With their newly-built galleons, the raids of the Corsairs became more extensive: they were no longer bounded by the Straits of Gibraltar, or a little outside; they pushed their successes north and south. In 1617 they passed the Straits with eight well-armed vessels and bore down upon Madeira, where they landed eight hundred Turks. The scenes that followed were of the usual character; the whole island was laid waste, the churches pillaged, the people abused and enslaved. Twelve hundred men, women, and children were brought back to Algiers, with much firing of guns, and other signals of joy, in which the whole city joined.

In 1627 Murād—a German renegade—took three Algerine ships as far north as Denmark and Iceland, whence he carried off four hundred, some say eight hundred, captives; and, not to be outdone, his namesake Murād Reis, a Fleming, in 1631, ravaged the English coasts, and passing over to Ireland, descended upon Baltimore, sacked the town, and bore away two hundred and thirty-seven prisoners, men, women, and children, even from the cradle. "It was a piteous sight to see them exposed for sale at Algiers," cries good Father Dan; "for then they parted the wife from the husband, and the father from the child; then, say I, they sell the husband here, and the wife there, tearing from her arms the daughter whom she cannot hope to see ever again."[68] Many bystanders burst into tears as they saw the grief and despair of these poor Irish.

As before, but with better confidence, they pursue their favourite course in the Levant, and cruise across the Egyptian trade route, where are to be caught ships laden with the products of Cairo and San'a and Bombay; and lay-to at the back of Cyprus to snare the Syrian and Persian goods that sail from Scanderūn; and so home, with a pleasant raid along the Italian coasts, touching perhaps at an island or two to pick up slaves and booty, and thus to the mole of Algiers and the welcome of their mates; and this in spite of all the big ships of Christendom, "qu'ils ne cessent de troubler, sans que tant de puissantes galeres et tant de bons navires que plusieurs Princes Chrestiens tiennent dans leur havres leur donnent la chasse, si ce ne sont les vaisseaux de Malte ou de Ligorne."[69] And since 1618, when the Janissaries first elected their own Pasha, and practically ignored the authority of the Porte, the traditional fellowship with France, the Sultan's ally, had fallen through, and French vessels now formed part of the Corsairs' quarry. Between 1628 and 1634, eighty French ships were captured, worth, according to the reises' valuation, 4,752,000 livres, together with 1,331 slaves. The King of France must have regretted even the days when Barbarossa wintered at Toulon, so great was the plague of the sea-rovers and apparently so hopeless the attempt to put them down.

FOOTNOTES:

[65] Dan, Bk. III., ch. iv., p. 273-5, 280.

[66] See the Story of the Moors in Spain, 279.

[67] Furttenbach, Architectura Navalis, 107-110.

[68] Dan, Hist. de Barbarie, 277.

[69] Dan, l. c., 278.



XVIII.

THE REDEMPTION OF CAPTIVES.

17th and 18th Centuries.

When galleys went out of fashion, and "round ships" took their place, it may be supposed that the captivity of Christian slaves diminished. In reality, however, the number of slaves employed on the galleys was small compared with those who worked on shore. If the Spanish historian be correct in his statement that at the close of the sixteenth century the Algerines possessed but thirty-six galleys and galleots, (the brigantines were not rowed by slaves,) with a total of twelve hundred oars, even allowing three men to an oar, which is excessive for some of the Corsairs' light galleots, the number of slaves is but three thousand six hundred. But in 1634 Father Dan found twenty-five thousand Christian slaves in the city of Algiers and roundabout, without counting eight thousand renegades, and so far was the fleet from being diminished (except that there were few galleys) that the priest reckoned no less than seventy sailing cruisers, from large thirty-five and forty-gun ships, to ordinary galleons and polaccas; and on August 7th he himself saw twenty-eight of the best of them sail away in quest of Norman and English ships, which usually came to Spain at that season to take in wine, oil, and spices. He adds that Tunis had then but fourteen polaccas; Salē thirty very swift caravels, drawing little water on account of the harbour bar; and Tripoli but seven or eight, owing to the vigilance of the Knights of Malta. Altogether, the whole Barbary fleet numbered one hundred and twenty sailing ships, besides about twenty-five galleys and brigantines.



Father Dan draws a miserable picture of the captives' life ashore. Nothing of course could equal the torment of the galley-slaves, but the wretchedness of the shore-slaves was bad enough. When they were landed they were driven to the Besistān or slave-market, where they were put up to auction like the cattle which were also sold there; walked up and down by the auctioneer to show off their paces; and beaten if they were lazy or weary or seemed to "sham." The purchasers were often speculators who intended to sell again,—"bought for the rise," in fact; and "Christians are cheap to day" was a business quotation, just as though they had been stocks and shares. The prettiest women were generally shipped to Constantinople for the Sultan's choice; the rest were heavily chained and cast into vile dungeons in private houses till their work was allotted them, or into the large prisons or bagnios, of which there were then six in Algiers, each containing a number of cells in which fifteen or sixteen slaves were confined. Every rank and quality of both sexes might be seen in these wretched dens, gentle and simple, priest and laic, merchant and artisan, lady and peasant-girl, some hopeful of ransom, others despairing ever to be free again. The old and feeble were set to sell water; laden with chains, they led a donkey about the streets and doled out water from the skin upon his back; and an evil day it was when the poor captive did not bring home to his master the stipulated sum. Others took the bread to the bake-house and fetched it back in haste, for the Moors love hot loaves. Some cleaned the house, (since Mohammedans detest dirt,) whitened the walls, washed the clothes, and minded the children; others took the fruit to market, tended the cattle, or laboured in the fields, sometimes sharing the yoke of the plough with a beast of burden. Worst of all was the sore labour of quarrying stone for building, and carrying it down from the mountains to the shore.

Doubtless Father Dan made the worst of the misery he saw: it was not to the interest of the owners to injure their slaves, who might be ransomed or re-sold, and, at any rate, were more valuable in health than in weakness and disease. The worst part of captivity was not the physical toil and blows, but the mental care, the despair of release, the carking ache of proud hearts set to slave for taskmasters. Cruelty there certainly was, as even so staunch an apologist for the Moors as Joseph Morgan admits, but it can hardly have been the rule; and the report of another French priest who visited Algiers and other parts of Barbary in 1719 does not bear out Dan's statements: nor is there any reason to believe that the captives were worse treated in 1634 than in 1719.[70] The latter report, with some of Morgan's comments, may be summarized thus[71]:—

The slaves at Algiers are not indeed so unhappy as those in the hands of the mountain Moors. The policy of those in power, the interests of individuals, and the more sociable disposition of the townspeople, make their lot in general less rigorous: still they are slaves, hated for their religion, overtaxed with work, and liable to apostasy. They are of two sorts: Beylik or Government slaves, and those belonging to private persons. When a Corsair has taken a prize and has ascertained, by the application of the bastinado, the rank or occupation and proficiency of the various captives, he brings them before the governor to be strictly examined as to their place in the captured vessel, whether passengers or equipage: if the former, they are claimed by their consuls, who attend the examination, and as a rule they are set free; but if they served on board the ship for pay they are enslaved. Drawn up in a row, one in eight is chosen by the Dey for his own share, and he naturally selects the best workmen, and the surgeons and ship's masters, who are at once sent to the Government bagnio. The rest are to be divided equally between the owners and the equipage, and are taken to the Besistān and marched up and down by the dellāls or auctioneers, to the time of their merits and calling, till the highest bid is reached. This is, however, a merely formal advance, for the final sale must take place at the Dey's palace, whither the captives and their would-be purchasers now resort. The second auction always realizes a much higher sum than the first; but the owners and equipage are only permitted to share the former price, while, by a beautifully simple process, the whole difference between the first and second sales goes absolutely to the Government.

The Government slaves wear an iron ring on one ankle, and are locked up at night in the bagnios, while by day they do all the heavy work of the city, as cleaning, carrying, and quarrying stone. Their rations are three loaves a day. Some have been seen to toil in chains. They have nevertheless their privileges; they have no work to do on Fridays, and they are at free liberty to play, work, or steal for themselves every day for about three hours before sunset, and Morgan adds that they do steal with the coolest impunity, and often sell the stolen goods back to the owners, who dare not complain. Sometimes the Dey sends them to sea, when they are allowed to retain part of the spoil; and others are permitted to keep taverns for renegades and the general riff-raff, both of Turks and Christians, to carouze in. Sometimes they may save enough to re-purchase their freedom, but it often happened that a slave remained a slave by preference, sooner than return to Europe and be beggared, and many of them were certainly better off in slavery at Algiers, where they got a blow for a crime, than in Europe, where their ill-deeds would have brought them to the wheel, or at least the halter.

There were undoubtedly instances, however, of unmitigated barbarity in the treatment of prisoners. For example, the Redemptionists relate the sufferings of four Knights of Malta—three of them French gentlemen, and one from Lucca—who were taken captive at the siege of Oran in 1706, and taken to Algiers. Here they were thrust into the Government prison, along with other prisoners and slaves, to the number of two thousand. Faint with the stench, they were removed to the Kasaba or Castle, where they remained two years. News was then brought that the galleys of Malta had captured the capitana or flagship of Algiers, with six hundred and fifty Turks and Moors aboard, besides Christian slaves, to say nothing of killed and wounded: whereupon, furiously incensed, the Dey sent the imprisoned knights to the castle dungeon, and loaded them with chains weighing 120 lbs.; and there they remained, cramped with the irons, in a putrid cavern swarming with rats and other vermin. They could hear the people passing in the street without, and they clanked their chains if so be they might be heard, but none answered. At last their condition came to the ears of the French consul, who threatened like penalties to Turkish prisoners in Malta unless the knights were removed; and the Dey, on this, lightened their chains by half, and put them in a better room. There these unhappy gentlemen remained for eight long years more, save only at the great festivals of the Church, when they were set free to join in the religious rites at the French consulate; and once they formed a strange and sad feature in the wedding festivities of the consul, when they assumed their perukes and court-dresses for the nonce, only to exchange them again for the badge of servitude when the joyful moment of liberty was over. Their treatment grew worse as time wore on; they were made even to drag trucks of stone, these knights of an heroic Order; and hopeless of obtaining so large a sum as nearly $40,000, which was demanded for their ransom, they managed to file their chains and escape to the shore. But there, to their dismay, the ship they expected was not to be seen, and they took refuge with a marabut or saint. Much to his credit, this worthy Moslem used his vast spiritual influence for their protection, and the Dey spared their lives. At last, by the joint efforts of their friends and the Redemptionists, these poor gentlemen were ransomed and restored to their own country.[72]

Among those who endured captivity in Algiers was one whom genius has placed among the greatest men of all time. In 1575, Cervantes[73] was returning from Naples—after serving for six years in the regiment of Figueroa, and losing the use of his left arm at Lepanto—to revisit his own country; when his ship El Sol was attacked by several Corsair galleys commanded by Arnaut Memi; and, after a desperate resistance, in which Cervantes took a prominent part, was forced to strike her colours. Cervantes thus became the captive of a renegade Greek, one Deli Memi, a Corsair reis, who, finding upon him letters of recommendation from persons of the highest consequence, Don John of Austria among them, concluded that he was a prisoner of rank, for whom a heavy ransom might be asked. Accordingly the future author of Don Quixote was loaded with chains and harshly treated, to make him the more anxious to be ransomed. The ransom, however, was slow in coming, and meanwhile the captive made several daring, ingenious, but unsuccessful attempts to escape, with the natural consequences or stricter watch and greater severities. At last, in the second year of his captivity, he was able to let his friends know of his condition; whereupon his father strained every resource to send a sufficient sum to release Miguel, and his brother Rodrigo, who was in the like plight. The brother was set free, but Cervantes himself was considered too valuable for the price.

With the help of his liberated brother he once more concerted a plan of escape. In a cavern six miles from Algiers, where he had a friend, he concealed by degrees forty or fifty fugitives, chiefly Spanish gentlemen, and contrived to supply them with food for six months, without arousing suspicion. It was arranged that a Spanish ship should be sent by his brother to take off the dwellers in the cave, whom Cervantes now joined. The ship arrived; communications were already opened; when some fishermen gave the alarm; the vessel was obliged to put to sea; and, meanwhile, the treachery of one of the captives had revealed the whole plot to Hasan Pasha, the Viceroy, who immediately sent a party of soldiers to the cavern. Cervantes, with his natural chivalry, at once came to the front and took the whole blame upon himself. Surprised at this magnanimity, the Viceroy—who is described in Don Quixote as "the homicide of all human kind"[74]—sent for him, and found him as good as his word. No threats of torture or death could extort from him a syllable which could implicate any one of his fellow-captives. His undaunted manner evidently overawed the Viceroy, for instead of chastizing he purchased Cervantes from his master for five hundred gold crowns.

Nothing could deter this valiant spirit from his designs upon freedom. Attempt after attempt had failed, and still he tried again. Once he was very near liberty, when a Dominican monk betrayed him; even then he might have escaped, if he would have consented to desert his companions in the plot: but he was Cervantes. He was within an ace of execution, thanks to his own chivalry, and was kept for five months in the Moor's bagnio, under strict watch, though without blows—no one ever struck him during the whole of his captivity, though he often stood in expectation of impalement or some such horrible death. At last, in 1580, just as he was being taken off, laden with chains, to Constantinople, whither Hasan Pasha had been recalled, Father Juan Gil effected his ransom for about L100 of English money of the time, and Miguel de Cervantes, after five years of captivity, was once more free. As has been well said, if Don Quixote and all else of his had never been written, "the proofs we have here of his greatness of soul, constancy, and cheerfulness, under the severest of trials which a man could endure, would be sufficient to ensure him lasting fame."[75]



Slavery in private houses, shops, and farms, was tolerable or intolerable according to the character and disposition of the master and of the slaves. Some were treated as members of the family, save in their liberty, as is the natural inclination of Moslems towards the slaves of their own religion; others were cursed and beaten, justly or unjustly, and lived a dog's life. Those who were supposed to be able to pay a good ransom were for a time especially ill-treated, in the hope of compelling them to send for their money. Escape was rare: the risk was too great, and the chances too small.

Thousands of Christian slaves meant tens of thousand of Christian sympathisers, bereaved parents and sisters, sorrowing children and friends; and it is easy to imagine what efforts were made to procure the release of their unhappy relatives in captivity. At first it was extremely difficult to open negotiations with the Corsairs; but when nation after nation appointed consuls to watch over their interests at Algiers and Tunis, there was a recognized medium of negotiation of which the relations took advantage. As will presently be seen, the office of consul in those days carried with it little of the power or dignity that becomes it now, and the efforts of the consul were often abortive.

There were others than consuls, however, to help in the good work. The freeing of captives is a Christian duty, and at the close of the twelfth century Jean de Matha, impressed with the unhappy fate of the many Christians who languished in the lands of the infidels, founded the "Order of the Holy Trinity and Redemption of Captives." The convent of S. Mathurin at Paris was immediately bestowed upon the Order, another was built at Rome on the Coelian Hill, another called Cerfroy near Meaux, and others in many countries, even as far as the Indies. Pope Innocent the Third warmly supported the pious design, and wrote a Latin letter recommending the Redemptionists to the protection of the Emperor of Morocco: it was addressed, Illustri Miramomolin, Regi Marochetanorum. Matha's first voyage (1199) brought back one hundred and eighty-six captives, and in succeeding generations some twenty thousand slaves were rescued by the good fathers, who, clad in their white robes, with the blue and red cross on the breast—three colours symbolical of the Three Persons—fearlessly confronted the Corsairs and bartered for the captives' ransom.

Father Pierre Dan and his colleagues of the Order of the Redemption set out from Marseilles, in 1634, in the suite of Sanson le Page, premier herald of France, and conversant in the Turkish tongue, to arrange for the exchange of captives.[76] Some Turks confined in the galleys at Marseilles were to be released in return for the freeing of the three hundred and forty-two Frenchmen who were in captivity in Algiers. The good father's views upon the origin of the Corsairs were very pronounced. He held that they were descended from Ham, the traitor, and were inheritors of the curse of the patriarch Noah; further, that they were the cruellest of all the unnatural monsters that Africa has bred, the most barbarous of mankind, pests of the human race, tyrants over the general liberty, and the wholesale murderers of innocent blood. He did not stop to examine into the condition of the galley-slaves in the ports of his own France, or to inquire whether the word Corsair applied to Moslems alone.

On July 15, 1634, Sanson and the priests arrived at Algiers. A full divan was being held, and the Pasha received them courteously, despite their obstinate refusal to dip the French flag to his crescent. They were forced, in deference to the universal custom at Algiers, to surrender their rudder and oars, not so much to prevent their own unauthorized departure, as to remove the temptation of Christian captives making their escape in the vessel. Orders were given that every respect was to be paid to the envoy's party on pain of decapitation. Rooms were prepared for them in the house of the agent who represented the coral fisheries of the neighbouring Bastion de France; and here Father Dan made an altar, celebrated Mass, and heard confession of the captives. Two days after their arrival, a new Pasha appeared from Constantinople: he was met by two state-galleys, and saluted by the fifteen hundred guns in the forts and the forty galleys in the harbour. The Aga of the Janissaries, and the Secretary of State, with a large suite of officers, drummers, and fifes, received him on his landing with a deafening noise. The new Pasha, who was robed in white, then mounted a splendid barb, richly caparisoned with precious stones and silk embroidery, and rode to the palace, whence he sent the French envoy a present of an ox, six sheep, twenty-four fowls, forty-eight hot loaves, and six dozen wax candles; to which the Sieur le Page responded with gold and silver watches, scarlet cloth, and rich brocades.

Despite these civilities, the negotiations languished; and finally, after three months of fruitless endeavours, the Mission left "this accursed town" in such haste that they never even looked to see if the wind would serve them, and consequently soon found themselves driven by a Greek Levant, or east wind, to Majorca; then across to Bujēya, which was no longer a place of importance or of piracy, since the Algerines had concentrated all their galleys at their chief port; and then sighted Bona, which showed traces of the invasion of 1607, when six Florentine galleys, commanded by French gentlemen, had seized the fort, made mincemeat of the unfortunate garrison, and carried off eighteen hundred men, women, and children to Leghorn. At last, with much toil, they reached La Calle, the port of the Bastion de France, a fine castle built by the merchants of Marseilles in 1561 for the protection of the valuable coral fisheries, and containing two handsome courts of solid masonry, and a population of four hundred French people. Sanson Napolon had been governor here, but he was killed in an expedition to Tabarka; Le Page accordingly appointed a lieutenant, and then the Mission returned to Marseilles, without results. The fathers, however, soon afterwards sailed for Tunis, whence they brought back forty-two French captives, with whom they made a solemn procession, escorted by all the clergy of Marseilles, and sang a triumphant Te Deum, the captives marching joyfully beside them, each with an illustrative chain over his shoulder.

This is but one example of a long course of determined efforts of the Redemptionists (to say nothing of Franciscans and Dominicans) to rescue their unhappy countrymen. In 1719 Father Comelin and others brought away ninety-eight Frenchmen,[77] and similar expeditions were constantly being made. The zeal of the Order was perhaps narrow: we read that when they offered to pay 3,000 pieces for three French captives, and the Dey voluntarily threw in a fourth without increasing the price, they refused the addition because he was a Lutheran. Nevertheless, they worked much good among the Catholic prisoners, established hospitals and chapels in various parts of the Barbary coast, and many a time suffered the penalty of their courage at the hands of a merciless Dey, who would sometimes put them to a cruel death in order to satisfy his vengeance for some reverse sustained by his troops or ships from the forces of France. Catholic, and especially French, captives at least had cause to be grateful to the Fathers of the Redemption. Those of the Northern nations fared worse: they had no powerful, widespread Church organization to help them, their rulers took little thought of their misery, and their tears and petitions went unregarded for many a long year.

FOOTNOTES:

[70] If one may draw an analogy from Morocco, the Christian slaves there appear to have been well treated in 1728, certainly better than the renegades. They had a Christian Alcaid, were allowed to keep taverns, and were lodged in a tolerable inn, where the Moslems were not allowed to come near them; they were nursed when sick by Spanish friars (who paid the Emperor of Morocco for the privilege of curing his slaves); and many of them amassed fortunes, and kept servants and mules. At least so says Braithwaite, Hist. of the Rev. in Morocco, 343 ff.

[71] This is the standard account of Christian slavery under the Corsairs. It is contained in the anonymous work entitled Several Voyages to Barbary, &c., [translated and annotated by J. Morgan,] second ed., London, Oliver Payne, &c., 1736. It is singular that although Sir R. Lambert Playfair's account of the slaves in his Scourge of Christendom (1884) p. 9 ff. is practically taken verbatim from this work, there is not a word to show his indebtedness. The name of Joseph Morgan is never mentioned in the Scourge of Christendom, though the author was clearly indebted to him for various incidents, and among others for a faultily copied letter (p. 35) from the well-known ambassador Sir Francis Cottington (whom Sir R. L. Playfair calls Cottingham). A good many errors in the Scourge of Christendom are due to careless copying of unacknowledged writers: such as calling Joshua Bushett of the Admiralty, "Mr. Secretary Bushell," or Sir John Stuart, "Stewart," or eight bells "eight boats," or Sir Peter Denis, "Sir Denis," or misreckoning the ships of Sir R. Mansell's expedition, or turning San Lucar into "St. Lucas."

[72] Several Voyages, 58-65.

[73] This brief account of Cervantes' captivity is abridged from my friend Mr. H. E. Watts's admirable Life, prefixed to his translation of Don Quixote. The main original authority on the matter is Haedo, who writes on the evidence of witnesses who knew Cervantes in Algiers, and who one and all spoke with enthusiasm and love of his courage and patience, his good humour and unselfish devotion (Watts, i. 76, 96).

[74] Don Quixote, I., chap. xl. (Watts): "Every day he hanged a slave; impaled one; cut off the ears of another; and this upon so little animus, or so entirely without cause, that the Turks would own he did it merely for the sake of doing it, and because it was his nature."

[75] H. E. Watts, Life of Cervantes, prefixed to his translation of Don Quixote, i. 96.

[76] Histoire de Barbarie et de ses Corsaires, par le R. P. Fr. Pierre Dan, Ministre et Superieur du Convent de la Sainte Trinite et Redemption des Captifs, fonde au Chasteau de Fontaine-bleau, et Bachelier en Theologie, de la Faculte de Paris.

A Paris, chez Pierre Rocolet, Libraire et Imprimeur ord^{re} du Roy, au Palais, aux Armes du Roy et de la Ville. Avec Privilege de sa Majeste. 1637.

[77] Several Voyages to Barbary, second ed., Lond., 1736.



XIX.

THE ABASEMENT OF EUROPE.

16th to 18th Centuries.

It is not too much to say that the history of the foreign relations of Algiers and Tunis is one long indictment, not of one, but of all the maritime Powers of Europe, on the charge of cowardice and dishonour. There was some excuse for dismay at the powerful armaments and invincible seamanship of Barbarossa or the fateful ferocity of Dragut; but that all the maritime Powers should have cowered and cringed as they did before the miserable braggarts who succeeded the heroic age of Corsairs, and should have suffered their trade to be harassed, their lives menaced, and their honour stained by a series of insolent savages, whose entire fleet and army could not stand for a day before any properly generalled force of a single European Power, seems absolutely incredible, and yet it is literally true.

Policy and pre-occupation had of course much to say to this state of things. Policy induced the French to be the friends of Algiers until Spain lost her menacing supremacy; and even later, Louis XIV. is said to have remarked, "If there were no Algiers, I would make one." Policy led the Dutch to ally themselves with the Algerines early in the seventeenth century, because it suited them to see the lesser trading States preyed upon. Policy sometimes betrayed England into suffering the indignities of subsidizing a nest of thieves, that the thieving might be directed against her enemies. Pre-occupation in other struggles—our own civil war, the Dutch war, the great Napoleonic war—may explain the indifference to insult or patience under affront which had to be displayed during certain periods. But there were long successions of years when no such apology can be offered, when no cause whatever can be assigned for the pusillanimity of the governments of Europe but sheer cowardice, the definite terror of a barbarous Power which was still believed to possess all the boundless resources and all the unquenchable courage which had marked its early days.

Tunis as much as Algiers was the object of the servile dread of Europe. The custom of offering presents, which were really bribes, only died out fifty years ago, and there are people who can still remember the time when consuls-general were made to creep into the Bey's presence under a wooden bar.[78] One day the Bey ordered the French consul to kiss his hand; the consul refused, was threatened with instant death, and—kissed it (1740). When in 1762 an English ambassador came in a King's ship to announce the accession of George III., the Bey made the same order, but this time it was compromised by some of the officers kissing his hand instead of their chief. Austria was forced to sue for a treaty, and had to pay an annual tribute (1784). The Danes sent a fleet to beg leave to hoist their flag over their consulate in Tunis: the Bey asked fifteen thousand sequins for the privilege, and the admiral sailed away in despair. After the Venetians had actually defeated the Tunisians several times in the war of 1784-92, Venice paid the Bey Hamuda forty thousand sequins and splendid presents for the treaty of peace. About the same time Spain spent one hundred thousand piastres for the sake of immunity from piracy; and in 1799 the United States bought a commercial treaty for fifty thousand dollars down, eight thousand for secret service, twenty-eight cannon, ten thousand balls, and quantities of powder, cordage, and jewels. Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and the United States were tributaries of the Bey!

Yet we have it on the authority of the Redemptionist Fathers, who were not likely to underestimate their adversaries, that in 1719 the Algerines who, "among all the Barbary maritime Powers are much the strongest," had but twenty-five galleons of eighteen to sixty guns, besides caravels and brigantines; and it appears they were badly off for timber, especially for masts, and for iron, cordage, pitch, and sails. "It is surprising to see in what good condition they keep their ships, since their country affords not wherewithal to do it.... When they can get new timber (brought from Bujēya) sufficient to make a ship's bottom-parts, they finish the remainder with the ruins of prize vessels, which they perfectly well know how to employ to most advantage, and thus find the secret of making very neat new ships and excellent sailers out of old ones."[79] Still twenty-five small frigates were hardly a big enough bugbear to terrify all Europe, let them patch them never so neatly. Nevertheless, in 1712, the Dutch purchased the forbearance of these twenty-five ships by ten twenty-four pounders mounted, twenty-five large masts, five cables, four hundred and fifty barrels of powder, two thousand five hundred great shot, fifty chests of gun barrels, swords, &c., and five thousand dollars. Being thus handsomely armed, the Algerines naturally broke the treaty in three years' time, and the Dutch paid even more for a second truce. So flourished the system of the weak levying blackmail upon the strong.[80]

The period of Europe's abasement began when the Barbary Corsairs were recognized as civilized states to be treated with on equal terms: that is to say, when consuls, ambassadors, and royal letters began to arrive at Tunis or Algiers. This period began soon after Doria's disastrous campaign at Jerba, when the battle of Lepanto had destroyed the prestige of the Ottoman navy, but increased if possible the terror of the ruthless Corsairs. No really serious attempt was made to put down the scourge of the Mediterranean between 1560 and Lord Exmouth's victory in 1816. For nearly all that time the British nation, and most of the other maritime states, were represented at Algiers and Tunis by consular agents. Master John Tipton was the first Englishman to become consul anywhere, and he was consul at Algiers, first appointed by the newly-formed Turkey Company about 1580, and in 1585 officially named consul of the British nation by Mr. Harebone, the ambassador of England at the Sublime Porte. The records of the long succession of consuls, and agents, and consuls-general, that followed him are a title-roll of shame. The state of things at almost any point in this span of two hundred and thirty years may be described in few words. A consul striving to propitiate a sullen, ignorant, common soldier, called a Dey; a Christian king, or government, submitting to every affront put upon his representative, recalling him after mortal insult, and sending a more obsequious substitute with presents and fraternal messages; and now and then a King's ship, carrying an officer of the King's navy, or an ambassador of the King's Council, irresolutely loitering about the Bay of Algiers trying to mollify a surly despot, or perhaps to experiment in a little meaningless bluster, at which the Dey laughs in his sleeve, or even openly, for he knows he has only to persevere in his demands and every government in Europe will give in. Consuls may pull down their flags and threaten war; admirals may come and look stern, and even make a show of a broadside or two; but the Dey's Christian Brother of St. James's or the Tuileries—or their ministers for them—have settled that Algiers cannot be attacked: so loud may he laugh at consul and man-of-war.

To attempt to trace in detail the relations of the Pashas, Deys, and Beys of the three Barbary States, and the Sherīfs of Morocco, with the various European Powers, would be a task at once difficult and wearisome. Those with England will be quite sufficient for the purpose, and here, in regard to Algiers, we have the advantage of following the researches of the Agent and Consul-General there, Sir R. Lambert Playfair, who in his Scourge of Christendom,[81] has set forth the principal incidents of British relations with the Dey in great detail, and has authenticated his statements by references to official documents of unimpeachable veracity. The facts which he brings to light in a volume of over three hundred pages can here of course be but slightly touched upon, but the reader may turn to his interesting narrative for such more particular information as space excludes from these pages.

The general results arrived at from a study of Sir Lambert Playfair's researches are painful to English self-respect. It is possible that our consuls were not always wisely chosen, and it was a vital defect in our early consular system that our agents were allowed to trade. Mercantile interests, especially in a Corsair state, are likely to clash with the duties of a consul. Some consuls, moreover, were clearly unfitted for their posts. Of one it is recorded that he drank to excess; another is described as "a litigious limb of the law, who values himself upon having practised his talents in that happy occupation with success, against every man that business or occasion gave him dealings with;" a third is represented as "sitting on his bed, with his sword and a brace of pistols at his side, calling for a clergyman to give him the Sacraments that he may die contented." Still, in the long list of consuls, the majority were honourable, upright men, devoted to their country, and anxious to uphold her interests and rights. How were they rewarded? If their own government resented a single act of the ferocious monster they called the Dey—who was any common Janissary chosen by his comrades[82]—the consul went in fear of his life, nay, sometimes was positively murdered. If he was a strong-minded, courageous man, and refused to stoop to the degradation which was expected of him at the Dey's palace, he could not reckon on support at home; he might be recalled, or his judgment reversed, or he might even pull down the consular flag only to see it run up again by a more temporising successor, appointed by a government which had already endorsed his own resistance. He might generously become surety for thousands of pounds of ransoms for English captives, and never receive back a penny from home. Whatever happened, the consul was held responsible by the Algerines, and on the arrival of adverse news a threatening crowd would surround his house. Sometimes the consul and every Englishman in Algiers would be seized and thrown into prison, and their effects ransacked, and never a chance of restitution. Many were utterly ruined by the extortions of the Dey and governors. Heavy bribes—called "the customary presents"—had to be distributed on the arrival of each fresh consul; and it is easy to understand that the Dey took care that they did not hold the office too long. The government presents were never rich enough, and the unlucky consul had to make up the deficit out of his own pocket. The Dey would contemptuously hand over a magnificently jewelled watch to his head cook in the presence of the donor; and no consul was received at the Palace until the "customary presents" were received. The presence of a remonstrating admiral in the bay was a new source of danger; for the consul would probably be thrown into prison and his family turned homeless into the streets, while his dragoman received a thousand stripes of the bastinado. When the French shelled Algiers in 1683, the Vicar Apostolic, Jean de Vacher, who was acting as consul, and had worked untiringly among the poor captives for thirty-six years, was, by order of Mezzomorto, with many of his countrymen, blown from the cannon's mouth;[83] and the same thing happened to his successor in 1688, when forty-eight other Frenchmen suffered the same barbarous death. The most humiliating etiquette was observed in the Dey's court: the consul must remove his shoes and sword, and reverently kiss the rascal's hand. The Hon. Archibald Campbell Fraser, in 1767, was the first consul who flatly refused to pay this unparalleled act of homage, and he was told, in a few years, that the Dey had no occasion for him, and he might go—as if he were the Dey's servant. "Dear friend of this our kingdom," wrote that potentate to H. M. George III. of England, "I gave him my orders,—and he was insolent!" Mr. Fraser went, but was sent back to be reinstated by a squadron of His Majesty's ships. Admiral Sir Peter Denis sailed into Algiers Bay, and having ascertained that the Dey would not consent to receive Mr. Fraser again, sailed out again. His Majesty's Government expressed themselves as completely satisfied with the admiral's action, and resolved to leave the Dey to his reflections. Finally, in the very next year, King George accepts his friend of Algiers' excuses, and appoints a new consul, specially charged "to conduct himself in a manner agreeable to you." The nation paid a pension of L600 a year to Mr. Fraser as indemnity for its Government's poltroonery.

Every fresh instance of submission naturally swelled the overweening insolence of the Deys. A consul had a Maltese cook: the Dey objected to the Maltese, and took the man by force from the consul's house and sent him away in irons. If the consul objected, he might go too. When Captain Hope, of H.M.S. Romulus, arrived at Algiers, he received no salute; the consul was ordered to go aboard, leaving his very linen behind him; and frigate and consul were ordered out of the harbour. Consul Falcon, so late as 1803, was arrested on a trumped-up charge, and forcibly expelled the city: truly Consul Cartwright might describe the consular office of Algiers as "the next step to the infernal regions." In 1808, merely because the usual tribute was late, the Danish consul was seized and heavily ironed, made to sleep in the common prison, and set to labour with the slaves. The whole consular body rose as one man and obtained his release, but his wife died from the shock. A French consul about the same time died from similar treatment.

Were all these consuls maltreated for mere obstinacy about trifles? The records of piracy will answer that question. So early as 1582, when England was at peace with the Porte (and as she continued to be for 220 years), gentlemen of good birth began to find a voyage in the Mediterranean a perilous adventure. Two Scottish lairds, the Masters of Morton and Oliphant, remained for years prisoners at Algiers. Sir Thomas Roe, proceeding to his post as ambassador at Constantinople, said that unless checked the Algerine pirates will brave even the armies of kings at sea, and endanger the coasts [which would have been no new thing], and reported that their last cruise had brought in forty-nine British vessels, and that there would soon be one thousand English slaves in Algiers: the pirates were even boasting that they would go to England and fetch men out of their beds, as it was their habit to do in Spain. And indeed it was but a few years later that they sacked Baltimore in County Cork, and literally carried out their threat. The Corsairs' galleons might be sighted at any moment off Plymouth Hoe or Hartland Point, and the worthy merchants of Bristol, commercial princes in their way, dared not send their richly laden bottoms to sea for fear of a brush with the enemy.

The Reverend Devereux Spratt was captured off Youghal as he was crossing only from Cork to Bristol, and so distressed was the good man at the miserable condition of many of the slaves at Algiers, that when he was ransomed he yielded to their entreaties and stayed a year or two longer to comfort them with his holy offices.[84] It was ministrations such as his that were most needed by the captives: of bodily ill-treatment they had little to complain, but alienation from their country, the loss of home and friends, the terrible fate too often of wife and children—these were the instruments of despair and disbelief in God's providence, and for such as were thus tormented the clergyman was a minister of consolation. In the sad circle of the captives marriages and baptisms nevertheless took place, and some are recorded in the parish register of Castmell, Lancashire, as having been performed in "Argeir" by Mr. Spratt.

Matters went from bad to worse. Four hundred British ships were taken in three or four years before 1622. Petitions went up to the Houses of Parliament from the ruined merchants of the great ports of England. Imploring letters came in from poor Consul Frizell, who continued to plead for succour for twenty years, and then disappeared, ruined and unaided. Touching petitions reached England from the poor captives themselves,—English seamen and captains, or plain merchants bringing home their wealth, now suddenly arrested and stripped of all they possessed: piteous letters from out the very bagnios themselves, full of tears and entreaties for help. In the fourth decade of the seventeenth century there were three thousand husbands and fathers and brothers in Algerine prisons, and it was no wonder that the wives and daughters thronged the approaches to the House of Commons and besieged the members with their prayers and sobs.

Every now and then a paltry sum was doled out by Government for the ransom of slaves, whose capture was due to official supineness; and we find the House of Lords subscribing nearly L3,000 for the same object. In the first quarter of the seventeenth century 240 British slaves were redeemed for L1,200; and the Algerines, who looked upon the whole matter in a businesslike spirit, not only were willing to give every facility for their purchase, but even sent a special envoy to the Court of St. James's to forward the negotiations. Towards the middle of the century a good many more were rescued by Edmond Casson as agent for the Government. Alice Hayes of Edinburgh was ransomed for 1,100 double pesetas (two francs each), Sarah Ripley of London for 800, a Dundee woman for only 200, others for as much as 1,390; while men generally fetched about 500.[85] Sometimes, but very rarely, the captives made their own escape. The story is told by Purchas[86] of four English youths who were left on board a prize, the Jacob of Bristol, to help a dozen Turkish captors to navigate her, and who threw the captain overboard, killed three more, drove the rest under hatches, and sold them for a round sum in the harbour of San Lucar by Cadiz. Even more exciting were the adventures of William Okeley, who in 1639 was taken on board the Mary bound for the West Indies, when but six days from the Isle of Wight. His master, a Moor, gave him partial liberty, and allowed him to keep a wineshop, in consideration of a monthly payment of two dollars; and in the cellar of his shop the slave secretly constructed a light canoe of canvas, while the staves of empty winepipes furnished the oars. These he and his comrades smuggled down to the beach, and five of them embarked in the crazy craft, which bore them safely to Majorca. The hardest part was the farewell to two more who were to have accompanied them, but were found to overweight the little boat.

Several other narratives of successful escapes may be read in the volume of voyages published by the Redemptionist Fathers, and translated by Joseph Morgan. One at least is worth quoting:

"A good number, of different nations, but mostly Majorcans, conspired to get away by night with a row-boat [i.e., brigantine] ready for the cruise: they were in all about seventy. Having appointed a place of rendezvous, at dead of night they got down through a sewer into the port: but the dogs, which are there very numerous, ran barking at them; some they killed with clubs and stones. At this noise, those who were on guard, as well ashore as in the ships, bawled out with all their might, 'Christians! Christians!' They then assembled and ran towards the noise. And forty of the slaves having entered the fregata, or row-boat, and being stronger than those who guarded her, they threw them all into the sea; and it being their business to hasten out of the port, embarrassed with cables of the many ships which then quite filled it, and as they were desirous of taking the shortest cut, they took the resolution of leaping all into the water, hoisting up the boat on their shoulders, and wading with it till clear of all those cables. Spite of the efforts to prevent their design, they made out to sea, and soon reached Majorca. On hearing this the Dey cried out, 'I believe these dogs of Christians will come one day or other and take us out of our houses!'"[87]

Ransoms and escapes were more than made up by fresh captures. In 1655, indeed, Admiral Blake, after trying to bring the Tunisians to terms, ran into the harbour of Porto Farina on the 3rd of April, where the fleet of the Bey, consisting of nine vessels, was anchored close in under the guns of the forts and earthworks, and under a heavy fire he burnt every one of them: then proceeding to Algiers, found the city in such consternation that he liberated the whole body of British slaves (English, Scots, Irish, and Channel Islanders) for a trifling sum. Nevertheless, four years later, the Earl of Inchiquin, notorious as "Morough of the Burnings," from his manner of making war, and his son, Lord O'Brien, were caught off the Tagus while engaged in one of those foreign services in which royalists were apt to enlist during the troubles at home, and it took the Earl seven or eight months' captivity and 7,500 crowns to obtain his release. In the following century the remnant of the brave Hibernian Regiment, on its way from Italy, was surrounded and overcome, to the number of about eighty, and was treated with peculiar barbarity. It was no rare thing to see British ships—once even a sloop of war—brought captive into Algiers harbour, on some pretext of their papers being out of form; and the number of slaves continued to increase, in spite of the philanthropic efforts of some of the wealthy merchants, like William Bowtell, who devoted themselves to the humane attempt.

Very often it was the captive's own fault that he was taken. Frequently he was serving on a vessel of a power then at war with Algiers. The system of passes for the Mediterranean opened the way to a good deal of knavery; ships sailed under false colours, or, being themselves at war with Algiers, carried passes purchased from her allies. The Algerines were shy of contracting too many alliances, lest there should be no nation to prey upon, and we read of a solemn debate in the Divan to decide which nation should be broken with, inasmuch as the slave-masters were becoming bankrupt from the pacific relations of the State. This was when the cupidity of the Dey had led him to accept a heavy bribe from Sweden in return for his protection, and the Corsairs rushed excitedly to the palace declaring that they had already too many allies: "Neither in the ocean nor narrow sea can we find scarce any who are not French, English, or Dutch; nothing remains for us to do, but either to sell our ships for fuel, and return to our primitive camel-driving, or to break with one of these nations."[88] Thus there was generally one favoured nation—or perhaps two—to whom the Algerines accorded the special favour of safe-conducts over the Mediterranean, and it was the object of all other traders to borrow or buy these free passes from their happy possessors. The Algerines were not unnaturally incensed at finding themselves cheated by means of their own passes. "As for the Flemings," complained the Corsairs, "they are a good people enough, never deny us anything, nor are they worse than their word, like the French; but they certainly play foul tricks upon us, in selling their passes to other infidels: For ever since we made peace with them, we rarely light on either Swede, Dane, Hamburgher, &c. All have Dutch complexions; all Dutch passes; all call each other Hans, Hans, and all say Yaw, Yaw!"

Many of these counterfeit allies carried English seamen, and such, not being under their own colours, were liable to be detained in slavery. So numerous was this class of captives that, although in 1694 it was reported that no Englishmen captured under the British flag remained in slavery in Algiers, there was ample application soon afterwards for Betton's beneficial bequest of over L21,000 for the purpose of ransoming British captives.

Expedition after expedition was sent to argue, to remonstrate, to threaten, with literally no result. Ambassador after ambassador came and went, and made useless treaties, and still the Algerines maintained the preposterous right to search British vessels at sea, and take from them foreigners and goods. Sir Robert Mansell first arrived in 1620 with eighteen ships and five hundred guns, manned by 2,600 men; and accomplished nothing. As soon as they turned their backs the pirates took forty British ships. Sir Thomas Roe made a treaty, which turned out to be waste paper. Blake frightened the Corsairs for the moment. The Earl of Winchelsea, in 1660, admitted the right of search. Lord Sandwich in the following year cannonaded Algiers without result from a safe distance. Four times Sir Thomas Allen brought his squadron into the bay, and four times sailed he out, having gained half his purpose, and twice his desert of insult: "These men," cried 'Ali Aga, "talk as if they were drunk, and would force us to restore their subjects whether they will or no! Bid them begone."[89] The only satisfactory event to be reported after fifty years of fruitless expeditions is Sir E. Spragg's attack on the Algerine fleet, beached under the guns of Bujēya: like Blake, he sent in a fireship and burnt the whole squadron. Whereupon the Janissaries rose in consternation, murdered their Aga, and, carrying his head to the Palace, insisted on peace with England.

It was a very temporary display of force. Five years later Sir John Narborough, instead of bombarding, was meekly paying sixty thousand "pieces of eight" to the Algerines for slaves and presents. In 1681 Admiral Herbert, afterwards Lord Torrington, executed various amicable cruises against the Algerines. In 1684 Sir W. Soame with difficulty extorted a salute of twenty-one guns to His Britannic Majesty's flag. And so the weary tale of irresolution and weakness went on. Admiral Keppel's expedition in 1749 is chiefly memorable for the presence of Sir Joshua Reynolds as a guest on board the flagship; and it is possible that two sketches reproduced by Sir Lambert Playfair are from his pencil: the drawings were the only fruit of the cruise. James Bruce, the African traveller, as agent or consul-general in 1763, put a little backbone into the communications, but he soon went on his travels, and then the old fruitless course of humble remonstrances and idle demonstrations went on again. Whenever more serious attempts were made, the preparations were totally inadequate. Spain, Portugal, Naples, and Malta sent a combined fleet in 1784 to punish the Algerines, but the vessels were all small and such as the Corsairs could tackle, and so feeble and desultory was the attack that, after a fortnight's fooling, the whole fleet sailed away.

FOOTNOTES:

[78] Broadley, Tunis, i. 51.

[79] Several Voyages, 97.

[80] Ibid. 104, note.

[81] London: Smith and Elder, 1884.

[82] Up to 1618 Algiers was governed by a Pasha directly appointed by the Sultan; from 1618 the Pasha was chosen by the Janissaries and other militia subject to the veto of the Sultan; in 1671 the Janissaries first elected a Dey out of their own number, every soldier being eligible, and their Dey soon made the Sultan's Pasha a lay figure; in 1710 the two offices were united in a Dey chosen by the soldiery. These parvenus were by no means ashamed of their origin or principles. Mohammed Dey (1720), getting into a passion with the French consul, exclaimed with more frankness than courtesy: "My mother sold sheeps' feet, and my father sold neats' tongues, but they would have been ashamed to expose for sale so worthless a tongue as thine." Another time the Dey confessed with dignified naivete to Consul Cole: "The Algerines are a company of rogues—and I am their Captain!"

[83] Several Voyages, 111 ff.

[84] See his descendant Adm. Spratt's Travels and Researches in Crete, i. 384-7.

[85] Playfair, 64 ff.

[86] Voyages, ii. 887.

[87] Several Voyages, 57-8.

[88] Morgan, Pref. v., vi.

[89] Playfair, 94.



XX.

THE UNITED STATES AND TRIPOLI.

1803-5.

These dark days of abasement were pierced by one ray of sunlight; the United States refused the tribute demanded by the Barbary Rovers. From its very birth the new nation had, in common with all other maritime countries, accepted as a necessary evil a practice it was now full time to abolish. As early as 1785 the Dey of Algiers found in American commerce a fresh field for his ploughing; and of all traders, none proved so welcome as that which boasted of its shipping, yet carried not an ounce of shot to defend it. Hesitating protests and negotiations were essayed in vain; until at last public opinion was so aroused by the sufferings of the captives as to demand of Congress the immediate construction of a fleet. Ill news travels apace, and the rumours of these preparations echoed so promptly among the white walls of Algiers, that the Dey hastened to conclude a treaty; and so, long before the frigates were launched, immunity was purchased by the payment of a heavy tribute. Like all cowardly compromises, this one shaped itself into a two-edged sword; and soon every rover from Mogador to the Gates of the Bosphorus was clamouring for backsheesh. In 1800, Yūsuf, the Pasha of Tripoli, threatened to slip his falcons upon the western quarry, unless presents, similar to those given by England, France, and Spain, were immediately sent him. He complained that the American Government had bribed his neighbours, the cut-throats of Tunis, at a higher price, and he saw no reason why, like his cousin of Algiers, he should not receive a frigate as hush-money. His answer to a letter of the President, containing honeyed professions of friendship, was amusing. "We would ask," he said, "that these your expressions be followed by deeds, and not by empty words. You will, therefore, endeavour to satisfy us by a good manner of proceeding.... But if only flattering words are meant without performance, every one will act as he finds convenient. We beg a speedy answer without neglect of time, as a delay upon your part cannot but be prejudicial to your interests."

The Bey of Tunis made demands no less arrogant. He declared that Denmark, Spain, Sicily, and Sweden had made concessions to him, and then he announced: "It would be impossible to keep peace longer, unless the President sent him without delay ten thousand stand of arms and forty cannons of different calibre. And all these last" (he added, with a fine Hibernicism) "must be 24-pounders." Algiers hinted that her money was in arrears, and Morocco intimated that her delay in arranging terms was due simply to the full consideration which she was giving to a matter so important.

Whatever other faults Yūsuf of Tripoli may have had, he was in this matter as good as his word, and the six months' notice having been fruitless, he proclaimed war on May 14, 1801, by chopping down the flagstaff of the American Consulate. But the government of the United States was weary of the old traditions followed by Christendom in its dealings with these swashbucklers. They had by this time afloat a small but effective squadron, and were very proud of the successes it had gained in the quasi-war with France just ended. They were tired also of a policy which was utterly at odds with their boast that all men were born free and equal, and the nation was roused with the shibboleth that there were "millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute."

When the excitement had cooled, however, it seemed as if there was as usual to be more in the promise than in the performance, for, though a force existed sufficient for vigorous and decisive action, nothing was accomplished during two years and more. Of the three squadrons sent out, the first, under Dale, was hampered by the narrow restrictions of the President's orders, due to constitutional scruples as to the propriety of taking hostile measures before Congress had declared war; and the second was unfortunate in its commander, though individual deeds reflected the greatest credit upon many of the subordinate officers. In 1803 the third squadron assembled at Gibraltar under the broad pennant of Commodore Edward Preble, and then at last came the time for vigorous measures.

The flag-officer's objective point was Tripoli, but hardly were his ships gathered for concerted action, when the Philadelphia, thirty-six guns, captured off the coast of Spain the Meshboa, an armed cruiser which belonged to Morocco, and had in company as prize the Boston brig Celia. Of course it was of the highest importance to discover upon what authority the capture had been made; but the Moorish commander lied loyally, and swore that he had taken the Celia in anticipation of a war which he was sure had been declared, because of the serious misunderstanding existing when he was last in port between his Emperor and the American consul. This story was too improbable to be believed, and Captain Bainbridge of the Philadelphia threatened to hang as a common pirate the mendacious Reis Ibrahīm Lubarez unless he showed his commission. When the rover saw this menace did not issue in idleness, he confessed he had been mistaken, and that he had been ordered by the Governor of Tangiers to capture American vessels. This made the matter one which required decisive action, and so the prize was towed to Gibraltar, and Preble sailed for Tangiers to demand satisfaction. There was the usual interchange of paper bullets and of salutes; but, in the end, the aggressive Commodore prevailed. The Emperor expressed his regret for the hostile acts, and disowned them; he punished the marauders, released all vessels previously captured, agreed to ratify the treaty made by his father in 1786, and added that "his friendship for America should last for ever."

This affair being settled, Preble detailed the Philadelphia and Vixen for the blockade of Tripoli, and then, as the season was too advanced for further operations, began preparations for the repairs and equipment needed for the next season.

The work assigned to the Philadelphia and Vixen was rigorous, for the coast—fretted with shoals, reefs, and unknown currents, and harassed by sudden squalls, strong gales, and bad holding grounds—demanded unceasing watchfulness, and rendered very difficult the securing of proper food and ship's stores from the distance of the supplying base. Bad as this was in the beginning, it became worse when in October the Vixen sailed eastward in search of a Tripolitan cruiser which was said to have slipped past the line at night, for then the whole duty, mainly inshore chasing, fell to the deep-draught frigate. It was while thus employed that she came to misfortune, as Cooper writes, in his History of the United States Navy: "Towards the last of October the wind, which had been strong from the westward for some time previously, drove the Philadelphia a considerable distance to the eastward of the town, and on Monday, October the 31st, as she was running down to her station again with a fair breeze, about nine in the morning a vessel was seen inshore and to windward, standing for Tripoli. Sail was made to cut her off. Believing himself to be within long gun-shot a little before eleven, and seeing no other chance of overtaking the stranger in the short distance that remained, Captain Bainbridge opened fire in the hope of cutting something away. For near an hour longer the chase and the fire were continued; the lead, which was kept constantly going, giving from seven to ten fathoms, and the ship hauling up and keeping away as the water shoaled or deepened. At half-past eleven, Tripoli then being in plain sight, distant a little more than a league, (satisfied that he could neither overtake the chase nor force her ashore,) Captain Bainbridge ordered the helm a-port to haul directly off the land into deep water. The next cast of the lead, when this order was executed, gave but eight fathoms, and this was immediately followed by casts that gave seven and six and a half. At this moment the wind was nearly abeam, and the ship had eight knots way upon her. When the cry of 'half-six' was heard, the helm was put hard down and the yards were ordered to be braced sharp up. While the ship was coming up fast to the wind, and before she had lost her way, she struck a reef forwards, and shot on it until she lifted between five and six feet."

Every effort was made to get her off, but in vain. The noise of the cannonading brought out nine gun-boats; and then, as if by magic, swarms of wreckers slipped by the inner edge of the shore, stole from some rocky inlet, or rushed from mole and galley, and keeping beyond range, like vultures near a battle-field, awaited the surrender of the ship. A gallant fight was made with the few guns left mounted, but at last the enemy took up a position on the ship's weather quarter, where her strong heel to port forbade the bearing of a single piece. "The gun-boats," continues the historian, "were growing bolder every minute, and night was at hand. Captain Bainbridge, after consulting again with his officers, felt it to be an imperious duty to haul down his flag, to save the lives of his people. Before this was done the magazines were drowned, holes were bored in the ship's bottom, the pumps were choked, and everything was performed that it was thought would make sure the final loss of the vessel. About five o'clock the colours were lowered." The ship was looted, the officers and men were robbed, half stripped in some cases, and that night the crew was imprisoned in a foul Tripolitan den. Within a week the rovers, aided by favourable winds and unusual tides, not only got the Philadelphia afloat, but, as the scuttling had been hastily done, towed her into port, and weighed all the guns and anchors that lay in shallow water on the reef. The ship was immediately repaired, the guns were re-mounted, and the gallant but unfortunate Bainbridge had the final misery of seeing his old command safely moored off the town, and about a quarter of a mile from the Pasha's castle.



Preble heard of this catastrophe from an English frigate to which he spoke off Sardinia on his way to Tripoli. The blow was a severe one, for the ship represented over one-third of his fighting force, and the great number of captives gave the enemy a material and sentimental strength which he would be sure to use pitilessly in all future negotiations. But the energetic sailor was only stimulated by the disaster to greater exertions, and plans were immediately made for the destruction of the captured ship. Fortunately there was no lack of material, and, in selecting the leaders, it became an embarrassment to decide between the claims of the volunteers. Finally the choice fell upon Lieutenant Stephen Decatur. He was at this time twenty-four years of age, and had by his marked qualities so distinguished himself as to have been appointed to the command of the Enterprise. To great prudence, self-control, and judgment, he united the dash, daring, and readiness of resources which have always characterized the famous sailors of the world; and in the victory which made his name renowned in naval annals, he displayed these qualities in such a high degree as to deserve the greatest credit for what he achieved as well as for what, under great temptation, he declined to do.

After taking on board a load of combustibles, the Intrepid sailed from Syracuse for Tripoli upon the 3rd of February, 1804. The ketch itself had a varied history, for she was originally a French gun vessel, which had been captured by the English in Egypt and presented to Tripoli, and which finally was seized by Decatur while running for Constantinople with a present of female slaves for the Grand Vezīr. The brig Siren, Lieutenant Charles Stewart, commanding, convoyed the expedition, and had orders to cover the retreat, and if feasible to assist the attack with its boats. In affairs of this kind personal comfort is always the least consideration, but had not the weather been pleasant, the hardships endured might seriously have affected the success of the enterprise. The five commissioned officers were crowded in the small cabin; the midshipmen and pilot on one side, and the seamen upon the other, were stowed like herrings upon "a platform laid across water-casks, whose surface they completely covered when they slept, and at so small a distance below the spar deck that their heads would reach it when seated." To these inconveniences were added the want of any room for exercise on deck, the attacks of innumerable vermin which their predecessors, the slaves, had left behind them, and (as the salted meat put on board had spoiled) the lack of anything but biscuits to eat and water to drink.

After a voyage of six days the town was sighted, but strong winds had rendered the entrances dangerous, and the heavy gale which came with night drove the Americans so far to the eastward before it abated that they found themselves fairly embayed in the Gulf of Sidra. On the afternoon of the 16th Tripoli was once more made out; and as the wind was light, the weather pleasant, and the sea smooth, Decatur determined to attack that night. By arrangement the Siren kept almost out of sight during the day, and her appearance was so changed as to lull all suspicion of her true character. The lightness of the wind allowed the ketch to maintain the appearance of an anxious desire to reach the harbour before night, without bringing her too near to require any other change than the use of drags (in this case buckets towed astern) which could not be seen from the city. The crew was kept below, excepting six or eight persons at a time, so that inquiry might not be awakened by unusual numbers; and such men remained on deck as were dressed like Maltese. When the Philadelphia was sighted, no doubt was left of the hazardous nature of the attack, for she lay a mile within the entrance, riding to the wind and abreast of the town. Her foremast, which was cut away while on the reef, had not yet been replaced, her main and mizzen masts were housed, and her lower yards were on the gunwales. The lower standing rigging, however, was set up, and her battery was loaded and shotted. She lay within short range of the guns on the castle, on the mole-head, and in the New Fort; and close aboard rode three Tripolitan cruisers and twenty gun-boats and galleys. To meet and overcome this force Decatur had a few small guns and seventy men, but these were hearts of oak, tried in many a desperate undertaking, and burning now to redeem their country's honour.

As the Intrepid drew in with the land, they saw that the boiling surf of the western passage would force them to select the northern entrance, which twisted and turned between the rocks and the shoals. It was now nearly ten o'clock, and as the ketch drifted in before the light easterly breeze she seemed a modest trader bent upon barter, and laden with anything but the hopes of a nation.

The night was beautiful; a young moon sailed in the sky; the lights from wall and tower and town, and from the ships lazily rocking at the anchorages, filled the water with a thousand points of fire. The gentle breeze wafted the little craft past reefs and rocks into the harbour noiselessly, save for the creaking of the yards, the complainings of the block, the wimple of wavelets at the bow, and the gurgle of eddies at the pintles and under the plashing counter. On deck forward only a few figures were silhouetted against the background of white wall and grayish sky; and aft Decatur and the pilot stood conning the ship as it stole slowly for the frigate's bow.

Owing to the ketch's native rig, and to the glib Tripolitanese of the Sicilian pilot, no suspicion was excited in the Philadelphia's watch by the answer to their hail that she had lost her anchors in a gale and would like to run a line to the war-ship and to ride by it through the night. So completely were the Tripolitans deceived that they lowered a boat and sent it with a hawser, while at the same time some of the Intrepid's crew leisurely ran a fast to the frigate's fore-chains. As these returned they met the enemy's boat, took its rope, and passed it into their own vessel. Slowly, but firmly, it was hauled upon by the men on board, lying on their backs, and slowly and surely the Intrepid was warped alongside. But at the critical moment the ruse was discovered, and up from the enemies' decks went the wolf-like howl of "Americanos! Americanos!"

The cry roused the soldiers in the forts and batteries, and the chorus these awakened startled the Pasha from his sleep, and thrilled with joy the captive Americans behind their prison walls.

In another moment the Intrepid had swung broadside on, and quickly-passed lashings held the two ships locked in a deadly embrace. Then Decatur's cry of "board" rang out, and with a quick rush, and the discharge of only a single gun, the decks were gained.

The surprise was as perfect as the assault was rapid, and the Tripolitan crew, panic stricken, huddled like rats at bay awaiting the final dash. Decatur had early gathered his men aft, stood a moment for them to gain a sight of the enemy, and then, with the watchword "Philadelphia" rushed upon the rovers. No defence was made, for, swarming to leeward, they tumbled, in mad affright, overboard; over the bows, through gun-ports, by aid of trailing halliards and stranded rigging, out of the channels, pell-mell by every loop-hole they went—and then, such as could, swam like water-rats for the friendly shelter of the neighbouring war-galleys.

One by one the decks and holds were cleared, and in ten minutes Decatur had possession of the ship, without a man killed, and only one slightly wounded. In the positions selected so carefully beforehand, the appointed divisions assembled and piled up and fired the combustibles. Each party acted by itself, and as it was ready; and so rapid were all in their movements, that those assigned to the after-holds had scarcely reached the cockpit and stern store-rooms before the fires were lighted over their heads. Indeed, when the officer entrusted with this duty had completed his task, he found the after-hatches so filled with smoke from the fire in the ward-room and steerage, that he was obliged to escape to the deck by the forward ladders.

Satisfied that the work was thoroughly done, the Americans leaped upon the Intrepid's deck, cut with swords and axes the hawsers lashing them to the Philadelphia, manned the sweeps, and, just as the flames were scorching their own yards and bulwarks, swung clear. Then came the struggle for escape, and this last scene can best be told, perhaps, in the words of one of the participants, Commodore Charles Morriss, who gave on that night, when he was the first to board the Philadelphia, the earliest proof of the great qualities which afterwards made him one of the first sailors of his time. "Up to this time," he wrote, "the ships and batteries of the enemy had remained silent, but they were now prepared to act; and when the crew of the ketch gave three cheers in exultation of their success, they received the return of a general discharge from the enemy. The confusion of the moment probably prevented much care in their direction, and though under the fire of nearly a hundred pieces for half an hour, the only shot which struck the ketch was one through the topgallant sail. We were in greater danger from the Philadelphia, whose broadsides commanded the passage by which we were retreating, and whose guns were loaded, and discharged as they became heated. We escaped these also, and while urging the ketch onwards with sweeps, the crew were commenting upon the beauty of the spray thrown up by the shot between us and the brilliant light of the ship, rather than calculating any danger that might be apprehended from the contact. The appearance of the ship was, indeed, magnificent. The flames in the interior illuminated her ports, and, ascending her rigging and masts, formed columns of fire, which, meeting the tops, were reflected into beautiful capitals; whilst the occasional discharge of her guns gave an idea of some directing spirit within her. The walls of the city and its batteries, and the masts and rigging of cruisers at anchor, brilliantly illuminated and animated by the discharge of artillery, formed worthy adjuncts and an appropriate background to the picture. Fanned by a light breeze our exertions soon carried us beyond the range of their shot, and at the entrance of the harbour we met the boats of the Siren, which had been intended to co-operate with us, and whose crew rejoiced at our success, whilst they grieved at not having been able to partake in it.... The success of this enterprise added much to the reputation of the navy, both at home and abroad. Great credit was given, and was justly due to Commodore Preble, who directed and first designed it, and to Lieutenant Decatur, who volunteered to execute it, and to whose coolness, self-possession, resources, and intrepidity its success was, in an eminent degree, due."

Commodore Preble, in the meantime, hurried his preparations for more serious work, and on July 25th arrived off Tripoli with a squadron, consisting of the frigate Constitution, three brigs, three schooners, six gun-boats, and two bomb vessels. Opposed to him were arrayed over a hundred guns mounted on shore batteries, nineteen gun-boats, one ten-gun brig, two schooners mounting eight guns each, and twelve galleys. Between August 3rd and September 3rd five attacks were made, and though the town was never reduced, substantial damage was inflicted, and the subsequent satisfactory peace rendered possible. Preble was relieved by Barron in September, not because of any loss of confidence in his ability, but from exigencies of the service, which forbade the Government sending out an officer junior to him in the relief squadron which reinforced his own. Upon his return to the United States he was presented with a gold medal, and the thanks of Congress were tendered him, his officers, and men, for gallant and faithful services.

The blockade was maintained vigorously, and in 1805 an attack was made upon the Tripolitan town of Derna, by a combined land and naval force; the former being under command of Consul-General Eaton, who had been a captain in the American army, and of Lieutenant O'Bannon of the Marines. The enemy made a spirited though disorganized defence, but the shells of the war-ships drove them from point to point, and finally their principal work was carried by the force under O'Bannon and Midshipman Mann. Eaton was eager to press forward, but he was denied reinforcements and military stores, and much of his advantage was lost. All further operations were, however, discontinued in June, 1805, when, after the usual intrigues, delays, and prevarications, a treaty was signed by the Pasha, which provided that no further tribute should be exacted, and that American vessels should be for ever free of his rovers. Satisfactory as was this conclusion, the uncomfortable fact remains that tribute entered into the settlement. After all the prisoners had been exchanged man for man, the Tripolitan Government demanded, and the United States paid, the handsome sum of sixty thousand dollars to close the contract.

This treaty, however, awakened the conscience of Europe, and from the day it was signed the power of the Barbary Corsairs began to wane. The older countries saw their duty more clearly, and ceased to legalize robbery on the high seas. To America the success gave an immediate position which could not easily have been gained in any other way, and, apart from its moral results, the contest with Tripoli was the most potent factor in consolidating the navy of the United States.



XXI.

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS.

1816.

Nelson was in the Mediterranean at the beginning of the nineteenth century, as every one knows, but the suppression of the Barbary Corsairs formed no part of his instructions. Twice, indeed, he sent a ship of war to inquire into the complaints of the consuls, but without effect; and then on the glorious Twenty-First of October, 1805, the great admiral fell in the supreme hour of victory. Collingwood made no attempt to deal with the Algerine difficulty, beyond sending a civilian agent and a present of a watch, which the Dey consigned to his cook. The British victories appear to have impressed the pirates' mind but slightly; and in 1812 we find Mr. A'Court (Lord Heytesbury) condescending to negotiate terms between the Corsairs and our allies the Portuguese, by which the latter obtained immunity from molestation and the release of their countrymen by the payment altogether of over a million of dollars, and an annual tribute of $24,000.

To the United States of America belongs the honour of having first set an example of spirited resistance to the pretensions of the Corsairs. So long as they had been at war with Great Britain, the States were unable to protect their commerce in the Mediterranean; and they were forced to fall in with the prevailing custom and make peace with the robbers on the basis of a bribe over a million of Spanish dollars, and a large annual tribute in money and naval stores. But as soon as the Treaty of Ghent set them free in 1815 they sent a squadron to Algiers, bearing Mr. William Shaler as American consul, and Captains Bainbridge and Stephen Decatur as his assessors in the impending negotiations. The result was that after only two days a Treaty was concluded on June 30, 1815, by which all money payment was abolished, all captives and property were restored, and the United States were placed on the footing of the most favoured nation. The arguments of the Americans appear to have been more eloquent than British broadsides.

Shamed by this unexpected success, the English Government at length sent Lord Exmouth (formerly Sir Edward Pellew) to obtain favourable terms for some of the minor Mediterranean Powers, and to place the Ionian Islands, as British dependencies, on the same footing as England. Yet he was evidently not authorized to proceed to extreme measures or demand unconditional surrender of existing pretensions. He arranged terms for Naples, which still included tribute and presents. Sardinia escaped for a sum down. The Ionians were admitted on the English footing. Then Lord Exmouth went on to Tunis and Tripoli, and obtained from the two Beys the promise of the total abolition of Christian slavery.

His proceedings at Tunis were marked by much firmness, and rewarded with commensurate success. He arrived on the 12th of April, 1816, shortly after a Tunisian Corsair, in devastating one of the Sardinian islands, had roused the indignation of Europe. Lord Exmouth demanded nothing less than the total abolition of Christian slavery. "It happened that at this very time Caroline, Princess of Wales, was enjoying the splendid hospitality of Mahmūd Bey in his city palace. Neither party seemed inclined to yield, and matters assumed a very threatening aspect. The mediation of the royal guest was invoked in vain; Lord Exmouth was inexorable. The Princess sent the greater part of her baggage to the Goletta, the British merchants hastened to embark on board the vessels of the squadron, the men-of-war were prepared for action, and the Bey did his best to collect all available reinforcements. The excitement in Tunis was immense, and a pacific solution was considered almost impossible. On the 16th Lord Exmouth, accompanied by Mr. Consul-General Oglander and his staff, proceeded to the Bardo Palace. The flagstaff of the British Agency was previously lowered to indicate a resolution to resort to an appeal to arms in case of failure, and the Princess of Wales expected every hour to be arrested as a hostage. The antecedents of the Bey were not precisely calculated to assuage her alarm, but Mahmūd sent one of his officers to assure her that, come what might, he should never dream of violating the Moslem laws of hospitality. While the messenger was still with her, Lord Exmouth entered the room and announced the satisfactory termination of his mission. On the following morning the Bey signed a Treaty whereby in the name of the Regency he abolished Christian slavery throughout his dominions. Among the reasons which induced the Bey to yield to the pressure used by Lord Exmouth was the detention of the Sultan's envoy, bearing the imperial firman and robe of investiture, at Syracuse. The Neapolitan Government would not allow him to depart until the news of the successful result of the British mission had arrived, and Mahmūd felt it impossible to forego the official recognition of his suzerain."[90]

The wife of George IV. was extremely angry at being interrupted in a delightful course of entertainments, and picnics among the ruins of Carthage and the orange groves, whither she repaired in the Bey's coach and six, escorted by sixty memlūks. The Tunisians were, of course, indignant at the Bey's surrender, nor did piracy cease on account of the Treaty. Holland, indeed, repudiated the blackmail in 1819, but Sweden still paid a species of tribute in the form of one hundred and twenty-five cannons in 1827.

Having gained his point at Tunis and Tripoli—a most unexpected triumph—Lord Exmouth came back to Algiers, and endeavoured to negotiate the same concessions there, coolly taking up his position within short range of the batteries. His proposals were indignantly rejected, and he was personally insulted; two of his officers were dragged from their horses by the mob, and marched through the streets with their hands tied behind their backs; the consul, Mr. McDonell, was put under guard, and his wife and other ladies of his family were ignominiously driven into the town from the country house.[91] Lord Exmouth had no instructions for such an emergency; he arranged that ambassadors should be sent from Algiers to London and Constantinople to discuss his proposal; and then regretfully sailed for England. He had hardly returned when news arrived of extensive massacres of Italians living under British protection at Bona and Oran by order of the Dey—an order actually issued while the British admiral was at Algiers. Lord Exmouth was immediately instructed to finish his work. On the 25th of July in the same year his flagship, the Queen Charlotte, 108, led a squadron of eighteen men of war, of from ten to one hundred and four guns, and including three seventy-fours, out of Portsmouth harbour. At Gibraltar the Dutch admiral, Baron Van Capellan, begged to be allowed to join in the attack with six vessels, chiefly thirty-sixes, and when the time came he fought his ships admirably. On the 27th of August they arrived in the roads of Algiers. The Prometheus had been sent ahead to bring off the consul McDonell and his family. Captain Dashwood succeeded in bringing Mrs. and Miss McDonell on board; but a second boat was less fortunate: the consul's baby took the opportunity of crying just as it was being carried in a basket past the sentinel, by the ship's surgeon, who believed he had quieted it. The whole party were taken before the Dey, who, however, released all but the boat's crew, and, as "a solitary instance of his humanity," sent the baby on board. The Consul-General himself remained a prisoner.

No reply being vouchsafed to his flag of truce, Lord Exmouth bore up to the attack, and the Queen Charlotte dropped anchor in the entrance of the Mole, some fifty yards off, and was lashed to a mast which was made fast to the shore. A shot from the Mole, instantly answered from the flagship, opened the battle. "Then commenced a fire," wrote the admiral, "as animated and well-supported as I believe was ever witnessed, from a quarter before three till nine, without intermission, and which did not cease altogether till half-past eleven [P.M.]. The ships immediately following me were admirably and coolly taking up their stations, with a precision even beyond my most sanguine hope; and never did the British flag receive, on any occasion, more zealous and honourable support.

"The battle was fairly at issue between a handful of Britons, in the noble cause of Christianity, and a horde of fanatics, assembled round their city, and enclosed within its fortifications, to obey the dictates of their Despot. The cause of God and humanity prevailed; and so devoted was every creature in the fleet, that even British women served at the same guns with their husbands, and, during a contest of many hours, never shrank from danger, but animated all around them."

Some of the men-of-war, especially the Impregnable, Rear-Admiral Milne, were hard beset; but about ten o'clock at night the main batteries were silenced, and in a state of ruin, and "all the ships in the port, with the exception of the outer frigate [which had been boarded], were in flames, which extended rapidly over the whole arsenal, storehouses, and gun-boats, exhibiting a spectacle of awful grandeur and interest no pen can describe."[92] At one o'clock everything in the Marine seemed on fire: two ships wrapped in flames drifted out of the port. Heavy thunder, lightning, and rain, increased the lurid effect of the scene.

Next morning, says Mr. Shaler, "the combined fleets are at anchor in the bay, apparently little damaged; every part of the town appeared to have suffered. The Marine batteries are in ruins, and may be occupied without any effort. Lord Exmouth holds the fate of Algiers in his hands."

Instead, however, of demolishing the last vestige of the fortifications, and exacting pledges for future good behaviour, the admiral concluded a treaty by which prisoners of war in future should be exchanged and not enslaved; and the whole of the slaves in Algiers, to the number of 1,642 (chiefly Italian, only eighteen English), were at once set at liberty, and the Dey was made to refund the money, amounting to nearly four hundred dollars, which he had that year extorted from the Italian States. Finally, he was made to publicly apologize to the unfortunate McDonell, who had been confined during the siege half naked in the cell for condemned murderers, loaded with chains, fastened to the wall, exposed to the heavy rain, and momentarily expecting his doom. He was now reinstated, and publicly thanked by the admiral.

It was, indeed, satisfactory to have at last administered some salutary discipline to the insolent robbers of Algiers; but it had been well if the lesson had been final. Their fleet was certainly gone: they had but two vessels left. Their fortifications were severely damaged, but these were soon repaired. No doubt it was no small advantage to have demonstrated that their batteries could be turned and silenced; but it would have been better to have taken care that they should never mount another gun. Even the moral effect of the victory seems to have been shortlived, for when, in 1819, in pursuance of certain resolutions expressed at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818) the French and English admirals delivered "identical notes" to the new Dey, that potentate replied after his manner by throwing up earthworks.

As a matter of fact the same course of insolence and violence continued after the Battle of Algiers as before. Free European girls were carried off by the Dey; the British consulate was forced open, and even the women's rooms searched; Mr. McDonell was still victimized; and the diplomacy and a little fancy firing of Sir Harry Neale in 1824 failed to produce the least effect. Mr. McDonell had to be recalled, and the Dey as usual had his own way. Nothing but downright conquest could stop the plague, and that final measure was reserved for another nation than the English.

FOOTNOTES:

[90] Broadley, 85-6.

[91] Playfair, 256.

[92] Lord Exmouth's Despatch, August 26, 1816. See also the American Consul Shaler's Report to his Government, September 13th, quoted by Playfair, 269-72. The bombardment destroyed a large part of Mr. Shaler's house, and shells were perpetually whizzing by his ears. His report is full of graphic details, and he was always a true friend of the unlucky McDonell. It is stated that the fleet fired 118 tons of powder, 50,000 shot, nearly 1,000 shells, &c. The English lost 128 killed and 690 wounded. The admiral was wounded in three places, his telescope broken in his hand, and his coat cut to strips. Nor was the Dey less forward at the post of danger.



XXII.

THE FRENCH IN AFRICA.

1830-1881.

The successes of the English and American fleets had produced their effects, not so much in arresting the course of piracy, as in encouraging the European States to defy the pirates. The coup de grace was administered by France—the vis-a-vis, the natural opponent of the Algerine Corsairs, and perhaps the chief sufferer by their attacks. A dispute in April, 1827, between the French consul and the Dey, in which the former forgot the decencies of diplomatic language, and the latter lost his temper and struck the offender with the handle of his fan, led to an ineffectual blockade of Algiers by a French squadron for two years, during which the Algerines aggravated the breach by several acts of barbarity displayed towards French prisoners. Matters grew to a crisis; in August, 1829, the Dey dismissed a French envoy and fired upon his ship as he was retiring under a flag of truce; and it became evident that war on a decisive scale was now inevitable.