near Tenedos; the Hendrika when becalmed near Scio. The Bocchese was armed, and the Austrians killed several of the pirates in beating off the two large boats in which they attacked her. This was on the 7th of January, '39.

"The Hendrika was taken on the 1st of September, '38, and an account of this affair immediately appeared in the Journal de Smyrne. The circumstances were these :-'Hailed by a country boat, rowed but by two men, she was about to supply them with the water they pitifully requested, when several armed fellows started from their hiding-place under the half-deck of the boat, fired a volley upon the brig, wounded three of her crew, ran alongside, and boarded. Compelling the Dutchmen to proceed to Ipsara they there hove-to behind the island, sent all hands below, bound the captain's arms, filled their own boat with plunder, and then scuttled the brig! On the departure of the pirates the crew and captain, after much trouble, fortunately regained the deck, but all their efforts at the pumps were of no avail; the vessel continued to fill with water, and at last she heeled over and sunk when about two leagues to the northward of Scio. All hands fortunately reached Smyrna in one of the brig's boats, but as to the pirates nothing more was heard of them. This was in '38, the Bocchese affair was in '39, six months before the death of Sultan Mahmoud.' "

Pray continue your yarn," said Webster, "it interests me much." "As far as my own information goes," said Mac Cuming, "there was, as I said just now, a lull among the pirates in 1840; it is true I was not in the Mediterranean in that year, and therefore not exactly in the best position for news, but the 16th of June, '41, proved the 'water-rats' to be again out of their holes. On that day two piratical vessels, a schooner and a cutter, chased a large Turkish caïque from Tenedos to Cape Baba, opposite Mytelene-the birth-place of Barbarossa-and ultimately they gained so fast upon her that to escape she was compelled to run ashore. During the chase a continual fire of musketry was kept up. These were probably the same vessels of which the Countess Grosvenor speaks in her Narrative of a Yacht Voyage,' by stating that Mr. Lander, the English consul, warned her on the 23rd of June, '41, against two piratical craft cruising off the Troad and Mytelene. Her ladyship's yacht, however, the Dolphin, did not fall in with them. When the news of the attack on the caïque reached Smyrna, H.M.S. Dido put to sea."

"But caught no pirates," said Millerby, "though an Austrian brig of war accompanied her."

"Our government," said Knighton, "seeing the number of English vessels trading between Liverpool, London, and Constantinople, ought always to keep a smart sloop-of-war on station at Tenedos, and also an armed steamer cruising among the islands. Too many of the fleet are kept idle at Malta. Here already are cases enough to attract ministerial attention in the Margaret, Hope, Hellespont, and Thomas Crisp, in addition to the foreign vessels that have been taken or attacked. And doubtless scores of cases are never reported or known in England at all." "Like enough," said Millerby, "and dead men tell no tales. member that at the close of '41, when the Candiotes fruitlessly rose against the young sultan, who had then not reigned two years, several vessels were fallen in with in the Arches,* abandoned and plundered, and

I re

"Arches" is the term generally used by sailors to indicate the Grecian Archipelago.

it was conjectured that the craft, ostensibly fitted out in the Greek islands to assist the Candiote insurgents, had in reality turned pirates. It is well known that they were well provided with arms and ammunition, and they probably plundered and murdered in all directions."

"Well," said Webster, 'as pirates seem to continue so much the fashion in Greek waters, we had better exercise all hands at the great guns the very first calm we fall into. I think I could nearly hit a beefcask myself, wind and weather permitting; but, after all, a rifle is the best piece to pink a pirate with."

"We have two six-pounders," said Millerby, " as you know, but, perhaps, you are not aware our owners have actually sent us to sea without a single shot! Of powder there is galore, more than enough. So far we are in luck."

"As for shot," said Mac Cuming, "we'd soon find a make-shift, by cramming the guns with any thing; with nails, bottles, coals, and junks of wood. Besides we have a few bullets."

"And pirates," said Millerby, "are frequently to be beaten off by bullets and a little pluck. A French brig, Le Petit Matelot, beat off some of the rascals when at anchor off Scala Nuova, near Ephesus, on the 5th of May, '42, and you have already heard that the Bocchese did the same in January, '39, near Tenedos, when under sail."

"True enough," said Mac Cuming, "yet the success of Le Petit Matelot in May, '42, must still be contrasted with the unfortunate affair near Smyrna but a few weeks afterwards. The pirates were probably the same in both cases."

"What was that Smyrna business ?" inquired Webster.

"On the 19th of July, '42, a boat with a crew of eight," replied Mac Cuming, "was off Kara Bournu, bound out of Smyrna to Calymnos, having on board a sum of received for a cargo money of sponge which they had just landed at the former port. Pirates attacked them in the night, and murdered seven men out of the eight on board, plundering the craft of every thing as a matter of course. The villains are now seldom content with plunder; they seem to delight in blood."

"Tis a strange thing," said Webster, "that a Turk is seldom, if ever, found on board these pirate craft in the Levant."

"The majority of the crews," replied Mac Cuming, "are invariably and indisputably Greeks, with frequently a few Sclavonians, and occasionally a Maltese or two. Albanians seldom show their noses out of the Adriatic, in which sea the Austrian marine is tolerably vigilant. Piracy, however, occasionally occurs among the Ionian Islands."

"Never mind the Adriatic or the Ionian Islands, as we're now bound to the Arches. Give us another case or two, Mac Cuming. Your last was in July, '42. I had no conception piracy yet existed to such an extent."

"The countless isles of the Ægean," said Mac Cuming, "afford so many places of concealment, that very many years may elapse before a trip through the Arches will be unattended with danger. The chief rendezvous of the celebrated Hugo Crevelier, who flourished as a pirate for twenty years, is said to have been Paros-there is a long account of that worthy in the second volume of Emerson's Letters'-but Paros is but a poor hiding-place now in comparison with others I could myself point out, and some of which are fortunately known to our surveying officers."

"The rascally Corsairs come westward 'sometimes," said Knighton. "A case of piracy that occurred in '43 I happen myself to remember; it was perpetrated on the 2nd of December in that year, on a spot we recently passed. In this instance a sharp, black, polacca brig, coppered, with an ordinary figure-head, very light, and having no appearance of ports, sailing fast, according to every account, boarded a brig and a barque off Malaga, kept possession of the barque a whole night, and the next morning scuttled her. The brig reported that about thirty men, apparently Greeks, were seen in the pirate, whereupon one of the consuls at Malaga wrote down to Gibraltar, and H.M. St. Locust was sent in chase, but never came up with the pirate. She had as bad luck as H.M.S. Dido at Smyrna."

"What became of the crew of the barque that was scuttled at Malaga ?"

"I never could ascertain," replied Knighton.

"The western case you have just mentioned," said Mac Cuming, "occurred in December, '43, not three months after Kalergi's useful revolution at Athens, and I find that in the preceding October or November, a Greek pirate schooner captured a Levant country vessel, near Rhodes, murdering nine persons. The two leaders of the pirates were here recognised, but never actually brought to trial, so far as I have yet heard. They were called Yani Zanni and Spano. This was not the first known instance in which the former had shown himself an assassin."

"The pirate schooner to which you have just alluded," said Millerby, was ultimately taken at Samos and sent to Rhodes. She was called the Santa Trinità. All the pirates but five escaped, and these five, when taken, made some horrible confessions at Rhodes to Hassan Pasha, who would willingly have struck off their heads, but as his prisoners were Greeks, he was compelled to write for instructions to Constantinople. I therefore presume the fellows were ultimately forwarded to Athens. What became of them I know not."

"What disclosures did they make ?" asked Webster.

"They confessed," said Millerby, "about a dozen cases of piracy, in each of which they had murdered their victims; and they acknowledged having taken from one of their prizes a young girl of eighteen or nineteen years of age, of surpassing beauty, and confessed that during the three days she was kept on board the pirate, she was assaulted by all the crew, and forced to abandon herself to their guilty passions. This done, they cut off her beautiful tresses, and were about to decapitate her, when she requested to be thrown into the sea instead of undergoing the knife, and overboard she was immediately thrown."

"Infernal monsters!" exclaimed Webster.

"For those fellows," said Knighton, "even impalement were too easy a death; or horizontal crucifixion on the sands, to drown by inches as the tide rose."

"Or frying to death over a slow fire," added Millerby.

"In '44," continued Mac Cuming, "Mediterranean piracy seemed much on the increase; a pirate schooner, a pirate brig, and a pirate barque were frequently reported, and it began to be believed that the ruffians occasionally changed their rig as well as their station. Several

foreign vessels were ransacked about the month of April; on the 2nd of March, the Clipper, Captain Hammond, from Liverpool to Malta, and Smyrna, was chased off Cape Passaro by a very suspicious bark, which at one time was within a mile of her; she had a small heart, painted white, on her stern, showed no boats, and from the rapidity of her movements Captain Hammond believed her to be well manned. It was afterwards ascertained that while this vessel was chasing the Clipper, two small craft left Sicily for Malta with specie, but they reached not their destination. One was never heard of; the other was a few days afterwards picked up at sea, abandoned, with water-casks emptied and other signs of having been plundered."

"By that confounded barque, doubtless," said Knighton.

"I hold the same opinion; and about the same time a French vessel, the Jean Baptiste, Captain Martin, was dodged by a piratical-looking craft near Ivica, a spot towards which the pirate was like enough to have proceeded from Malta, for to remain long in one place was no part of the rascal's plan."

"In July or August, '44," said Millerby, "a Neapolitan war steamer captured a corsair off Calabria, manned, it was said, by sailors of all nations. I read that in the Nautical Magazine at the time. I think the volume is still in my berth. "Tis a great pity our consuls and naval officers do not furnish that periodical with every case of piracy that

occurs."

"The capture by the Neapolitans did not suppress piracy nevertheless," said Mac Cuming, "for about September or August, '44, I was at Athens when some pirate-boats appeared in their old haunt, the Doro Passage, inside the island of Negropont, captured two merchant vessels and one of Otho's armed cutters with 16,000 drachmas on board, putting the crews to death. Some of their headless bodies washed ashore at Andros, where no less than twenty were picked up on the beach. Two French steamers started after the pirates from Athens, but as usual the villains were not to be caught. A few weeks afterwards, in October, a party of Palichars seized a small vessel in a creek near Atalanti, and thence set off on a piratical cruise. Near Skyros they commenced operations by taking three boats laden with general merchandise, but God knows what became of them afterwards. However, there was piracy enough in the Arches at the close of the year '44. In '45 the ruffians were rather more quiet."

"But," said Millerby, "in this very year of '46 in which we are now cruising, as sure as we have just finished dinner, and got a fair wind—” "There's no doubting that," said Knighton.

"Certain as that is," continued Millerby, "it is equally certain the pirates are still at their old tricks, now in 1846, for just before leaving Liverpool I received a letter from Smyrna, dated July 31, stating, that on the 19th of July, two boats manned by thirty-two pirates, landed at Nicero, near Rhodes, attacked the magazines of the island and carried off all the valuables they contained. They also boarded a craft belonging to Yacopo Nicolaide, whom they ill-treated, and also despoiled of his property, which they carried down to Nicaria, below Scio, and there disposed of. After which they set sail and were last seen near Patmos. Now this, mind you, occurred in July '46, comparatively but a few weeks ago, Sept.-VOL. LXXXIV. NO. CCCXXXIII.

D

so we ourselves must keep a sharp look-out if becalmed among the islands."

"Sail, ho!" shouted the look-out, stationed on the port-bow. "Where away?"

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'Right a-head, sir, on the larboard tack, close-hauled."

"You should have seen her before, Savage, she's not a couple of miles from us."

"She's a fruit schooner," said Millerby, putting down his spy-glass after taking a good look at her hull and canvass.

"Show our number," said Mac Cuming, which was accordingly done, and after the flags had fluttered aloft for about five minutes, the stranger made them out, hoisted Marryat's answering pendant at his mainmasthead, and showed the red ensign of Old England from the peak. In a quarter of an hour he tacked, showed his own number at the main and Marryat's telegraph flag at the fore. On referring to the code we found our friend to be the Bantam, and his telegraphic message was simply this," Boats-of-H. M. S. Syren*-have-recently-taken-60 -pirates-at-Stanchio--with-their-4-craft."

"It's devilish odd," said Knighton, "that such a signal should be made just as we were speaking of pirates. Talk of the devil, and his imps appear,' is, however, an old proverb. Quand on parle du loup, on voit la queue, dit-on.""

Syren's exploit has, however, lessened our own chance of a 'brush,'" said Webster.

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Why, Web," exclaimed Knighton, "you seem earnestly bent on battle with these brigands afloat! By the holy poker! thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than the nine worthies! There's a Shaksperian touch for you, my boy; as for myself I've no great ambition to cross swords or pull triggers with a petticoated palikar. The saints defend us from their fierce attacks. Hollo! the fruiter's about, and will fetch within hail of us. Aft with you, she'll pass under our stern, and her skipper there in the lee-rigging, looks as if he had something to say."

But why should I pester the reader with the words that came down to us from the Bantam's skipper, as that smart craft passed under our stern to windward? It may be more serviceable to inform him, that each and all the cases of piracy recorded above are really and truly FACTS NOT FICTION.†

Vide Nautical Magazine for 1846, page 551.

The following letter was recently despatched by Count Sturmer, the Austrian Internuncio at Constantinople, to the government at Vienna. Some of the pirates alluded to carry seven guns of a side.

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Constantinople, 4 July, 1848.

"I beg leave to inform you that the Sublime Porte has despatched a fleet, under the command of Maschouk Pasha, towards the Turkish coasts, beyond the Dardanelles, for the purpose of protecting merchant-vessels against the attacks of pirates, who are making their appearance more frequently than before. The Porte having invited me to support these measures, taken in the interests of trade, I have requested the Austrian consuls at Smyrna, Salonica, Beyrout, Cyprus, and Candia, to afford the commander of the fleet, Maschouk Pasha, all the assistance he might be compelled to claim according to the maritime laws and existing treaties."

(Signed)

"COUNT STURMER."