The History of Ireland: 17th Century. Bagwell Richard

Sallee rovers long continued to infest the south-west coast, for the Crown was weak and the jealousy of the Admiralty officials prevented the maritime population from protecting themselves. The French, whom Wentworth called ‘most Christian Turks,’ allowed English prisoners to be led in chains across France and shipped from Marseilles to Algiers. Five years after the Baltimore disaster these pirates entered Cork harbour, and carried off prisoners in open day. Lord Conway, who was serving in the fleet a few months later, wrote to Wentworth: ‘When I come home, I will make a proposition to go with some ships to Sallee, the place whence the pirates come into Ireland; and I do firmly believe they may be brought to render all their prisoners, and never to trouble us more: the like peradventure might be done by Algier, but our King cannot do it alone.’ A successful expedition went to Sallee a year later under Captain Rainsborough, and some captives from Ireland were surrendered, after which the rovers ceased to be troublesome.[187]

      Pirates of many nations.

      The whole Irish coast infested by them.

      Wentworth frees the Irish seas, 1637

After the defence of the Irish seas was entrusted to Plumleigh and James, the Algerines found the Welsh or Cornish coasts safer for their purpose. But English pirates were not wanting, and Edward Christian, governor of the Isle of Man under Lord Derby, seems to have had an understanding with some of them. Wentworth’s chief trouble was with privateers who issued from St. Sebastian with Spanish letters of marque or commissions against the Dutch, but who did not confine their depredations to them. Men were murdered in the Isle of Man, a French ship was boarded at sea, and honest traders of all nations were afraid to stir. There was always one squadron on the Irish coast, another returning, and another refitting. Dutch ships were seized in the Shannon, in the Liffey, and in Belfast Lough; a breach of the law of nations which the captains excused to their own crews by pretending a licence from the King of England to ‘pull the Hollanders by the ears out of every port.’ Wentworth, on the other hand, maintained that the whole of St. George’s Channel ‘being encompassed on every side with his Majesty’s dominions, hath ever been held the chief of his harbours.’ Nicolalde, the resident Spanish agent in London, not only gave commissions to buccaneers of English birth, but interceded for them when they became obnoxious to their own government. Wentworth had a bad opinion of Nicolalde, but he humoured him, and made proposals for trade between Ireland and Spain. The English Admiralty were induced to grant the Lord Deputy a vice-admiral’s commission for Munster, while Plumleigh and James continued to scour the narrow seas. Thus by a mixture of force and diplomacy, piracy was put down for the time, and on August 15, 1637, Wentworth was able to announce to Coke that there was ‘not so much as the rumour of Turk, St. Sebastian’s men, or Dunkirker—the merchant inward and outwards secured and assured in his trade.’[188]

      FOOTNOTES:

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      [173] Welwood’s Memoirs of the most Material Transactions, etc., being short and well written, may have had a good deal to say to forming public opinion. There are a great many editions, and Lord Chatham praised the book. Wentworth to Conway, January 20, 1625–6 in State Papers, Domestic. Wentworth’s letter to Sir Robert Askwith, December 7, 1620, is in Camden Miscellany, vol. ix. Other electioneering letters are in the Strafford Letters, i. 8–13. Hobbes says it is hard to judge motives, but that Wentworth’s promotion was a sign of the King’s weakness, ‘for in a market where honour and power is to be bought with stubbornness, there will be a great many as able to buy as my Lord Strafford was’ (Behemoth, part ii.)

[174] Hacket’s Life of Williams, pt. ii. p. 67, ed. 1692; Heylin’s Life of Laud, pt. i. lib. 3, pp. 184, 196, ed. 1671; Laud to Wentworth, July 30, 1632 (misprinted 1631), April 30, and September 9, 1633, Strafford Letters; Wentworth to Laud, October 1633, ‘in a letter not printed,’ Additional MSS., 38, 538, f. 197. See also Gardiner’s History of England, vii. 152.

[175] Wentworth to Coke, August 3, 1633; to Lord Treasurer Weston, January 31, 1633–4, Strafford Letters; The King to Radcliffe, November 13, 1632 in State Papers, Ireland, and to the Lord Deputy, ib. May 17, 1633.

[176] Philip Mainwaring to Wentworth, October 29, 1630; Laud to Wentworth, March 11 and October 20, 1634; the King to Wentworth, June 16, 1634, in Strafford Letters.

[177] Howell’s Letters, July 1, 1629. Viscount Wilmot to Cottington, January 10, 1631–32; Weston to Wentworth, October 11, 1631; Wentworth to Sir E. Stanhope, October 25—all in Strafford Letters. The letter from Laud placed by Knowler at July 30, 1631, certainly belongs to 1632, when Wentworth was meditating his passage to Ireland (Laud’s Works, vi. 300).

[178] The King to the Lords Justices, January 12, April 14, 1632; the Lord Deputy’s Propositions, February 22; Wentworth to the Lords Justices, January 18, October 15; Sir W. Parsons to Wentworth, February 4; Lord Cottington to Wentworth, October 18; Wentworth to Weston, October 21—all in Strafford Letters.

[179] Wentworth to Cottington, October 1, 1632; to Lord Mountnorris, August 19; to the Lords Justices, October 15, Strafford Letters.

[180] The Lords Justices to Wentworth, February 26, 1631–2; Wentworth to Lord Carlisle, May 20; to Weston, June 9; to Coke, August 3; Edward Christian to Wentworth, October 4, all in Strafford Letters. Captain Plumleigh to Nicholas, July 29, 1633, in State Papers, Ireland. Court and Times, ii. 189.

[181] Earl of Cork’s Diary, 23–25 July, 1633, in Lismore Papers, 1st series, ‘a most cursed man to all Ireland and to me in particular.’ Wentworth’s friendly visit on the 24th is noted. Newsletter from Walsingham Gresley for Lord Bristol’s information in Additional MSS. 29, 587, f. 17. Wentworth to Coke, August 3, 1633; to Essex, April 13, 1634, in answer to his letter of February 18, Strafford Letters. Shirley’s Hist. of Monaghan, 265.

[182] Lismore Papers, 1st series, iii. 203; Gresley’s newsletter, ut sup.; Captain Plumleigh to Nicholas, July 29, 1633, in State Papers, Ireland; Radcliffe’s statement in Strafford Letters, ii. 430. Wentworth had been privately married in the previous October to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Godfrey Rhodes, only one year after his second wife’s death. The shortness of the time may have been a reason for concealment, and once in Dublin it was evidently desirable that she should not become the centre of intrigue in her husband’s absence.

[183] Wentworth to Weston and Coke, August 3, 1633, in Strafford Letters, and to Carlisle, August 27, in vol. viii. of the Camden Miscellany, p. 5.

[184] Wilmot to Cottington, January 10, 1631–2; the King to Wentworth, May 27, 1633; Wentworth to Coke, January 31, 1633–4. As to the King’s excuse for appointing Cary, see Lord Carlisle to Wentworth, February 10, 1633–4, Strafford Letters. Third Report of Hist. MSS.