MARITIME HISTORY 



As piracy died down, the scourge of Dunkirk privateering, which was 

 little different, became more and more virulent. Philip II had always hesi- 

 tated to issue letters of marque, not for humanitarian reasons but because 

 there were so few seamen in Spain, and permission several times given to his 

 subjects had been in each instance speedily withdrawn. Philip III reversed 

 this policy for Spain, and the governors of the Low Countries had never 

 known any reasons for hesitation ; therefore, as Dunkirk, Sluys, Nieuport, 

 and Ostend fell into their hands, they became privateer bases which inflicted 

 terrible injury on English commerce. As early as 1590 the Weymouth 

 burgesses were asked to set out two vessels at their own expense, to help to 

 clear the Channel, with a promise that they might keep all they captured. -^■' In 

 1600 the masters of storeships, taken up for Ireland at Poole and Weymouth, 

 were refusing to sail because they regarded their capture by Dunkirkers as 

 certain.-'* The accession of James I brought peace with Spain, but the 

 Dutch and Flemish privateers now inflicted on the English the same miseries 

 the latter had imposed on neutrals a generation earlier. What was far worse, 

 because it added the horrors of slavery to material loss, was the appearance 

 in the Channel of Mohammedan pirates, usually Algerines or Saleemen, 

 from the Mediterranean. They came under the guidance of English and 

 Dutch renegades, the former being mostly seamen thrown out of employment 

 by the peace; and before long, aided by the rapid degeneration of the English 

 navy, they established a reign of terror on the south coast. Like the pirates 

 of the preceding reign, they found Swanage and Studland Bays convenient 

 haunts, which caused a petition to be sent to the Privy Council that the 

 block-house at Peverel Point might be repaired and armed as a protection 

 against them.-'° 



The first naval armament for foreign service of the reign of James was 

 due, nominally, to the necessity for chastising these Moorish pirates by 

 attacking them in their lair at Algiers. The fleet, under Sir Robert Mansel, 

 was really sent to the Mediterranean to give weight to the king's foreign 

 policy at the moment, but it was a good excuse to make the ports, as chiefly 

 interested in the ostensible object, bear most of the expense. A circular 

 letter from the Privy Council in February, 161 8-19, recited that 300 ships 

 and many hundreds of men had been taken by the Algerines within a few 

 years, and that the king was resolved to extirpate them. To help towards 

 this laudable purpose Weymouth and Lyme were each assessed at £4.^0, 

 and Poole at ^^loo.-'* The towns writhed as usual. The mayor of Poole 

 lost no time in replying that their only trade, with one exception, was the 

 Newfoundland fishery, and that they could not raise jTioo but would try to 

 send £s°-~^^ C)n 10 March the mayor of Weymouth and Melcombe wrote 

 to the judge of the Admiralty Court to ask his intercession ; he said that on 

 account of their heavy losses by the Algerines only £100 had been raised ; 

 that the Council had judged of the wealth of the town by the customs 

 returns, but that three-fourths of the customs were paid by inland merchants 

 and that the townspeople were not interested in it."'' The Weymouth cor- 

 poration volunteered a contribution of ^loo in settlement, or offered to 



*" Jets o/P.C. 4 March, 1589-90. =" Ibid. 10 Oct. 1600. 



"' S.P. Dom. Jas. I, civ, No. 63. "' Ibid, cv, No. 89. 



'" Ibid, cvii, No. 39. ^'» Add. MSS. 36J67, fol. 377. 



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