British Slaves on the Barbary Coast

The fishermen and coastal dwellers of 17th-century Britain lived in terror of being kidnapped by pirates and sold into slavery in North Africa. Hundreds of thousands across Europe met wretched deaths on the Barbary Coast in this way. Professor Robert Davis investigates. I took boat to Youghal and then embarked on the vessel John Filmer , which set sail with passengers. So wrote the Reverend Devereux Spratt - carried off in April for several years' bondage in Algiers, while attempting a simple voyage across the Irish Sea from County Cork to England.