This lawless way of
life even became popular. Many Englishmen furnished themselves
with good ships and scoured the seas, but little careful whom
they might plunder." It was found very difficult to put down
piracy. According to Oliver's History of the city of Exeter, not
less than "fifteen sail of Turks" held the English Channel,
snapping up merchantmen, in the middle of the seventeenth
century! The harbours in the south-west were infested by Moslem
pirates, who attacked and plundered the ships, and carried their
crews into captivity. The loss, even to an inland port like
Exeter, in ships, money, and men, was enormous.
[15] Naval Tracts, p. 294.
[16] This poem is now very rare. It is not in the British
Museum.
[17] There are three copies extant of the autobiography, all of
which are in the British Museum. In the main, they differ but
slightly from each other. Not one of them has been published in
extenso. In December, 1795, and in February, 1796, Dr. Samuel
Denne communicated to the Society of Antiquaries particulars of
two of these MSS., and subsequently published copious extracts
from them in their transactions (Archae. xii. anno 1796), in a
very irregular and careless manner. It is probable that Dr.
Denne never saw the original manuscript, but only a garbled copy
of it. The above narrative has been taken from the original, and
collated with the documents in the State Paper Office.
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