Page "Maarten Tromp" Paragraph 3

Three years later, his father having been discharged from service because of a navy reorganisation, they sailed together on their merchantman to Guinea, when they were attacked by seven ships of the English pirate Peter Easton.

Tromp's father was slain by a cannonball.

According to legend the 12-year-old boy rallied the crew of the ship with the cry " Won't you avenge my father's death?

" But the pirates seized him and sold him on the slave market of Salé.

Two years later however, Easton, moved by pity, ordered his redemption.

Set free, he supported his mother and three sisters by working in a Rotterdam shipyard, went to sea again at 19, briefly worked for the navy, but having rejoined the merchant fleet was captured once more in 1621 — this time by Barbary corsairs off Tunis.

He was kept as a slave until the age of 24, and by then had so impressed the Bey of Tunis and corsair John Ward, with his skills in gunnery and navigation that the latter offered him a position in his fleet.

When Tromp refused, the Bey was even more impressed by this show of character and allowed him to leave as a free man.