As Peter Williamson was being marched off to military captivity in Canada, Barbary Pirates from North Africa and Turkish warships were raiding the coasts of Europe for slaves from Italy, to Spain.

European naval forces had long since swept the Muslim pirates from the Atlantic. However, in the Mediterranean Sea, European shipping was in peril, with warships of major nations being taken as prizes and their crews sold into slavery.

As the French and Indian War entered its crossroads in the wilderness, a Venetian Squadron consisting of two large brigs and a small frigate clashed with three Turkish war galleys on the Italian coast. One galley and a brig were lost to flames. The remaining two pirate galleys were captured and reflagged as Venetian vessels.

There is no indication as to the fate of the galley slaves on the two captured prizes, most of whom would have been Christian. The slaves on the destroyed vessel were burned to death chained to their rowing benches. The idea that modern people have of ancient galley slaves being chained to benches, as depicted in the movie Ben Hur, was based largely on the practice of Turkish, Barbary, Italian, French and Spanish navies in the early modern period employing captured enemies, as well as any able-bodied seaman or fisherman scoured from coastal waters or seaside villages, as a disposable propulsion system. By contrast, ancient oarsmen were highly trained and paid naval specialists, marking another instance in which early modern society was more cruel in its treatment of lower class people than where equivalent ancient social systems.