Francis Verney was an English gentleman turned Barbary corsair, born in 1584 to a prominent Buckinghamshire family. After losing a lawsuit over his inheritance and selling off his estates, he left England around 1607, served briefly as a mercenary in Morocco, and by around 1610 had become one of the most feared corsairs operating out of Algiers, reportedly converting to Islam along the way. He was eventually captured by a Sicilian corsair and spent roughly two years as a galley slave before an English Jesuit ransomed him in 1614 on condition he return to Christianity. He died destitute in a pauper’s hospital in Messina in 1615.
Francis Verney
