94 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
Dutch, under Van Tromp, swept the Channel with a broom at his 
masthead, 1 and she only breathed freely again when that splendid 
seaman Blake taught his countrymen the way to victory. 
But the path to success was thorny. One of the very frequent 
entries in the records of the time related to the dread Turkish 
corsairs and Sallee pirates which infested our coasts, particularly 
the western, encouraged perhaps by the weak naval police of the 
Channel. These pirates carried on a regular trade. First they 
would capture a ship, confiscate the cargo, sell the crew as slaves, 
and then allow some of them to ransom themselves on payment of 
sums of money of from £30 to £300 ; and so regular had this 
system become that in 1625 the master, wardens and assistants of 
the Trinity House reported to the Privy Council that there were 
"from 1200 to 1400 Englishmen captives in Sally, all or the 
greatest part taken within twenty or thirty miles of Dartmouth, 
Plymouth, and Falmouth. When the winter came, then the Sally 
men go to Flushing and Holland, where having supplied all wants, 
and the winter passed, they go to sea again. If they want men in 
those places with the Dutch they are furnished." The Trinity 
masters go on to complain, and with reason, that the coast is not 
guarded by some handsome ships to defend the king's subjects, 
and that our friends are not restrained from arming and aiding the 
infidels. 2 
To pay off the debts incurred by these poor returned captives, 
frequent entries will be found of briefs and collections made in 
churches and elsewhere ; and the depredations of Algiers and her 
punishment are not unknown in our own century. 
From the beginning of the seventeenth century the trade of the 
Port of Plymouth had been steadily increasing. The Trelawnys 
had obtained large possessions in the state of Maine, and though 
the estates are now lost to the family the Americans are much 
interested in the facts of the early settlement of the colony. A 
volume of the Trelawny papers is being prepared in America, and 
it is to be hoped that at some not far distant date a copy of the 
book, especially interesting to Plymouth readers, may be presented 
to our Institution by the Maine Historical Society, under whose 
auspices the work is being carried out; I need hardly say that 
such a present would here be highly valued and carefully pre- 
1 8 His. MSS. Rep. pt. i. 245, in 1614, 1617, 1618. 
* 8 His. MSS. Rep. pt. i. 242b. 
