A True Account of the Captivity of Thomas Phelps at Machaness at Barbary,

A Chapter by Exagorazo Press

And of his strange escape in company of Edmund Baxter and others, as also of the burning of two of the greatest pirate ships belonging to that kingdom, in the river of Mamora, upon the thirteenth day of June, 1685.

And of his strange escape in company of Edmund Baxter and others, as also of the burning of two of the greatest pirate ships belonging to that kingdom, in the river of Mamora, upon the thirteenth day of June, 1685.

For those hostages surviving their initial capture and enslavement, the next major hurdle was raising the ransom that might buy their freedom. For the average seaman, this was an impossible task: sailors, both on military and merchant ships, were not paid a monthly salary, but rather received a lump sum at the successful conclusion of their voyage. When the ship went down or was captured, their wages went with it, along with any chance of redeeming themselves. These unfortunate souls often ended their days at the oars of a slave galley.

In the aftermath of the Crusades, several religious orders were founded for the purpose of ransoming Christians kidnapped by Muslims, with the primary intent of saving them from forced conversion. These orders, such as the Trinitarians, the Redemptorists, and the Lazarites, operated up until the time of the French Revolution, when their assets were seized and their property confiscated. The priests and brothers of the orders would often conduct ransom negotiations on behalf of the captive’s family, take up collections to pay the required sum, and sometimes even offer themselves as collateral, allowing the hostage to travel home and raise the needed funds.

After the Reformation, however, sailors from Protestant countries like England were unlikely to receive aid from these religious sources. Their families were left to raise the money on their own, a task that often took years and that was often unable to be completed before the captive’s death. By the 17^th century, family members were regularly petitioning Parliament for help; in 1625, a group of “distressed wifes of neere 2,000 pore mariners” petitioned King Charles I to make ransom arrangements with Morocco in order to free the men. A mission was eventually sent, but returned in 1627 with only 197 released hostages.[i]

In the years preceding the English Civil War portions of the Ship Money collected on behalf of the King were set aside for the redemption of captives in the Barbary States, and the failure to obtain their release has been cited as an indirect cause of the war.[ii] In 1641, “An Act for the Relief of the Captives, taken by Turkish, Moorish and other Pirates, and to prevent the taking of others in time to come,” was passed by Parliament, authorizing an additional one percent tax on all imported and exported goods for three years, in order to raise the funds to ransom English sailors enslaved in North Africa.

During the Interregnum, Parliament was active on behalf of the captives, passing an “Ordinance for Collections to be made for relief of Captives in Algiers” in 1643; the “Ordinance for the Redemption of Captives in Algiers” in 1644; and yearly continuing resolutions up until 1654. Sadly though, these efforts resulted in only a few hostages returning home.

By the 1680s, the time of Thomas Phelps’ capture, ransom arrangements were mainly handled by merchants operating in the commercial centers of the Barbary States, but even a large sum such as the one hundred and fifty pounds offered for Phelps was often unable to win a hostage’s freedom. And in some cases, such as the unfortunate 1680 incident related by Phelps, the ransom was paid, only to be pocketed by Moulay Ismail, who then resold the redeemed captives back into slavery to new masters.

This incident, which inspired some disturbingly anti-semitic remarks from Phelps, was a typical example of how the tyrannical rulers of the Barbary States would set their oppressed minorities, the Christians and Jews, against each other, reducing the risk of their rising up against their common enemy. During the reign of Moulay Raschid, Moulay Ismail’s brother and predecessor, Jews were expelled from many areas of Morocco and their towns and synagogues destroyed. Moulay Ismail ordered these to be rebuilt; with the constant threat of slaughter hanging over their heads, the Jewish leaders complied, using the only available labor force: the Christian slaves.[iii]

Despite these grim realities, Phelps’ escape and return were proof that even the most brutal of despots could not completely extinguish the hope for freedom and faith in God’s deliverance.

[i] “Still waiting for an apology from the shores of Tripoli,” An Englishman’s Castle,

[ii] Nabil Matar, Britain and Barbary, 1589-1689, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005, pg. 48-51.