by Giles Milton
He immediately realized that he had made a terrible error. The Moors could scarcely believe their luck in surprising an escapee and tightened their grip on the hapless Pellow. “I was carried by them in a little time back to their main guard, and confined in irons, and early the next morning conducted by a strong guard of them to Azzemour.” His guards showed him no mercy and taunted him about his impending execution. “After being severely handled by them,” wrote Pellow, “I was carried before Simmough Hammet Beorsmine [Si Mohammed ben Othman], their commanding officer.”
The rambling Meknes palace was built entirely by slave labor. The sultan made daily inspections of the slaves at work.
Scores of alms collectors worked on behalf of the Barbary slaves; the post was included in a 1688 edition of The Cryes of the City of London.
In 1719, a list of British slaves still alive in Morocco was sent to London. The eighth name on the list is “Tho: Pellow, Boy, Turn’d Moor.”
Slaves were forced to wear heavy chains. One captive in Salé said his shackles weighed fifty pounds.
European padres made frequent attempts to buy back slaves. The sultan accepted their presents with alacrity, but only rarely released his captives.
King George I commanded a large navy, shown here encircling his portrait, but it proved ineffectual in tackling the Salé corsairs.
Secretary of State Joseph Addison tried to win the release of the British slaves in 1717. The mission failed when his emissary insulted the sultan.
Commodore Charles Stewart was urbane and charismatic; he proved skilled at dealing with Moulay Ismail. His right hand was shot off during a sea battle against the French.
Moulay Ismail treated foreign envoys with contempt. He gave long lectures on Islam and staged public executions for the edification of his visitors.
Freed slaves were treated to triumphant processions on their return home. Thousands of Londoners turned out to see the British captives released in 1721.
Escaping slaves faced many hazards: informers, the black guard and a lack of fresh water. Wild animals posed an additional danger; these two escapees are killing a sleeping lion.
Slaves escaping by boat were at the mercy of wind and weather. William Okeley and others (pictured) built a skiff and sailed to Majorca. Pellow also hoped to escape by boat.
Sir Edward Pellew bombarded Algiers with overwhelming force. The once-great city was reduced to rubble and the ruling dey sued for peace.
The dey of Algiers surrendered to Pellew and released all his captives. It marked the end of white slavery.
The crumbling walls of Meknes palace reveal the scale of the sultan’s building project. They were severely damaged in the earthquake of 1755.
This long alley, flanked by palace walls, is where Moulay Ismail liked to ride in his chariot; it was drawn by his wives and eunuchs.
The sultan’s monumental granary—the heri—now lies in ruins. It was said to be large enough to contain a year’s harvest from the whole of Morocco.
The guardian of Moulay Ismail’s tomb shows how the present king of Morocco is descended from the same Alaouite dynasty.
You can buy almost anything in Salé’s Souk el-Kebir. Three centuries ago the only items on sale—at a cost of £35 each—were European slaves.
This officer was powerless to execute anyone without authorization from the town’s governor, who was currently visiting the sultan in Meknes. He therefore “ordered the Moors to put me in prison till his return, when he told them I should be very severely punished.”
The men who had seized Pellow were puzzled by the officer’s attitude. They insisted that he did not need the governor’s approval to execute a captured escapee and reminded him that Pellow “was a Christian, and about to make my escape to Christian-land.” Their words eventually had some effect. Although the officer refused to send Pellow immediately to the gallows, he assured the Moors that his days were numbered. “It was at last agreed between the governor and them,” wrote Pellow, “that I should be kept till their next market-day, when I should be put to death in the market place.” The officer reminded the men that there was a market in four days, “and during that time the neighbourhood might be acquainted with it, and come and see the execution.”
Pellow was terrified by what he heard. He had witnessed the power of the mob on many occasions and now knew that he had little chance of cheating death. He had come so close to making his escape, “and now am I, as any may suppose, under a most grievous agony.” He could only pray that his execution would be quick and painless.
Pellow was led away by a detachment of guards and “for their better securing me, I was directly guarded away by a multitude of those bloodthirsty villains, and put into a very deep and dark dungeon.” Told that food was wasted on a prisoner awaiting execution, he was to be kept “without any allowance from them besides bread and water.” He was therefore extremely surprised when one of the officer’s retinue arrived on the first evening with a bowl of meat. He was even more perplexed when this servant slipped him a secret message—dictated by the officer—to the effect that “I should not be under any apprehension of danger from the mob, for that he had truly considered my case … [and] would deliver me from their rage, even to the hazard of his own life.” The servant could give no clue as to why the officer had taken such an extraordinary decision, nor could Pellow be sure that it was true. Yet the same servant appeared twice every day and each time he came with food and a similar message.
As the Thursday market approached, Pellow grew increasingly nervous. “When he [the servant] brought me my breakfast that same morning (to which I had but little stomach), he told me that I should not despair.” He assured Pellow that the officer intended to spare him the fury of the mob.
Although desperate to believe the man, Pellow felt that he was clutching at straws. “It was but the promise of an infidel,” he wrote, “and at second hand, which made it the more uncertain.” He was half sick with worry when “at ten o’clock, these bloodthirsty villains came, hauled me out of my dungeon, and led me through the street to the marketplace.”
His sense of panic increased still further when he found himself “attended by an insolent mob, still increasing as we went, so that by the time we got to the marketplace, which was sufficiently crowded by the barbarians, to feast their eyes with the blood of an innocent Christian, I was almost ready to expire.” Pellow’s worst fears were confirmed when he saw that Si Mohammed, the officer who had promised to save him, was standing next to the town’s executioner. “I [could not] help,” he wrote, “at the sight of a long murdering knife in the hand of the executioner, being stricken with a very great terror.” Although the officer had promised to intervene to halt the imminent execution, Pellow felt that “[it was] very much to be doubted if that power would be sufficient to save my life.”
As the clamor of the crowd increased, Pellow’s life of captivity flashed before him. Believing that nothing could save him, he watched in terror as the executioner prepared to do his business. “[He] had now his knife ready in his right hand, and with his left hand had taken fast hold of my beard, the better to hold back to cut my throat.” Pellow winced at the anticipation of pain and closed his eyes to the roar of the mob. A second passed, and then another. But suddenly—and without warning—there was a discernible shift in tone. The crowd was no longer crying in exultation. Rather, they were shouting out in rage.
Pellow opened his eyes and was amazed by what he saw. Officer Mohammed was standing beside him and gesticulating wildly to the executioner. “My guardian angel,” he wrote, “stepped forth and took the knife out of his hand.” Pellow noted that he did so with not a moment to spare. “Had not he done [so] that very instant, he would, no doubt … have soon taken from me the small remainder of life that was left in me.”
The officer’s unexpected intervention caused fury among the assembled crowd, who had been cheated of the spectacle of a bloody execution. “And now is there a very hot dispute between the mob,�
� wrote Pellow, “whether I should die or not being the question.” But he had been dramatically reprieved by Officer Mohammed, whose supporters pitched up in the marketplace and demanded Pellow’s immediate release.
Pellow could not fathom why the officer was championing his cause and would never fully understand the reason for his actions. But he seemed to have become a pawn in a long-running struggle for control over rival factions in the town—one that Officer Mohammed fully intended to win. In saving Pellow’s life, against the wishes of the mob, he had demonstrated his authority over his rivals.
Pellow was not yet safe. He was sent back to the dungeon, with the crowd continuing to taunt him that the next market day really would be his last. But Officer Mohammed “told [me] not to despair” and assured Pellow that he would be released as soon as the town’s governor returned. Even so, it was two months before Pellow was finally set free and told to leave Azzemour. “In open daylight, [he] delivered me from my nasty prison, and set me again at liberty to depart.”
Pellow set off toward his garrison at Agoory without further ado. Why he did not press ahead with his flight remains a mystery. In his account of the incident, he claims that he was not inclined to break the oath he had made with Officer Mohammed and his retinue. “As I had promised them, upon my honour, to return again to Agoory,” he wrote, “so I did.” He arrived back at the kasbah after an absence of four months, expecting to be punished with great severity. Yet his escape bid was never once mentioned by his fellow soldiers, nor by his commanding officer. “What I was very much surprised at,” wrote Pellow, “I never once heard the last syllable from the emperor concerning this my attempt to escape.” The only conceivable explanation was that Moulay Ismail had not been apprised of his flight.
PELLOW’S ESCAPE HAD very nearly cost him his life, and he was extremely fortunate not to have been executed. Lesser men might have abandoned all hope of fleeing from Morocco, but Pellow vowed to die in the attempt rather than spend the rest of his life in servitude. “Notwithstanding my so late miraculous escape from the bloody knife at Azzemour,” he wrote, “ … I was then thoroughly resolved to pursue it.”
But it was some years before he could make his second bid for freedom. The exact date is unclear; Pellow’s disclosure that it was during a period of civil turmoil suggests that it may not have been until 1728 or 1729. More certain is the fact that he decided to team up with fellow English renegade William Hussey, “a Devonshire man,” whom he knew to be “very trusty and honest.” He was nevertheless cautious when he first broached the subject with Hussey. “Now, Will, said I, I desire you will answer me sincerely to a question I am about to ask you.” Pellow informed Hussey of his desire to escape and asked if he would be prepared to join him. Hussey leaped at the opportunity, confiding to Pellow that “it was what his soul had for a long time longed after; and he was ready, even at the expense of the last drop of blood, to make the experiment.”
The men headed for Salé and began to scour the coastline for a suitable craft in which to make their escape. Pellow had abandoned his previous idea of seeking refuge in one of the Portuguese garrisons and also felt that there was little point in waiting for an English merchant ship to appear in port. Instead, his plan was to steal a boat and sail her to the British garrison in Gibraltar. “And now are mine eyes busily employed in looking sharp out after the ships then in the harbour, and my thoughts … on what other help I might with safety procure me.”
On the first morning after their arrival in Salé, Pellow and Hussey were presented with an unexpected opportunity to escape. They spotted a small sloop at anchor in the harbor—one that looked perfectly suited to their purpose—and Pellow befriended two of her Moorish crew. He informed them that he could provide them with wine, if they were interested, and the delighted sailors immediately invited him to come aboard their boat. As Pellow was rowed across to the sloop, he told them that he “was one of the emperor’s soldiers [and] that under him I bore an office of some distinction.” He continued chatting to them as he boarded the vessel, but was all the while “viewing the dimensions of the sloop, sails & co.” With mounting excitement, he realized that this was the perfect ship in which to make his escape. “Now is my heart to that degree inflamed,” he wrote, “that every drop of the blood in my veins is upon the ferment how I should manage this affair.”
When Pellow was back on shore, he told Hussey of his conviction that they could engineer their escape in this very sloop. “I do not in the least doubt,” he said, “by our prudent management, [this vessel] will answer both our expectations, even without our losing any blood about the matter.” There was just one hurdle to overcome. The sloop required a minimum of three crew members, and Pellow asked Hussey if he could think “of a third person that might be trusted, for that two were not sufficient to work the vessel.”
Hussey did indeed have a suggestion. He had once served alongside an English renegade named William Johnston, “a Kentish man” who was currently stationed in Salé. Johnston had been captured at sea during the same summer as Pellow, while on a voyage from Lisbon to Amsterdam, and had voluntarily converted to Islam—the only member of his crew to have apostatized. “I cannot altogether answer for his fidelity,” warned Hussey, “though I never heard anything to the contrary of his being an honest man.” The two men approached Johnston with considerable caution and were relieved to discover that he was “very desirous to make his escape.” Without further ado, the three renegades began to work out a strategy.
They proposed to offer a keg of brandy to the two Moors charged with guarding the vessel and encourage them to drink deeply. When they were inebriated and unable to fight back, Pellow and his friends would seize the sloop and slip quietly out of the harbor. They would then head northward toward Gibraltar, which they were confident of reaching within a few days.
They decided to put their plan into action without delay. When Pellow next spoke with the guards, he again befriended them, saying, “If you will come tomorrow night at ten of the clock, I will meet you here and bring with me some more brandy, sugar and lemons.” The Moors were only too agreeable, and Pellow asked if they minded him bringing “my comrades, as honest cocks as any in Barbary, and we will go on board together and heartily enjoy ourselves.”
The three Englishmen spent the day in nervous excitement. They were confident of success, for the guards had already revealed themselves to be drunkards. Yet they were also on edge—aware that they were certain to be executed if their mission failed.
“We got all our little matters in readiness,” recorded Pellow, “as two pair of pistols, the brandy & co.” Although the men had no charts or navigational equipment, they were not unduly troubled. They knew they could hug Morocco’s Atlantic coastline until they reached Cap Spartel—the entrance to the Mediterranean—then use the stars to guide them northeastward across the short but treacherous Straits of Gibraltar.
At ten o’clock that night, the three of them made their way down to the waterfront. Pellow was delighted to see the approach of the sloop’s little rowing boat and prepared to lead his friends aboard. But suddenly—and quite without warning—William Johnston announced that he had had a change of heart. “To my very great surprise,” wrote Pellow, “[he] told us he could not by any means go that night.”
Pellow and Hussey were completely taken aback. The rowing boat was about to reach the shore, and there was no time to argue or reason. Both men realized that they had no option but to abandon their escape attempt and feared that they would now be betrayed by Johnston. Thinking on their feet, they went down to the waterfront, leaving their erstwhile comrade in hiding. They told the Moors that “as we had good reason to believe there were some people on the watch, we had deferred our going on board till the next night.” As both men still hoped to escape on the sloop and had no desire to arouse the suspicions of the Moorish guards, they told them that “in point of good manners, we had brought them a couple of bottles of brandy, sugar and lemons.” The two Moors s
eemed happy enough, “telling us, after a most pleasant manner, that they would go on board and drink our healths, and that we might depend on their coming again the next night.”
Once the Moors had departed, Pellow and Hussey turned on Johnston with a vengeance, telling him angrily that “in an affair of that nature, to do as he had done was using both us and himself very ill.” Pellow added that he had wrecked a very real chance of escape. “Had he gone about as heartily as he promised,” he said, “we should in all likelihood have been then safely landed on some Christian shore, quite out of the power of the Moors.” What made the two men even more frustrated was the fact that the sloop was filled with guns, beeswax and copper “to the value of five or six thousand pounds.” Such a cargo would have proved a huge bonus if and when the men reached Gibraltar.
Johnston was in no mood for compromise; indeed, he was equally furious with Pellow and Hussey. Having reappraised the idea of escape, he thought it to be a highly foolish undertaking. He had also spent much time reflecting on whether or not he really wanted to take flight. In England, he would have neither money nor prospects and would be returning to a life of abject destitution. Here in Morocco, he was provided with free meals and had a position of sorts as one of the sultan’s foot soldiers. With haughty disdain, he told Pellow “that he had again considered maturely of the affair … and found it to be quite different from what it had first appeared.” He said that he thought their plan was nothing more than “a foolish whimsey come into our heads [and] impossible to be executed.” He then declared his intention of informing the governor of Salé if the two men persisted in their escape.