Klaipėdiečiai piratų nelaisvėje

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Jūra; Klaipėda; Laivai; Laivas "Charlotte"; Piratai; 18 amžius; Klaipėda; Pirates; Sea; Ship "Charlotte"; Ships; The history of XVIII c.

ENPiracy at sea began simultaneously with seafaring. During certain historical periods, it was tolerated or even encouraged by countries involved in mutual wars; they would use the so-called capers to do harm to the enemy’s commercial shipping. Today, some areas that pose threat to sea transport still exist off the coasts of Africa and Asia. Most probably, the gravest problem of the recent years has been the rampage of Somali pirates in the waters around the Horn of Africa aimed at getting ransom for ships’ crews and cargo. In 1799, a sailing ship owned by Klaipėda merchant and ship owner Simpson, the Charlotte, under command of Captain Hahn was taken captive by pirates. On her way to Lisbon, the ship deviated from her course and was seized by the residents of the town of Larache in Morocco. The documents kept at the secret state archives of Prussian cultural heritage illustrate a situation that was new to Klaipėda seamen and ship owners, when the problem of the ransom for the crew (the ship with her cargo aboard had sunken in the approaches to the port) had to be solved.The Prussian functionaries were well-wishing, but the greatest difficulty for them was to find a law, which they could apply and allot funds for paying the ransom, because they had not encountered such practice before. Meanwhile, the so-called “slave funds” based on the mutual aid principle were being established in the major Baltic and North Sea ports as early as in the beginning of the 18th c.; these funds were intended for paying ransom for seamen that had been taken captive by Muslims in the Mediterranean Sea. There are no exact data about the fate of the crew of the sailing ship Charlotte. As can be judged by sources dating to later times, the ship s master died in captivity without having received any help. [From the publication]