Record

D239 - FitzHerbert family of Tissington - [16th-20th cent]
- O - Public office - 1626-1942
  - N - Papers of Sir George Treby (1643-1700) and George Treby (c1684-1742) - 1626-1751
    - 1 - Correspondence

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Archive Reference / Library Class No.	D239/M/O/1077
Title	From Richard Mitchell "a poor captive in Argeir" [Algiers]: to his wife in Plymouth. "... the sadness of our condition is beyond the tongue of man to express ... oh how it would make a heart of stone to weep to see the barbarous and inhumane usage of Christians in this place ..."
Date	14 Jan [1679]
Extent	1 item
Level	Item
Repository	Derbyshire Record Office
Archive Creator	FitzHerbert family of Tissington
Administrative History	The writer, Richard Mitchell, was one of many Europeans captured by Barbary Pirates (Corsairs) and taken to Algiers. Many were enslaved within the Ottoman Empire.
Format	Document
Copies	A digital copy can also be viewed on the public computers at the record office.
Term	Slavery
	Slaves
	Prisoners of War
	Sailors
	Prisoners
	Letters (documents)
	Pirates
	Barbary pirates
Transcript or Index	from Argeir Janua[ry] 14th 1678 My dear With my unspeakable love to thee and our poore children, and my kinde love to our parents, and in all the rest of our friends and acquaintance in generall, haveing now an opportunity to write I would not neglect it, hopeing of your good healths, as blessed be God I am in at the present writeing. My deare to heare of your healths and welfares would administer a great deale of comfort to me in this my comfortless and destitute condition it hath pleased the Lord to cast us into, I being with many hundreds more taken by the Turkess, and brought into this place, being sold. To relate the sadness of our condition is beyond the tongue of man to express, and little or noe hopes of redemption. Oh how it would make a heart of stone to weep to see the barbarous and inhumane usage of Cristians in this place, some drawing carts like horses with irons of great weight upon their legs, with many a blow, and some a hundred at a time upon the bare soles of their feet, with a thick rope; others carrying of durt; others digging in the vineyards, with very small allowances of bread and water. And many others more barbarous usage than I am able to sett down. The Lord bear upp our spirits if it be His blessed will, and in His due time redeem us out of the hands of those unreasonable men. There is a hundred and five English ships taken, sunk, and burnt, this war, and what will be the event of all God in his infinite wisdom knows best. If it would please the Lord to put into the king’s heart, or the hearts of the country, to contrive some way for our redemption it would be a happy thing, before the pestilence begin, which is every summer. It swept away last summer above eighteen hundred Cristians. If it were the will of God I could heartily desire to see my native country once again, but if He have otherwise ordained it, the Lord satisfy all our spirits and help us to live soe in this world as we may meet together with joy and comfort in the world to come is the prayer of thy faithfull and ever loving husband till death in captivity. Richard Mitchaell