Note 71 — THE PETTY PIRATES.
Reading edition
This is the standard account of Christian slavery under the Corsairs. It is contained in the anonymous work entitled Several Voyages to Barbary, &c., [translated and annotated by J. Morgan,] second ed., London, Oliver Payne, &c., 1736. It is singular that although Sir R. Lambert Playfair’s account of the slaves in his Scourge of Christendom (1884) p. 9 ff. is practically taken verbatim from this work, there is not a word to show his indebtedness. The name of Joseph Morgan is never mentioned in the Scourge of Christendom, though the author was clearly indebted to him for various incidents, and among others for a faultily copied letter (p. 35) from the well-known ambassador Sir Francis Cottington (whom Sir R. L. Playfair calls Cottingham). A good many errors in the Scourge of Christendom are due to careless copying of unacknowledged writers: such as calling Joshua Bushett of the Admiralty, “Mr. Secretary Bushell,” or Sir John Stuart, “Stewart,” or eight bells “eight boats,” or Sir Peter Denis, “Sir Denis,” or misreckoning the ships of Sir R. Mansell’s expedition, or turning San Lucar into “St. Lucas.”