Christendom had itself to blame in a very great measure, since the Christian nations could never agree long enough between themselves to stamp out effectively these nests of pirates. Ceasing to be content with the spoils and slaves they could capture in the Mediterranean, they set themselves to-- "Keeping in awe the Bay of Portingale And all the ocean by the British Shore".[26] The churchwardens' accounts of the parish of St. Helen's, Abingdon, bear curious witness to the pitch at which Turkish piracy had arrived by the year 1565. An entry in this year runs as follows: "Payde for two bokes of Common Prayer agaynst invading of the Turke 0_s._ 6_d._" The special prayer was probably the one that ran thus: "O Almighty and Everlasting God, our Heavenly Father, we Thy disobedient and rebellious children, now by Thy just judgement sore afflicted, and in great danger to be oppressed, by Thine and our sworn and most deadly enemies, the Turks, &c." The danger was evidently felt to be imminent. By 1576 the "Turks" of Argier had no less than 25,000 Christian captives in their cruel clutches. Most, certainly, came from the southern European countries, but our turn was to come, and half a dozen years later the miscreants were boasting as much to their English captives. We still had our own as well as Flemish, Irish, and French piratical gentlemen in the Channel at this time, for in 1580 the Council called the attention of the Cinque Ports to the fact that such robbers were "daily received and harboured by the inhabitants of the said places, making open sale of their spoils without interruption". [Illustration: A Turkish Pirate Ship of 1579 (_From a print of Algiers of that year_) Observe the sharp ram, the tower-like forecastle, and the curiously perched cabin aft. Also the tail-like ornaments at the stern, possibly reminiscent of the sterns of the old "Dragon-ships" and "Long Serpents". The big and somewhat triangular openings are probably gun-ports, but no guns are visible.] It is probable that the attempts at the suppression of our own sea-robbers drove some of them into the ranks of the Barbary corsairs. And among them, it is shameful to relate, were not a few men of good family. Captain John Smith, who wrote about 1630, explains that at the accession of James I the "Gentlemen Adventurers" and other seaman who had long carried on a sort of licensed piracy against the Spanish possessions and ships on the Spanish Main, found themselves, like Othello, with their "occupation gone". James wanted to live at peace with everybody. As an epigram of the time put it: "When Elizabeth was England's King, That dreadful name thro' Spain did ring; How altered is the case ad sa'me, These juggling days of good Queen Jamie".