They Know
That Spain, Sardinia, And Almost All The Catholic Powers In The
Mediterranean, Adriatic, And Levant, Are At Perpetual
War with
those Mahometans; that while Algiers, Tunis, and Sallee, maintain
armed cruisers at sea, those Christian powers will not
Run the
risque of trading in their own bottoms, but rather employ as
carriers the maritime nations, who are at peace with the
infidels. It is for our share of this advantage, that we
cultivate the piratical States of Barbary, and meanly purchase
passports of them, thus acknowledging them masters of the
Mediterranean.
The Sardinian gallies are mounted each with five-and-twenty oars,
and six guns, six-pounders, of a side, and a large piece of
artillery amidships, pointing ahead, which (so far as I am able
to judge) can never be used point-blank, without demolishing the
head or prow of the galley. The accommodation on board for the
officers is wretched. There is a paltry cabin in the poop for the
commander; but all the other officers lie below the slaves, in a
dungeon, where they have neither light, air, nor any degree of
quiet; half suffocated by the heat of the place; tormented by
fleas, bugs, and lice; and disturbed by the incessant noise over
head. The slaves lie upon the naked banks, without any other
covering than a tilt. This, however, is no great hardship, in a
climate where there is scarce any winter. They are fed with a
very scanty allowance of bread, and about fourteen beans a day
and twice a week they have a little rice, or cheese, but most of
them, while they are in harbour knit stockings, or do some other
kind of work, which enables them to make some addition to this
wretched allowance.
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