by these piratical acts. In 1617 France was moved to take serious action, and sent a fleet of fifty ships against these Barbarian corsairs. Off St. Tropez they captured one of these roving craft, and later on met another which was captured by a French renegado of Rochelle. The latter defended himself fiercely for some time, but at length, seeing that the day was going against him, he sunk his ship and was drowned, together with the whole of his crew, rather than be captured by the Christians. And from now onwards, right up to the nineteenth century, there were at different dates successive expeditions sent against these rovers by the chief European powers.

Many of these expeditions were of little value, some were practically useless, while others did only ephemeral good. Thus, you will remember, the only active service which the navy of our James ever saw was in 1620, when