executed for this," said the Protector Somerset--and he was. When a man in Sir Thomas Seymour's exalted position could behave in this manner, one can hardly be surprised that lesser "gentlemen" were not ashamed to follow in his footsteps--even some years later. The first appearance of Mohammedan pirates in Northern waters was at a time very remote from that of which I am now writing, but I think it is of sufficient interest to deserve a passing reference. It was in the year 1048--just eighteen years before the Conquest--that news came to William of Normandy that a band of Moorish or Saracen pirates had established themselves in a castle which they had built on an eminence right in the middle of the Island of Guernsey, from which they harassed and terrorized the inhabitants. A knight, Samson d'Anville, was sent to destroy "Le Château du Grand Sarrasin", as it was called, and he apparently succeeded in rooting out the wasps' nest; and when in 1203 a church was built on the site, the salvation of the islanders was commemorated by its consecration as "Notre Dame de la Deliverance du Castel". Catel Church still stands on this historic spot. We hear no more of Saracen pirates in Northern seas till the sixteenth century, unless the mysterious ships which were driven ashore near Berwick in 1254 were in any way connected with them. Certainly the ships of any Northern nation would have been recognizable on our north-east coast. The ships in question "were large handsome vessels, but unlike anything ever before seen in this country: well provided with naval stores and provisions, and laden with coats of mail, shields and weapons of all kinds, sufficient for an army".[25] Their crews were arrested "as barbarians, or spies, or even enemies", but as no one understood their language, nothing whatever could be made of them, and so they were eventually allowed to depart in peace. Who they were, whence they came, and whither they went has never been discovered. The incident remains one of the most impenetrable of the many mysteries of the sea. The foundation of the piratical States on the north coast of Africa, which were to be the source of untold misery to European nations, may be traced to the final expulsion of the Moors from Spain in 1509. Pursued by the Spaniards to Algiers--or Argier, as it was then usually called--the Moors called in the assistance of Arouji Barbarossa, a noted Mediterranean corsair. He succeeded in beating off the invaders and established himself as first Dey. Tunis, Sallee, and other rover communities soon sprang up along the African coast, and, beginning by retaliating on the Spaniards, the "Turks" gradually extended their sphere of operations till they became a terror to Christendom.