Blog Tour and Book Excerpt for "An American Slave in Barbary" by Larry Kelley

BOOK EXCERPT

We were only about thirty leagues from the Straits of Gibraltar. Adjusting the sails and riggings of our twelve-man ketch, Intrepid, we made in the morning of August 2, 1801, seven days after we left Greece, ready our departure from the Mediterranean and entrance into the Atlantic. We were on our return voyage to Boston when our passage was blocked by two Muslim pirate ships. Each was a three-masted xebec, with crews of about one hundred and fourteen cannons. They did not fire their cannons at us, because their aim was to capture our ship intact and our crew alive.

For the rest of the day, our captain, my Uncle Raymond, and his helmsman, Mr. Bagan, desperately attempted to elude the two corsairs that maneuvered about us like huge sharks. While we struggled to keep our two-masted ketch away from our pursuers, a storm gathered from the east. A menacing black cloud descended down to the water.

Captain Raymond shouted from the quarterdeck, “If’n we kin make it into that storm, we kin possibly escape these bastards!”

One of the Muslim corsairs came so close to us we could see the pirates on the larger vessel holding their grappling hooks, readying to fling them at us and pull their boat against ours to board us. During one of these close encounters, our first mate, Mr. Freeman, and the boson, Mr. Leeson, fired their muskets at our pursuers. I saw a pirate take one of the rounds and fall back onto the deck. A group of Muslim gunmen perched on the riggings of the vessel closest to us opened fire, raking our deck with lead shot. One ball hit Mr. Leeson in the neck, killing him instantly.