captives marriages and baptisms nevertheless took place, and some are
recorded in the parish register of Castmell, Lancashire, as having
been performed in "Argeir" by Mr. Spratt.

Matters went from bad to worse. Four hundred British ships were taken
in three or four years before 1622. Petitions went up to the Houses of
Parliament from the ruined merchants of the great ports of England.
Imploring letters came in from poor Consul Frizell, who continued to
plead for succour for twenty years, and then disappeared, ruined and
unaided. Touching petitions reached England from the poor captives
themselves,--English seamen and captains, or plain merchants bringing
home their wealth, now suddenly arrested and stripped of all they
possessed: piteous letters from out the very bagnios themselves, full
of tears and entreaties for help. In the fourth decade of the
seventeenth century there were three thousand husbands and fathers and
brothers in Algerine prisons, and it was no wonder that the wives and
daughters thronged the approaches to the House of Commons and besieged
the members with their prayers and sobs.

Every now and then a paltry sum was doled out by Government for the
ransom of slaves, whose capture was due to official supineness; and we
find the House of Lords subscribing nearly L3,000 for the same object.
In the first quarter of the seventeenth century 240 British slaves
were redeemed for L1,200; and the Algerines, who looked upon the whole
matter in a businesslike spirit, not only were willing to give every
facility for their purchase, but even sent a special envoy to the
Court of St. James's to forward the negotiations. Towards the middle
of the century a good many more were rescued by Edmond Casson as agent
for the Government. Alice Hayes of Edinburgh was ransomed for 1,100
double pesetas (two francs each), Sarah Ripley of London for 800, a
Dundee woman for only 200, others for as much as 1,390; while men
generally fetched about 500.[85] Sometimes, but very rarely, the
captives made their own escape. The story is told by Purchas[86] of
four English youths who were left on board a prize, the _Jacob_ of
Bristol, to help a dozen Turkish captors to navigate her, and who
threw the captain overboard, killed three more, drove the rest under
hatches, and sold them for a round sum in the harbour of San Lucar by
Cadiz. Even more exciting were the adventures of William Okeley, who
in 1639 was taken on board the _Mary_ bound fo