The Inception of the Turkish Raid, and Its Central Character 31

Chapter 1 The Inception of the Turkish Raid, and Its Central Character

In the spring of 1627 a corsair captain named Murat Reis was in the English Channel, seeking to raise a crew for his ship. He had set his sights on Iceland.1 Murat Reis’ home port was nowhere near: it was far away to the south, in the city of Salé in Morocco on the Atlantic coast. At that time Salé was known pri- marily as a stronghold of “Barbary pirates.” Their fast ships or corsairs, crewed by mariners also known as corsairs, carried out lightning strikes or razzias on European coastal communities, and seized European vessels at sea. They took captives and sold them into slavery in North Africa and/or offered them for ransom. While Salé was not the only port from which the corsairs operated, it had acquired a fearsome reputation in Europe. As he sailed northward along the coast of Europe, Murat Reis was not alone: he was accompanied by Dutch and English ships. One of them was captained by an infamous Dutch pirate, Claes Gerritz Compaen, an old comrade of Murat who was heading home in order to retire from the seafaring life. Four of the ships in the convoy were vessels of the Dutch navy, bound for the Isle of Wight of the south coast of England. A certain John Harrison, an emissary of the English crown, had agreed with the Dutchmen that he would take on board his ship English people who had been enslaved in North Africa and later freed, and return them to England. He had negotiated their release with the authorities in Salé – not a simple process, as the slaves’ owners required compensation for their “property.” But the Moors who controlled Salé provided the funds to buy the slaves’ freedom and hand them over to Harrison, as a sign of their goodwill towards the English. Murat Reis was not only a corsair captain, but an admiral of the Salé fleet – and thus formally in charge of all corsair activities on behalf of the king (cherif). In practice, however, his powers were limited. He was also involved in arranging the release of the English captives, and he and Harrison had become friends. “… a Dutch renegado but a great frend to our nation”, wrote Harrison in his letters, “never doing hurt to any [Englishmen],

1 Claes Wassenaer, Historisch Verhael aller ghedenckweerdiger Gheschiedenissen in Europa…. 13-14 (Amsterdam 1628), 61v.

Figure 1 Names and places in Europe and the Mediterranean related to the Turkish Raid