Chapter 2

_THE PETTY PIRATES._

XV.

THE GENERAL OF THE GALLEYS.

16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries.

The age of the great Corsairs may be said to have ended with the battle of Lepanto, which sounded the knell of the naval supremacy of the Ottomans. It is true that they seemed to have lost little by Don John's famous victory; their beard was shorn, they admitted, but it soon grew again:--their fleet was speedily repaired, and the Venetians sued for peace. But they had lost something more precious to them than ships or men: their prestige was gone. The powers of Christendom no longer dreaded to meet the invincible Turk, for they had beaten him once, and would beat him again. Rarely after this did an Ottoman fleet sail proudly to work its devastating way along the coasts of Italy. Small raids there might be, but seldom a great adventure such as Barbarossa or Sin[=a]n led. Crete might be besieged for years; but the Venetians, pressed by land, nevertheless shattered the Turkish ships off the coast. Damad 'Ali might recover the Morea, and victoriously surround the shores of Greece with his hundred sail; but he would not venture to threaten Venice, to lay siege to Nice, to harry Naples, or attack Malta. The Turks had enough to do to hold their own in the Black Sea against the encroaching forces of Russia.

Deprived of the protection which the prestige of the Turks had afforded, the Barbary Corsairs degenerated into petty pirates. They continued to waylay Christian cargoes, to ravish Christian villages, and carry off multitudes of captives; but their depredations were not on the same grand scale, they robbed by stealth, and never invited a contest with ships of war. If caught, they would fight; but their aim was plunder, and they had no fancy for broken bones gained out of mere ambition of conquest.

Ochiali was the last of the great Corsairs. He it was who, on his return to Constantinople after the fatal October 7, 1571, cheered the Sultan with the promise of revenge, was made Captain-Pasha, and sailed from the Bosphorus the following year with a fleet of two hundred and thirty vessels, just as though Lepanto had never been fought and lost. He sought for the Christian fleets, but could not induce them to offer battle. His operations in 1574 were limited to the recapture of Tunis, which Don John had restored to Spain in 1573. With two hundred and fifty galleys, ten _mahons_ or galleasses, and thirty caramuzels, and supported by the Algerine squadron under Ahmed Pasha, Ochiali laid siege to the Goletta, which had owned a Spanish garrison ever since the conquest by Charles V. in 1535. Cervellon defended the fort till he had but a handful of men, and finally surrendered at discretion. Then Ochiali disappeared from the western seas; he fought for his master in the Euxine during the Persian War, and died in 1580, aged seventy-two, with the reputation of the most powerful admiral that had ever held sway in the Golden Horn.

We have not closely followed the succession of the Pashas or Beglerbegs of Algiers, because more important affairs absorbed the whole energies of the Turkish galleys, and the rulers on land had little of consequence to do. Ochiali was the seventeenth pasha of Algiers, but of his predecessors, after the deaths of Ur[=u]j and Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n Barbarossa, few attained special eminence. Hasan the son of Barbarossa took part in the siege of Malta, S[=a]lih Reis conquered Fez and Buj[=e]ya; but the rest were chiefly occupied with repressing internal dissensions, fighting with their neighbours, and organizing small piratical expeditions. After Ochiali had been called to Stambol as Captain-Pasha, in 1572, when he had been Pasha of Algiers for four years, nine governors succeeded one another in twenty-four years. At first they were generally renegades: Ramad[=a]n the Sardinian (1574-7), Hasan the Venetian (1577-80 and 1582-3), Ja'far the Hungarian (1580-2), and Memi the Albanian (1583-6), followed one another, and (with the exception of the Venetian) proved to be wise, just, and clement rulers. Then the too usual practice was adopted of allotting the province to the highest bidder, and rich but incompetent or rascally Turks bought the reversion of the Pashalik. The reign of the renegades was over; the Turks kept the government in their own hands, and the _role_ of the ex-Christian adventurers was confined to the minor but more enterprising duties of a Corsair reis or the "general of the galleys." The Pashas, and afterwards the Deys, with occasional exceptions, gave up commanding piratical expeditions, and the interest of the history now turns upon the captains of galleys.

Piracy without and bloodshed and anarchy within form the staple of the records. Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers showed very similar symptoms. Tripoli was the least powerful, and therefore the least injurious; Algiers dominated the Western Mediterranean and to a considerable extent the Atlantic; Tunis, less venturesome, but still formidable, infested the Eastern Mediterranean, and made the passage of Malta and the Adriatic its special hunting grounds. At Tunis thirty Deys, appointed by the Sublime Porte, succeeded one another from 1590 to 1705--giving each an average reign of less than four years. Most of them were deposed, many murdered, and one is related on credible authority to have been torn to pieces and devoured by the enraged populace. In 1705 the soldiery, following the example of Algiers, elected their own governor, and called him Bey; and the Porte was obliged to acquiesce. Eleven Beys followed one another, up to the French "protectorate." The external history of these three centuries is made up of lawless piracy and the levying of blackmail from most of the trading powers of Europe, accompanied by acts of insufferable insolence towards the foreign representatives; all of which was accepted submissively by kings and governments, insomuch that William III. treated a flagrant Corsair, 'Ali Reis, who had become Dey, with the courtesy due to a monarch, and signed himself his "loving friend." The earliest English treaty with Tunis was dated 1662; many more followed, and all were about equally inefficacious. Civil anarchy, quarrels with France, and wars with Algiers, generally stopped "by order" of the helpless Porte, fill up the details of this uninteresting canvas.

Precisely the same picture is afforded by the modern annals of Algiers. Take the Deys at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Hasan Ch[=a]wush was deposed in 1700, and succeeded by the Aga of the Sip[=a]his, Mustafa, nicknamed _Bogotillos_ or "Whiskerandos," who, though something of a coward, engaged in two successful campaigns against Tunis and one with Morocco, until he had the misfortune to find the bow-string round his throat in 1706. Uzeyn Kh[=o]ja followed, and Oran fell during his one year's reign, after which he was banished to the mountains, and died. Bekt[=a]sh Kh[=o]ja, the next Dey, was murdered on his judgment-seat in the third year of his reign. A fifth Dey, Ibrah[=i]m Deli, or "the Fool," made himself so hated by his unconscionable licentiousness that he was assassinated, and his mutilated body exposed in the street, within a few months, and 'Ali, who succeeded in 1710, by murdering some three thousand Turks, contrived to reign eight years, and by some mistake died in his bed.

The kingdom of Morocco is not strictly a Barbary state, and its history does not belong to this volume Nevertheless, the operations of the Morocco pirates outside the Straits of Gibraltar so closely resemble those of the Algerine Corsairs within, that a few words about them will not be out of place. At one time Tetw[=a]n, within the Straits, in spite of its exposed haven, was a famous place for rovers, but its prosperity was destroyed by Philip II. in 1564. Ceuta was always semi-European, half Genoese, then Portuguese (1415), and finally Spanish (1570 to this day). Tangiers, as the dowry of Charles II.'s Queen, Catherine of Portugal, was for some time English territory. Spanish forts at Penon de Velez de la Gomera and Alhucemas, and Portuguese garrisons, repressed piracy in their vicinity; and in later times Sal[=e] was perhaps the only port in Morocco that sent forth buccaneers. Reefs of rocks and drifts of sand render the west coast unsuitable for anchorage, and the roads are unsafe when the wind is in the south-west. Consequently the piracy of Sal[=e], though notorious and dreaded by merchantmen, was on a small scale; large vessels could not enter the harbour, and two-hundred-ton ships had to be lightened before they could pass the bar. The cruisers of Sal[=e] were therefore built very light and small, with which they did not dare to attack considerable and well-armed ships. Indeed, Capt. Delgarno and his twenty-gun frigate so terrified the Sal[=e] rovers, that they never ventured forth while he was about, and mothers used to quiet naughty children by saying that Delgarno was coming for them, just as Napoleon and "Malbrouk" were used as bugbears in England and France. There was not a single full-sized galley at Sal[=e] in 1634, and accounts a hundred years later agree that the Sal[=e] rovers had but insignificant vessels, and very few of them, while their docks were practically disused, in spite of abundance of timber. In the latter part of the eighteenth century there seems to have been an increase in the depredations of the Sal[=e] pirates, which probably earned them their exaggerated reputation. At that time they had vessels of thirty and thirty-six guns, but unwieldy and badly built, with which they captured Provencal ships and did considerable mischief, till the Chevalier Acton in 1773, with a single Tuscan frigate, destroyed three out of their five ships. About 1788 the whole Morocco navy consisted of six or eight frigates of two hundred tons, armed with fourteen to eighteen six-pounders, and some galleys. The rovers of Sal[=e] formed at one time a sort of republic of pirates, paying the emperor a tithe of prize-money and slaves, in return for non-interference; but gradually the Government absorbed most of the profits, and the trade declined, till the emperors, in return for rich presents, concluded treaties with the chief maritime Powers, and to a large extent suppressed piracy.[51]

Turning from the monotonous records of internal barbarism, the more adventurous side of Algerine history claims a brief notice. Among the captains who continued to make the name of Corsair terrible to Christian ears, Mur[=a]d Reis holds the foremost place; indeed, he belongs to the order of great Corsairs. There were several of the name, and this Mur[=a]d was distinguished as the Great Mur[=a]d. He was an Arnaut or Albanian, who was captured by an Algerine pirate at the age of twelve, and early showed a turn for adventure. When his patron was engaged at the siege of Malta in 1565, young Mur[=a]d gave him the slip, and went on a private cruise of his own, in which he contrived to split his galleot upon a rock. Undeterred by this misadventure, as soon as he got back to Algiers he set out in a brigantine of fifteen banks, and speedily brought back three Spanish prizes and one hundred and forty Christians. He was with Ochiali when that eminent rover seized Saint-Clement's galleys, and was with difficulty restrained from anticipating his admiral in boarding the _St. Ann_. He soon gained the reputation of a Corsair of the first water, and "a person, who, for our sins, did more harm to the Christians than any other." In 1578, while cruising about the Calabrian coast with eight galleots in search of prey, he sighted the _Capitana_ of Sicily and a consort, with the Duke of Tierra Nuova and his retinue on board. After a hot pursuit the consort was caught at sea; the flagship ran on shore; the Duke and all the ship's company deserted her; and the beautiful vessel was safely brought into Algiers harbour. In 1585 Mur[=a]d ventured out into the Atlantic out of sight of land, which no Algerine had ever dared to do before, and picking up a reinforcement of small brigantines at Sal[=e], descended at daybreak upon Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands, sacked the town without opposition, and carried off the governor's family and three hundred captives. This done, he unblushingly ran up a flag of truce, and permitted the Count and the chief families to come on board and buy back their relations. In 1589, after picking up a stray trader or two, he fell in with _La Serena_, a galley of Malta, which had a Turkish prize in tow. Far from shirking a conflict with so formidable an antagonist, Mur[=a]d gave hot pursuit with his single galleot, and coming up with the _Serena_, boarded and mastered her in half an hour. Then, after stopping to arrest the misdoings of a Majorcan pirate, who was poaching on his own private manor, the Corsair carried his prizes into Algiers, where he was honourably mounted on the Pasha's own horse and escorted in triumph to the Palace by a guard of Janissaries. In 1594, when he had attained the dignity of "General of the Algerine Galleys," Mur[=a]d, with four galleots, encountered two Tuscan galleys off Tripoli; lowering the masts of two of his galleots, so that they should escape observation, he towed them behind the other two, and when the Tuscans had drawn near in full expectation of a couple of prizes, he loosed the vessels astern, and with all four bore down upon the enemy; both galleys were taken, and the Florentine knights and soldiers were chained to the oars in place of the Turks who had lately sat there.[52]

No more typical example of the later sort of pirate can be cited than 'Ali Pichinin, General of the Galleys and galleons of Algiers in the middle of the seventeenth century. This notable slaver, without Barbarossa's ambition or nobility, possessed much of his daring and seamanship. In 1638, emboldened by the successes of the Sultan Mur[=a]d IV. against the Persians, 'Ali put to sea, and, picking up some Tunisian galleys at Bizerta, set sail with a squadron of sixteen for the east coast of Italy. He sacked the district of Nicotra in Apulia, carrying off great spoils and many captives, not sparing even nuns; and then scoured the Adriatic, took a ship in sight of Cattaro, and picked up every stray vessel that could be found.

Upon this a strong Venetian squadron, under Marino Capello, sallied forth, and compelled the Corsairs to seek shelter under the guns of the Turkish fortress of Valona in Albania. In spite of the peace then subsisting between Venice and the Porte, Capello attacked, and the fortress naturally defended, the refugees. The Corsairs were obliged to land, and then Capello, carried away by his zeal, and in contravention of his orders, sent in his galleots and, after a sharp struggle, towed away the whole Barbary squadron, leaving 'Ali and his unlucky followers amazed upon the beach. For this bold stroke Capello was severely reprimanded by the Senate, and the Porte was consoled for the breach of treaty by a _douceur_ of five hundred thousand ducats: but meanwhile the better part of the Algerine galley-fleet had ceased to exist, and owners and captains were bankrupt. It was small consolation that in the same summer an expedition to the north, piloted by a renegade from Iceland, brought back eight hundred of his unfortunate countrymen to exchange the cold of their native land for the bagnios of Algiers.

In 1641, however, the Corsairs had recovered from their losses, and 'Ali Pichinin could boast a fleet of at least sixty-five vessels, as we have it on the authority of Emanuel d'Aranda, who was his slave at the time. The wealth and power of the General of the Galleys were then at their zenith. Six hundred slaves were nightly locked up in his prison, which afterwards was known as the Khan of 'Ali Pichinin, and in Morgan's time was noted for its grape vines, which covered the walls and fringed the windows with the luscious fruit up to the top storey. The son of a renegade himself, he liked not that his followers should turn Turk upon his hands; which "was but picking his pocket of so much money to give a disciple to Mohammed, for whom he was remarked to have no extraordinary veneration. He had actually cudgelled a Frenchmen out of the name of Mustafa (which he had assumed with a Turkish dress) into that of John, which he would fain have renounced. His farms and garden-houses were also under the directions of his own Christians. I have heard much discourse of an entertainment he once made, at his garden, for all the chief Armadores and Corsairs, at which the Pasha was also a guest, but found his own victuals, as fearing some foul play; nothing of which is ill taken among the Turks. All was dressed at town in the general's own kitchen, and passed along from hand to hand by his slaves up to the garden-house, above two miles' distant, where as much of the victuals as got safe thither arrived smoking hot, as they tell the story."[53] A good part, however, disappeared on the road, since, in Corsair's phrase, "the Christian slaves wore hooks on their fingers," and the guests went nigh to be starved. 'Ali's plan for feeding his slaves was characteristic. He gave them no loaves as others did, but told them they were indeed a sorry set of scoundrels, unworthy of the name of slaves, if, during the two or three hours of liberty they enjoyed before sunset, they could not find enough to keep them for a day. His bagnios used to be regular auction-rooms for stolen goods, and were besieged by indignant victims, who were reproached for their carelessness, and made to re-purchase their own valuables: in fine, 'Ali Pichinin "has the honour of having trained up the cleanest set of thieves that were anywhere to be met with." Once a slave found a costly ring of the general's, and restored to him without price: for which "unseasonable piece of honesty" 'Ali gave him half a ducat, and called him a fool for his pains; the ring was worth his ransom. Another time, a slave bargained to sell to an ironmaster the general's anchor from out of his own galley: when discovered, he was commended for his enterprising spirit, and told he was fit to be a slave, since he knew how to gain his living. This slave-dealer had a genius for wheedling the truth out of captives; he was so civil and sympathizing when a new prize was caught, so ready with his "Count" and "my lord" to plain gentlemen, and his "your Eminence" to simple clergymen, that they soon confided in him, revealed their rank, and had their ransom fixed: but, to do him justice, he kept his word, and once promised the release was certain: "My word is my word," he would say.

He was a man of very free views in religion. Once he asked a Genoese priest to tell him candidly what would become of him; "frankly," said Father Angelo, "I am persuaded that the devil will have you;" and the response was cheerfully accepted. Another time it was a devout Moslem sheykh who begged 'Ali to give him a Christian slave to kill, as he did not feel that he had offered any sufficiently pleasing sacrifice to the prophet Mohammed. 'Ali unchained the stroke-oar of his galley, a muscular Spaniard, and armed him at all points, and sent him to be killed by the holy man. "This Christian," shrieked the good sheykh, running as hard as he could, "looks as if he rather wanted to kill me than to be killed himself." "So is it," said 'Ali, "that you are to merit the prophet's favour. Thus it is that Christians are to be sacrificed. Mohammed was a brave, generous man, and never thought it any service done him to slaughter those who were not able to defend themselves. Go; get yourself better instructed in the meaning of the Koran." He was a thorough Corsair, with the rough code of honour, as well as the unprincipled rascality of the sea-rover.

FOOTNOTES:

[51] See John Windus, _Journey to Mequinez_ (Lond., 1735), describing the embassy of Commodore Stewart to Morocco, in 1721, when two hundred and ninety-six English slaves were freed, and a treaty repudiating piracy and the right of search was concluded. Capt. John Braithwaite's _History of the Revolutions in Morocco_ (1729) includes a journal of events and observations made during Mr. Russell's mission in 1728. Sal[=e] is described at pp. 343 ff. See also Chenier, _Present State of the Empire of Morocco_ (Eng. transl., 1788). Chenier was French Consul from 1767: the original work is entitled _Recherches historiques sur les Maures_.

[52] Morgan, 557-9, 588, 597, 607.

[53] Morgan, 674.

XVI.

GALLEYS AND GALLEY SLAVES.

16th Century.

"The Corsairs," says Haedo, "are those who support themselves by continual sea-robberies; and, admitting that among their numbers some of them are natural Turks, Moors, &c., yet the main body of them are renegadoes from every part of Christendom; all who are extremely well acquainted with the Christian coasts." It is a singular fact that the majority of these plunderers of Christians were themselves born in the Faith. In the long list of Algerine viceroys, we meet with many a European. Barbarossa himself was born in Lesbos, probably of a Greek mother. His successor was a Sardinian; soon afterwards a Corsican became pasha of Algiers, then another Sardinian; Ochiali was a Calabrian; Ramad[=a]n came from Sardinia, and was succeeded by a Venetian, who in turn gave place to a Hungarian, who made room for an Albanian. In 1588 the thirty-five galleys or galleots of Algiers were commanded by eleven Turks and twenty-four renegades, including nations of France, Venice, Genoa, Sicily, Naples, Spain, Greece, Calabria, Corsica, Albania, and Hungary, and a Jew. In short, up to nearly the close of the sixteenth century (but much more rarely afterwards) the chiefs of the Corsairs and the governors were commonly drawn from Christian lands. Some of them volunteered--and to the outlaws of Europe the command of a Barbary galley was perhaps the only congenial resort;--but most of them were captives seized as children, and torn from their homes in some of the Corsairs' annual raids upon Corsica and Sardinia and the Italian or Dalmatian coasts. Most of such prisoners were condemned to menial and other labour, unless ransomed; but the bolder and handsomer boys were often picked out by the penetrating eye of the reis, and once chosen the young captive's career was established.

"While the Christians with their galleys are at repose, sounding their trumpets in the harbours, and very much at their ease regaling themselves, passing the day and night in banqueting, cards, and dice, the Corsairs at pleasure are traversing the east and west seas, without the least fear or apprehension, as free and absolute sovereigns thereof. Nay, they roam them up and down no otherwise than do such as go in chase of hares for their diversion. They here snap up a ship laden with gold and silver from India, and there another richly fraught from Flanders; now they make prize of a vessel from England, then of another from Portugal. Here they board and lead away one from Venice, then one from Sicily, and a little further on they swoop down upon others from Naples, Livorno, or Genoa, all of them abundantly crammed with great and wonderful riches. And at other times carrying with them as guides renegadoes (of which there are in Algiers vast numbers of all Christian nations, nay, the generality of the Corsairs are no other than renegadoes, and all of them exceedingly well acquainted with the coasts of Christendom, and even within the land), they very deliberately, even at noon-day, or indeed just when they please, leap ashore, and walk on without the least dread, and advance into the country, ten, twelve, or fifteen leagues or more; and the poor Christians, thinking themselves secure, are surprised unawares; many towns, villages, and farms sacked; and infinite numbers of souls, men, women, children, and infants at the breast, dragged away into a wretched captivity. With these miserable ruined people, loaded with their own valuable substance, they retreat leisurely, with eyes full of laughter and content, to their vessels. In this manner, as is too well known, they have utterly ruined and destroyed Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, Calabria, the neighbourhoods of Naples, Rome, and Genoa, all the Balearic islands, and the whole coast of Spain: in which last more particularly they feast it as they think fit, on account of the Moriscos who inhabit there; who being all more zealous Mohammedans than are the very Moors born in Barbary, they receive and caress the Corsairs, and give them notice of whatever they desire to be informed of. Insomuch that before these Corsairs have been absent from their abodes much longer than perhaps twenty or thirty days, they return home rich, with their vessels crowded with captives, and ready to sink with wealth; in one instant, and with scarce any trouble, reaping the fruits of all that the avaricious Mexican and greedy Peruvian have been digging from the bowels of the earth with such toil and sweat, and the thirsty merchant with such manifest perils has for so long been scraping together, and has been so many thousand leagues to fetch away, either from the east or west, with inexpressible danger and fatigue. Thus they have crammed most of the houses, the magazines, and all the shops of this Den of Thieves with gold, silver, pearls, amber, spices, drugs, silks, cloths, velvets, &c., whereby they have rendered this city the most opulent in the world: insomuch that the Turks call it, not without reason, their India, their Mexico, their Peru."[54]

One has some trouble in realizing the sort of navigation employed by Corsairs. We must disabuse our minds of all ideas of tall masts straining under a weight of canvas, sail above sail. The Corsairs' vessels were long narrow row-boats, carrying indeed a sail or two, but depending for safety and movement mainly upon the oars. The boats were called galleys, galleots, brigantines ("_galeotas ligeras o vergatines_," or _frigatas_), &c., according to their size: a galleot is a small galley, while a brigantine may be called a quarter galley. The number of men to each oar varies, too, according to the vessel's size: a galley may have as many as four to six men working side by side to each oar, a galleot but two or three, and a brigantine one; but in so small a craft as the last each man must be a fighter as well as an oarsmen, whereas the larger vessels of the Corsairs were rowed entirely by Christian slaves.

The galley is the type of all these vessels, and those who are curious about the minutest details of building and equipping galleys need only consult Master Joseph Furttenbach's _Architectura Navalis: Das ist, Von dem Schiff-Gebaw, auf dem Meer und Seekusten zu gebrauchen_, printed in the town of Ulm, in the Holy Roman Empire, by Jonam Saurn, in 1629. Any one could construct a galley from the numerous plans and elevations and sections and finished views (some of which are here reproduced) in this interesting and precise work.[55] Furttenbach is an enthusiastic admirer of a ship's beauties, and he had seen all varieties; for his trade took him to Venice, where he had a galleasse,[56] and he had doubtless viewed many a Corsair fleet, since he could remember the battle of Lepanto and the death of Ochiali. His zeal runs clean away with him when he describes a _stolo_, or great flagship (_capitanea galea_) of Malta in her pomp and dignity and lordliness, as she rides the seas to the rhythmical beat of her many oars, or "easies" with every blade suspended motionless above the waves like the wings of a poised falcon. A galley such as this is "a princely, nay, a royal and imperial _vassello di remo_," and much the most suitable, he adds, for the uses of peace and of war in the Mediterranean Sea. A galley may be 180 or 190 spans long--Furttenbach measures a ship by _palmi_, which varied from nine to ten inches in different places in Italy,--say 150 feet, the length of an old seventy-four frigate, but with hardly a fifth of its cubit contents--and its greatest beam is 25 spans broad. The one engraved on p. 37 is evidently an admiral's galley of the Knights of Malta. She carries two masts--the _albero maestro_ or mainmast, and the _trinchetto_, or foremast, each with a great lateen sail. The Genoese and Venetians set the models of these vessels, and the Italian terms were generally used in all European navigation till the northern nations took the lead in sailing ships. These sails are often clewed up, however, for the mariner of the sixteenth century was ill-practised in the art of tacking, and very fearful of losing sight of land for long, so that unless he had a wind fair astern he preferred to trust to his oars. A short deck at the prow and poop serve, the one to carry the fighting-men and trumpeters and yardsmen, and to provide cover for the four guns, the other to accommodate the knights and gentlemen, and especially the admiral or captain, who sits at the stern under a red damask canopy embroidered with gold, surveying the crew, surrounded by the chivalry of "the Religion," whose white cross waves on the taffety standard over their head, and shines upon various pennants and burgees aloft. Behind, overlooking the roof of the poop, stands the pilot who steers the ship by the tiller in his hand.

Between the two decks, in the ship's waist, is the propelling power: fifty-four benches or banks, twenty-seven a side, support each four or five slaves, whose whole business in life is to tug at the fifty-four oars. This flagship is a Christian vessel, so the rowers are either Turkish and Moorish captives, or Christian convicts. If it were a Corsair, the rowers would all be Christian prisoners. In earlier days the galleys were rowed by freemen, and so late as 1500 the Moors of Algiers pulled their own brigantines to the attack of Spanish villages, but their boats were light, and a single man could pull the oar. Two or three were needed for a galleot, and as many sometimes as six for each oar of a large galley. It was impossible to induce freemen to toil at the oar, sweating close together, for hour after hour--not sitting, but leaping on the bench, in order to throw their whole weight on the oar. "Think of six men chained to a bench, naked as when they were born, one foot on the stretcher, the other on the bench in front, holding an immensely heavy oar [fifteen feet long], bending forwards to the stern with arms at full reach to clear the backs of the rowers in front, who bend likewise; and then having got forward, shoving up the oar's end to let the blade catch the water, then throwing their bodies back on to the groaning bench. A galley oar sometimes pulls thus for ten, twelve, or even twenty hours without a moment's rest. The boatswain, or other sailor, in such a stress, puts a piece of bread steeped in wine in the wretched rower's mouth to stop fainting, and then the captain shouts the order to redouble the lash. If a slave falls exhausted upon his oar (which often chances) he is flogged till he is taken for dead, and then pitched unceremoniously into the sea."[57]

"Those who have not seen a galley at sea, especially in chasing or being chased, cannot well conceive the shock such a spectacle must give to a heart capable of the least tincture of commiseration. To behold ranks and files of half-naked, half-starved, half-tanned meagre wretches, chained to a plank, from whence they remove not for months together (commonly half a year), urged on, even beyond human strength, with cruel and repeated blows on their bare flesh, to an incessant continuation of the most violent of all exercises; and this for whole days and nights successively, which often happens in a furious chase, when one party, like vultures, is hurried on almost as eagerly after their prey, as is the weaker party hurried away in hopes of preserving life and liberty."[58]

Sometimes a galley-slave worked as long as twenty years, sometimes for all his miserable life, at this fearful calling. The poor creatures were chained so close together in their narrow bench--a sharp cut was the characteristic of the galley--that they could not sleep at full length. Sometimes seven men (on French galleys, too, in the last century), had to live and sleep in a space ten feet by four. The whole ship was a sea of hopeless faces. And between the two lines of rowers ran the bridge, and on it stood two boatswains (_comiti_) armed with long whips, which they laid on to the bare backs of the rowers with merciless severity. Furttenbach gives a picture of the two boatswains in grimly humorous verse: how they stand,

Beclad, belaced, betrimmed, with many knots bespick; Embroidered, padded, tied; all feathers and all flap; Curly and queued, equipped, curious of hood and cap:

and how they "ever stolidly smite" the crew with the bastinado,

Or give them a backward prod in the naked flesh as they ply, With the point that pricks like a goad, when "powder and shot" is the cry;

in order to send the Turks to Davy's wet locker:--

As John of Austria nipped them and riddled them with ball, As soon as his eyes fell on them, and ducked or slaughtered them all;

and how the boatswain's dreaded whistle shrieked through the ship:--

For they hearken to such a blast through all the swish and sweat, Through rattle and rumpus and raps, and the kicks and cuffs that they get, Through the chatter and tread, and the rudder's wash, and the dismal clank Of the shameful chain which forever binds the slave to the bank.

To this may be added Captain Pantero Pantera's description of the boatswain's demeanour: "He should appear kindly towards the crew: assist it, pet it, but without undue familiarity; be, in short, its guardian and in some sort its father, remembering that, when all's said, 'tis human flesh, and human flesh in direst misery."

This terrible living grave of a galley, let us remember, is depicted from Christian models. A hundred and fifty years ago such scenes might be witnessed on many a European vessel. The Corsairs of Algiers only served their enemies as they served them: their galley slaves were no worse treated, to say the least, than were Doria's or the King of France's own. Rank and delicate nurture were respected on neither side: a gallant Corsair like Dragut had to drag his chain and pull his insatiable oar like any convict at the treadmill, and a future grand master of Malta might chance to take his seat on the rowing bench beside commonest scoundrel of Naples. No one seemed to observe the horrible brutality of the service, where each man, let him be never so refined, was compelled to endure the filth and vermin of his neighbour who might be half a savage and was bound to become wholly one; and when Madame de Grignan wrote an account of a visit to a galley, her friend Madame de Sevigne replied that she would "much like to see this sort of Hell," and the men "groaning day and night under the weight of their chains." _Autres temps, autres moeurs!_

Furttenbach tells us much more about the galley; and how it was rigged out with brilliant cloths on the bulwarks on fete-days; how the biscuit was made to last six or eight months, each slave getting twenty-eight ounces thrice a week, and a spoonful of some mess of rice or bones or green stuff; of the trouble of keeping the water-cans under the benches full and fairly fresh. The full complement of a large galley included, he says, besides about 270 rowers, and the captain, chaplain, doctor, scrivener, boatswains, and master, or pilot, ten or fifteen gentleman adventurers, friends of the captain, sharing his mess, and berthed in the poop; twelve helmsmen (_timonieri_), six foretop A.B's., ten warders for the captives, twelve ordinary seamen, four gunners, a carpenter, smith, cooper, and a couple of cooks, together with fifty or sixty soldiers; so that the whole equipage of a fighting-galley must have reached a total of about four hundred men.[59]

What is true of a European galley is also generally applicable to a Barbary galleot, except that the latter was generally smaller and lighter, and had commonly but one mast, and no castle on the prow.[60] The Algerines preferred fighting on galleots of eighteen to twenty-four banks of oars, as more manageable than larger ships. The crew of about two hundred men was very densely packed, and about one hundred soldiers armed with muskets, bows, and scimitars occupied the poop. Haedo has described the general system of the Corsairs as he knew it at the close of the sixteenth century, and his account, here summarized, holds good for earlier and somewhat later periods:--

These vessels are perpetually building or repairing at Algiers; the builders are all Christians, who have a monthly pay from the Treasury of six, eight, or ten quarter-dollars, with a daily allowance of three loaves of the same bread with the Turkish soldiery, who have four. Some of the upper rank of these masters have six and even eight of these loaves; nor has any of their workmen, as carpenters, caulkers, coopers, oar-makers, smiths, &c., fewer than three. The _Beylik_, or common magazine, never wants slaves of all useful callings, "nor is it probable that they should ever have a scarcity of such while they are continually bringing in incredible numbers of Christians of all nations." The captains, too, have their private artificer slaves, whom they buy for high prices and take with them on the cruise, and hire them out to help the Beylik workmen when ashore.

The number of vessels possessed at any one time by the Algerines appears to have never been large. Barbarossa and Dragut were content with small squadrons. Ochiali had but fifteen Algerine galleys at Lepanto. Haedo says that at the close of the sixteenth century (1581) the Algerines possessed 36 galleots or galleys, made up of 3 of 24 banks, 1 of 23, 11 of 22, 8 of 20, 1 of 19, 10 of 18, and 2 of 15, and these were, all but 14, commanded by renegades. They had besides a certain number of brigantines of 14 banks, chiefly belonging to Moors at Shersh[=e]l. This agrees substantially with Father Dan's account (1634), who says that there were in 1588 thirty-five galleys or brigantines (he means galleots) of which all but eleven were commanded by renegades. Haedo gives the list[61] of the 35 captains, from which the following names are selected: Ja'far the Pasha (Hungarian), Memi (Albanian), Mur[=a]d (French), Deli Memi (Greek), Mur[=a]d Reis (Albanian), Feru Reis (Genoese), Mur[=a]d Maltrapillo and Y[=u]suf (Spaniards), Memi Reis and Memi Gancho (Venetians), Mur[=a]d the Less (Greek), Memi the Corsican, Memi the Calabrian, Montez the Sicilian, and so forth, most of whom commanded galleys of 22 to 24 banks.[62]

It was a pretty sight to see the launching of a galley. After the long months of labour, after felling the oak and pine in the forests of Shersh[=e]l, and carrying the fashioned planks on camels, mules, or their own shoulders, some thirty miles to the seashore; or perhaps breaking up some unwieldy prize vessel taken from the Spaniards or Venetians; after all the sawing and fitting and caulking and painting; then at last comes the day of rejoicing for the Christian slaves who alone have done the work: for no Mussulman would offer to put a finger to the building of a vessel, saving a few Morisco oar-makers and caulkers. Then the _armadores_, or owners of the new galleot, as soon as it is finished, come down with presents of money and clothes, and hang them upon the mast and rigging, to the value of two hundred or three hundred ducats, to be divided among their slaves, whose only pay till that day has been the daily loaves. Then again on the day of launching, after the vessel has been keeled over, and the bottom carefully greased from stem to stern, more presents from owners and captains to the workmen, to say nothing of a hearty dinner; and a great straining and shoving of brawny arms and bare backs, a shout of _Allahu Akbar_, "God is Most Great," as the sheep is slaughtered over the vessel's prow--a symbol, they said, of the Christian blood to be shed--and the galleot glides into the water prepared for her career of devastation: built by Christians and manned by Christians, commanded probably by a quondam Christian, she sallies forth to prey upon Christendom.

The rowers, if possible, were all Christian slaves, belonging to the owners, but when these were not numerous enough, other slaves, or Arabs and Moors, were hired at ten ducats the trip, prize or no prize. If he was able, the captain (_Reis_) would build and furnish out his own vessel, entirely at his own cost, in hope of greater profit; but often he had not the means, and then he would call in the aid of one or more _armadores_. These were often speculative shopkeepers, who invested in a part share of a galleot on the chance of a prize, and who often discovered that ruin lay in so hazardous a lottery. The complement of soldiers, whether volunteers (_levents_), consisting of Turks, renegades, or _Kuroghler_ (_Kuloghler_)--_i.e._, _creoles_, natives, Turks born on the soil--or if these cannot be had, ordinary Moors, or Ottoman janissaries, varied with the vessel's size, but generally was calculated at two to each oar, because there was just room for two men to sit beside each bank of rowers: they were not paid unless they took a prize, nor were they supplied with anything more than biscuit, vinegar, and oil--everything else, even their blankets, they found themselves. The soldiers were under the command of their own Aga, who was entirely independent of the Reis and formed an efficient check upon that officer's conduct. Vinegar and water, with a few drops of oil on the surface, formed the chief drink of the galley slaves, and their food was moistened biscuit or rusk, and an occasional mess of gruel (_burgol_): nor was this given out when hard rowing was needed, for oars move slackly on a full stomach.

It was usual to consult an auguration book and a _marabut_, or saint, before deciding on a fortunate day for putting to sea, and these saints expected a share of the prize money. Fridays and Sundays were the favourite days for sailing; a gun is fired in honour of their tutelary patron; "God speed us!" shout the crew; "God send you a prize!" reply the crowd on the shore, and the galleot swiftly glides away on its destructive path. "The Algerines," says Haedo, "generally speaking, are out upon the cruise winter and summer, the whole year round; and so devoid of dread they roam these eastern and western seas, laughing all the while at the Christian galleys (which lie trumpetting, gaming, and banqueting in the ports of Christendom), neither more nor less than if they went a hunting hares and rabbits, killing here one and there another. Nay, far from being under apprehension, they are certain of their game; since their galleots are so extremely light and nimble, and in such excellent order, as they always are[63]; whereas, on the contrary, the Christian galleys are so heavy, so embarrassed, and in such bad order and confusion, that it is utterly in vain to think of giving them chase, or of preventing them from going and coming, and doing just as they their selves please. This is the occasion that, when at any time the Christian galleys chase them, their custom is, by way of game and sneer, to point to their fresh-tallowed poops, as they glide along like fishes before them, all one as if they showed them their backs to salute: and as in the cruising art, by continual practise, they are so very expert, and withal (for our sins) so daring, presumptuous, and fortunate, in a few days from their leaving Algiers they return laden with infinite wealth and captives; and are able to make three or four voyages in a year, and even more if they are inclined to exert themselves. Those who have been cruising westward, when they have taken a prize, conduct it to sell at Tetw[=a]n, El-Araish, &c., in the kingdom of Fez; as do those who have been eastward, in the states of Tunis and Tripoli: where, refurnishing themselves with provisions, &c., they instantly set out again, and again return with cargoes of Christians and their effects. If it sometimes happens more particularly in winter, that they have roamed about for any considerable time without lighting on any booty, they retire to some one of these seven places, viz:--If they had been in the west their retreats were Tetw[=a]n, Al-Araish, or Yusale; those who came from the Spanish coasts went to the island Formentara; and such as had been eastward retired to the island S. Pedro, near Sardinia, the mouths of Bonifacio in Corsica, or the islands Lipari and Strombolo, near Sicily and Calabria; and there, what with the conveniency of those commodious ports and harbours, and the fine springs and fountains of water, with the plenty of wood for fuel they meet with, added to the careless negligence of the Christian galleys, who scarce think it their business to seek for them--they there, very much at their ease, regale themselves, with stretched-out legs, waiting to intercept the paces of Christian ships, which come there and deliver themselves into their clutches."[64]

Father Dan describes their mode of attack as perfectly ferocious. Flying a foreign flag, they lure the unsuspecting victim within striking distance, and then the gunners (generally renegades) ply the shot with unabated rapidity, while the sailors and boatswains chain the slaves that they may not take part in the struggle. The fighting men stand ready, their arms bared, muskets primed, and scimitars flashing, waiting for the order to board. Their war-cry was appalling; and the fury of the onslaught was such as to strike panic into the stoutest heart.

When a prize was taken the booty was divided with scrupulous honesty between the owners and the captors, with a certain proportion (varying from a fifth to an eighth) reserved for the Beylik, or government, who also claimed the hulks. Of the remainder, half went to the owners and reis, the other half to the crew and soldiers. The principal officers took each three shares, the gunners and helmsmen two, and the soldiers and swabbers one; the Christian slaves received from 11/2 to three shares apiece. A scrivener saw to the accuracy of the division. If the prize was a very large one, the captors usually towed it into Algiers at once, but small vessels were generally sent home under a lieutenant and a jury-crew of Moors.

There is no mistaking the aspect of a Corsair who has secured a prize: for he fires gun after gun as he draws near the port, utterly regardless of powder. The moment he is in the roads, the _Liman_ Reis, or Port Admiral, goes on board, and takes his report to the Pasha; then the galleot enters the port, and all the oars are dropped into the water and towed ashore, so that no Christian captives may make off with the ship in the absence of the captain and troops. Ashore all is bustle and delighted confusion; the dulness of trade, which is the normal condition of Algiers between the arrivals of prizes, is forgotten in the joy of renewed wealth; the erstwhile shabby now go strutting about, pranked out in gay raiment, the commerce of the bar-rooms is brisk, and every one thinks only of enjoying himself. Algiers is _en fete_.

FOOTNOTES:

[54] Haedo, quoted by Morgan, 593-4.

[55] Hardly less valuable is Adm. Jurien de la Graviere's _Les Derniers Jours de la Marine a Rames_ (Paris, 1885). It contains an admirable account of the French galley system, the mode of recruiting, discipline, and general management; a description of the different classes of vessels, and their manner of navigation; while a learned Appendix of over one hundred pages describes the details of galley-building, finishing, fitting, and rigging, and everything that the student need wish to learn. The chapters (ix. and x.) on _Navigation a la rame_ and _Navigation a la voile_, are particularly worth reading by those who would understand sixteenth and seventeenth century seamanship.

[56] A galleasse was originally a large heavy galley, three-masted, and fitted with a rudder, since its bulk compelled it to trust to sails as well as oars. It was a sort of transition-ship, between the galley and the galleon, and as time went on it became more and more of a sailing ship. It had high bulwarks, with loopholes for muskets, and there was at least a partial cover for the crew. The Portuguese galleys in the Spanish Armada mounted each 110 soldiers and 222 galley-slaves; but the Neapolitan galleasses carried 700 men, of whom 130 were sailors, 270 soldiers, and 300 slaves of the oar. Jurien de la Graviere, _Les Derniers Jours de la Marine a Rames_, 65-7.

[57] So says Jean Marteille de Bergerac, a galley-slave about 1701, quoted by Adm. Jurien de la Graviere, _Derniers Jours de la Marine a Rames_, 13.

[58] Morgan, 517.

[59] In 1630 a French galley's company consisted of 250 forcats and 116 officers, soldiers, and sailors.

[60] Dan, _Hist. de Barbarie_, 268-71. See the cut of Tunisian galleots on p. 183.

[61] _Topographia_, 18.

[62] Dan, 270-1.

[63] The Corsairs prided themselves on the ship-shape appearance of their vessels. Everything was stowed away with marvellous neatness and economy of space and speed; even the anchor was lowered into the hold lest it should interfere with the "dressing" of the oars. The weapons were never hung, but securely lashed, and when chasing an enemy, no movement of any kind was permitted to the crew and soldiers, save when necessary to the progress and defence of the ship. These Corsairs, in fact, understood the conditions of a rowing-race to perfection.

[64] Haedo, 17.

XVII.

THE TRIUMPH OF SAILS.

17th Century.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century a notable change came over the tactics of the Corsairs: they built fewer galleys, and began to construct square-sailed ships. In Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli the dockyards teemed with workmen busily engaged in learning the new build; and the honour, if such it be, of having taught them rests apparently between England and Flanders. Simon Danser, the Flemish rover, taught the Algerines the fashion of "round ships," in 1606, and an Englishman seems to have rendered the same kind office to the people of Tunis, aided by a Greek renegade, Memi Reis; where, moreover, another English pirate, "Captain Wer," was found in congenial company at the Goletta by Monsieur de Breves, the French ambassador.[65] The causes of the change were twofold: first, Christian slaves were not always to be caught, and to hire rowers for the galleys was a ruinous expense; and secondly, the special service for which the smaller galleots and brigantines were particularly destined, the descents upon the Spanish coasts was to some degree obstructed by the final expulsion of the last of the Moors from Andalusia in 1610.[66] That stroke deprived the Corsairs of the ready guides and sympathisers who had so often helped them to successful raids, and larger vessels and more fighting men were needed if such descents were to be continued. Moreover, the Barbary rovers were ambitious to contend with their old enemies for golden treasure on the Spanish main itself; the science of navigation was fast developing; and they felt themselves as equal to venturing upon long cruises as any European nation. Now a long cruise is impossible in a galley, where you have some hundreds of rowers to feed, and where each pound of biscuit adds to the labour of motion; but sails have no mouths, and can carry along a great weight of provisions without getting tired, like human arms. So sails triumphed over oars. The day of the galley was practically over, and the epoch of the ship had dawned. As early as 1616 Sir Francis Cottington reported to the Duke of Buckingham that the sailing force of Algiers was exciting general alarm in Spain: "The strength and boldness of the Barbary pirates is now grown to that height, both in the ocean and the Mediterranean seas, as I have never known anything to have wrought a greater sadness and distraction in this Court than the daily advice thereof. Their whole fleet consists of forty sail of tall ships, of between two and four hundred tons a piece; their admiral [flagship] of five hundred. They are divided into two squadrons; the one of eighteen sail remaining before Malaga, in sight of the city; the other about the Cape of S. Maria, which is between Lisbon and Seville. That squadron within the straits entered the road of Mostil, a town by Malaga, where with their ordnance they beat down part of the castle, and had doubtless taken the town, but that from Granada there came soldiers to succour it; yet they took there divers ships, and among them three or four from the west part of England. Two big English ships they drove ashore, not past four leagues from Malaga; and after they got on shore also, and burnt them, and to this day they remain before Malaga, intercepting all ships that pass that way, and absolutely prohibiting all trade into those parts of Spain." The other squadron was doing the same thing outside the straits, and the Spanish fleet was both too small in number and too cumbrous in build to attack them successfully. Yet "if this year they safely return to Algiers, especially if they should take any of the fleet, it is much to be feared that the King of Spain's forces by sea will not be sufficient to restrain them hereafter, so much sweetness they find by making prize of all Christians whatsoever."

This dispatch shows that the Corsairs had speedily mastered the new manner of navigation, as might have been expected of a nation of sailors. They had long been acquainted with the great galleasse of Spain and Venice, a sort of compromise between the rowed galley and the sailing galleon; for it was too heavy to depend wholly on its oars (which by way of distinction were rowed under cover), and its great lateen sails were generally its motive power. The galleys themselves, moreover, had sails, though not square sails; and the seaman who can sail a ship on lateen sails soon learns the management of the square rig. The engravings on pp. 5, 11, 165, 197, and 227 sufficiently show the type of vessel that now again came into vogue, and which was known as a galleon, nave, polacca, tartana, barcone, caravel, caramuzel, &c., according to its size and country. The Turkish caramuzel or tartan, says Furttenbach, stands high out of the water, is strong and swift, and mounts eighteen or twenty guns and as many as sixty well-armed pirates. It is a dangerous vessel to attack. From its commanding height its guns can pour down so furious a fire upon a Christian craft that the only alternative to surrender is positive extirpation. If the enemy tries to sneak out of range below the level of fire, the Turks drop grenades from the upper decks and set the ship on fire, and even if the Christians succeeded in boarding, they find themselves in a trap: for though the ship's waist is indeed cleared of the enemy, the hurricane decks at poop and prow command the boarding party, and through loopholes in the bulwarks--as good a cover as a trench--a hail of grape pours from the guns, and seizing their opportunity the Turks rush furiously through the doors and take their opponents simultaneously in face and rear; and then comes a busy time for scimitar and pike. Or, when you are alongside, if you see the caramuzel's mainsail being furled, and something moving in the iron cage on the _gabia_ or maintop, know that a petard will soon be dropped in your midst from the main peak, and probably a heavy stone or bomb from the opposite end of the long lateen yard, where it serves the double purpose of missile and counterpoise. Now is the time to keep your distance, unless you would have a hole in your ship's bottom. The Corsairs, indeed, are very wily in attack and defence, acquainted with many sorts of projectiles,--even submarine torpedoes, which a diver will attach to the enemy's keel,--and they know how to serve their stern chasers with amazing accuracy and rapidity.[67]

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 Mur[=a]d--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 Mur[=a]d 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 Scander[=u]n; 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; Sal[=e] 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 Besist[=a]n 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 Besist[=a]n and marched up and down by the _dell[=a]ls_ 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 Buj[=e]ya, 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 Cotting_ham_). 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 Buj[=e]ya) 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 Sher[=i]fs 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 Buj[=e]ya: 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, Y[=u]suf, 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 Y[=u]suf 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 Ibrah[=i]m 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 Vez[=i]r. 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 Mahm[=u]d 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 Mahm[=u]d 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 Mahm[=u]d 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 meml[=u]ks. 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.

Accordingly, on May 26th, 1830, a large fleet sailed out of Toulon. Admiral Duperre commanded, and the land-forces on board numbered thirty-seven thousand foot, besides cavalry and artillery. Delayed by stress of weather, the fleet was not sighted off Algiers till June 13th, when it anchored in the Bay of Sidi Ferr[=u]j, and there landed next day, with little opposition, and began to throw up entrenchments. A force of Arabs and Kabyles was severely defeated on the 19th, with the loss of their camp and provisions, and the French slowly pushed their way towards the city, beating back the Algerines as they advanced. The defenders fought game to the last, but the odds were overwhelming, and the only wonder is that so overpowering a force of besiegers, both by sea and land, should have evinced so much caution and diffidence of their own immense superiority. On July 4th, the actual bombardment of the city began; the Fort de l'Empereur was taken, after the Algerines had blown up the powder magazine; and the Dey asked for terms of surrender. Safety of person and property for himself and for the inhabitants of the city was promised by the French commander, and on this condition the enemy occupied Algiers on the following day, July 5th. A week later the Dey, with his family and attendants and belongings, sailed for Naples in a French frigate, and Algiers had seen the last of its Mohammedan rulers.[93]

Here, so far as Algiers is concerned, the Story of the Corsairs properly ends. But a glance at the events which have occurred during the French occupation may usefully supplement what has already been recorded. The conquest had been marked by a moderation and humanity which did infinite honour to the French arms; it would have been well if a similar policy had distinguished their subsequent proceedings. It is not necessary to dwell upon the assurance given by France to Great Britain that the occupation was only temporary; upon the later announcement of permanent annexation; or upon England's acquiescence in the perfidy, upon the French engaging never to push their conquests further to the east or west of Algiers--an engagement curiously illustrated by the recent occupation of Tunis. But if the aggrandizement of France in North Africa is matter for regret, infinitely more to be deplored is the manner in which the possession of the interior of the country has been effected. It is not too much to say that from the moment when the French, having merely taken the city of Algiers, began the work of subduing the tribes of the interior in 1830, to the day when they at last set up civil, instead of military, government, after the lessons of the Franco-German war in 1870, the history of Algeria is one long record of stupidly brutal camp-rule, repudiation of sacred engagements, inhuman massacres of unoffending natives of both sexes and all ages, violence without judgment, and severity without reason. One French general after another was sent out to bring the rebellious Arabs and Kabyles into subjection, only to display his own incompetence for the inhuman task, and to return baffled and brutalized by the disgraceful work he thought himself bound to carry out. There is no more humiliating record in the annals of annexation than this miserable conquest of Algiers. It is the old story of trying to govern what the conquerors call "niggers," without attempting to understand the people first. Temper, justice, insight, and conciliation would have done more in four years than martial intolerance and drum tyranny accomplished in forty.

In all these years of miserable guerilla warfare, in which such well-known commanders as Bugeaud, Pelissier, Canrobert, St. Arnaud, MacMahon, and many more, learned their first demoralizing lessons in warfare, the only people who excite our interest and admiration are the Arab tribes. That they were unwise in resisting the inevitable is indisputable; but it is no less certain that they resisted with splendid valour and indomitable perseverance. Again and again they defeated the superior forces of France in the open field, wrested strong cities from the enemy, and even threatened to extinguish the authority of the alien in Algiers for ever. For all which the invaders had only to thank themselves. Had General Clausel, the first military governor of Algiers, been a wise man, the people might have accepted, by degrees, the sovereignty of France. But the violence of his measures, and his ignorance of the very word "conciliation," raised up such strenuous opposition, engendered such terrible reprisals, and set the two parties so hopelessly against each other, that nothing less than a prolonged struggle could be expected.

The hero of this sanguinary conflict was 'Abd-el-K[=a]dir, a man who united in his person and character all the virtues of the old Arabs with many of the best results of civilization. Descended from a saintly family, himself learned and devout, a H[=a]j or Meccan pilgrim; frank, generous, hospitable; and withal a splendid horseman, redoubtable in battle, and fired with the patriotic enthusiasm which belongs to a born leader of men, 'Abd-el-K[=a]dir became the recognized chief of the Arab insurgents. The Dey of Algiers had foreseen danger in the youth, who was forced to fly to Egypt in fear of his life. When he returned, a young man of twenty-four, he found his country in the hands of the French, and his people driven to desperation. His former fame and his father's name were talismans to draw the impetuous tribes towards him; and he soon had so large a following that the French deemed it prudent for the moment to recognize him (1834) as Em[=i]r of Maskara, his native place, of which he had already been chosen king by general acclamation. Here he prepared for the coming struggle; and when the French discovered a pretext for attacking him in 1835, they were utterly routed on the river Maska. The fortunes of war vacillated in the following year, till in May, 1837, 'Abd-el-K[=a]dir triumphantly defeated a French army in the plain of the Metija. A fresh expedition of twenty thousand met with no better success, for Arabs and Berbers are hard to trap, and 'Abd-el-K[=a]dir, whose strategy evoked the admiration of the Duke of Wellington, was for a time able to baffle all the marshals of France. The whole country, save a few fortified posts, was now under his sway, and the French at last perceived that they had to deal with a pressing danger. They sent out eighty thousand men under Marshal Bugeaud, and the success of this officer's method of sweeping the country with movable columns was soon apparent. Town after town fell; tribe after tribe made terms; even 'Abd-el-K[=a]dir's capital, Takidemt, was destroyed; Maskara was subdued (1841); and the heroic chief, still repudiating defeat, retreated to Morocco. Twice he led fresh armies into his own land, in 1843 and 1844; the one succumbed to the Duc d'Aumale, the other to Bugeaud. Pelissier covered himself with peculiar glory by smoking five hundred men, women, and children to death in a cave. At last, seeing the hopelessness of further efforts and the misery they brought upon his people, 'Abd-el-K[=a]dir accepted terms (1847), and surrendered to the Duc d'Aumale on condition of being allowed to retire to Alexandria or Naples. It is needless to add that, in accordance with Algerian precedent, the terms of surrender were subsequently repudiated, though not by the Royal Duke, and the noble Arab was consigned for five years to a French prison. Louis Napoleon eventually allowed him to depart to Brusa, and he finally died at Damascus in 1883, not, however, before he had rendered signal service to his former enemies by protecting the Christians during the massacres of 1860.

Though 'Abd-el-K[=a]dir had gone, peace did not settle upon Algeria. Again and again the tribes revolted, only to feel once more the merciless severity of their military rulers. French colonists did not readily adopt the new field for emigration. It seemed as though the best thing would be to withdraw from a bootless, expensive, and troublesome venture. Louis Napoleon, however, when he visited Algiers in 1865, contrived somewhat to reassure the Kabyles, while he guaranteed their undisturbed possession of their territories; and until his fall there was peace. But the day of weakness for France was the opportunity for Algiers, and another serious revolt broke out; the Kabyles descended from their mountains, and Gen. Durieu had enough to do to hold them in check. The result of this last attempt, and the change of government in France, was the appointment of civil instead of military governors, and since then Algeria has on the whole remained tranquil, though it takes an army of fifty thousand men to keep it so. There are at least no more Algerine Corsairs.

It remains to refer to the affairs of Tunis. If there was provocation for the French occupation of Algiers in 1830, there was none for that of Tunis in 1881.[94] It was a pure piece of aggression, stimulated by the rival efforts of Italy, and encouraged by the timidity of the English Foreign Office, then under the guidance of Lord Granville. A series of diplomatic grievances, based upon no valid grounds, was set up by the ingenious representative of France in the Regency--M. Theodore Roustan, since deservedly exposed--and the resistance of the unfortunate Bey, Mohammed Es-S[=a]dik, to demands which were in themselves preposterous, and which obviously menaced his semi-independence as a viceroy of the Ottoman Empire, received no support from any of the Powers, save Turkey, who was then depressed in influence and resources by the adversities of the Russian invasion. The result was natural: a strong Power, unchecked by efficient rivals, pursued her stealthy policy of aggression against a very weak, but not dishonest, State; and finally seized upon the ridiculous pretext of some disturbances among the tribes bordering on Algeria to invade the territory of the Bey. In vain Mohammed Es-S[=a]dik assured M. Roustan that order had been restored among the tribes; in vain he appealed to all the Powers, and, above all, to England. Lord Granville believed the French Government when it solemnly assured him that "the operations about to commence on the borderland between Algeria and Tunis are meant solely to put an end to the constant inroads of the frontier clans into Algerian territory, and that the independence of the Bey and the integrity of his territory are in no way threatened." It was Algiers over again, but with even more serious consequences to English influence--indeed to all but French influence--in the Mediterranean. "Perfide Albion" wholly confided in "Perfida Gallia," and it was too late to protest against the flagrant breach of faith when the French army had taken Kef and Tabarka (April 26, 1881), when the tricolor was floating over Bizerta, and when General Breart, with every circumstance of insolent brutality, had forced the Treaty of Kasr-es-Sa'[=i]d upon the luckless Bey under the muzzles of the guns of the Republic (May 12th). It is difficult to believe that the feeling of the English statesmen of the day is expressed in the words--_Haec olim meminisse juvabit._

The Bey had been captured--he and since his death Sidi 'Al[=i] Bey have continued to be the figureheads of the French Protectorate--but his people were not so easily subdued. The southern provinces of Tunis broke into open revolt, and for a time there ensued a period of hopeless anarchy, which the French authorities made no effort to control. At last they bestirred themselves, and to some purpose. Sfax was mercilessly bombarded and _sacked_, houses were blown up with their inhabitants inside them, and a positive reign of terror was inaugurated, in which mutual reprisals, massacres, and executions heightened the horrors of war. The whole country outside the fortified posts became the theatre of bloodshed, robbery, and anarchy. It was the history of Algiers _in petto_. Things have slowly improved since then, especially since M. Roustan's recall; doubtless in time Tunis will be as subdued and as docile as Algiers; and meanwhile France is developing the resources of the land, and opening out one of the finest harbours in existence. Yet M. Henri de Rochefort did not, perhaps, exaggerate when he wrote: "We compared the Tunisian expedition to an ordinary fraud. We were mistaken. The Tunis business is a robbery aggravated by murder." The "Algerian business" was of a similar character. _Qui commence bien finit bien_, assumes Admiral Jurien de la Graviere in his chapter entitled "Gallia Victrix." If the history of France in Africa ends in bringing the southern borderlands of the Mediterranean, the old haunts of the Barbary Corsairs, within the pale of civilization, it may some day be possible to bury the unhappy past, and inscribe upon the tombstone the optimistic motto: _Finis coronat opus._

FOOTNOTES:

[93] See the graphic journal of the British Consul-General, R. W. St. John, published in Sir R. Lambert Playfair's _Scourge of Christendom_, pp. 310-322.

[94] For a full account of this scandalous proceeding, see Mr. A. M. Broadley's _Tunis, Past and Present_.

THE END.

INDEX.

A

'Abd-el-K[=a]dir, 305-6

'Abd-el-Melik. Khalif, 7

'Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n, 7

Acre, 62

Acton, Chevalier, 191

Aden, 98

Aegina, 97

"Africa" (Mahd[=i]ya), Siege of, 128-133; (Illustr.) 129; taken by Dragut, 133; retaken by Doria, 134.

Aghlab[=i]s, 7, 21

Aix-la-Chapelle, Congress, 4, 299

Alghero, 62

Algiers, 8; taken by D. Pedro Navarro, 13; orthography, 13 _n._, 16, 19; occupied by Ur[=u]j Barbarossa, 46; ruled by Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n, 54; Hasan Aga, viceroy, 81; Charles V.'s Expedition, 112-123; renegade Pashas, 185; Turkish Deys, 185-7; its galleys, 218 ff.; its slaves, 235 ff.; arrogance of its Deys, 257 ff.; bombardment, 297; French occupation, 301-7

Algiers (Illustr.) frontispiece, 48, 115

Alhucemas, 188

'Ali Aga, 272

'Ali Pasha at Lepanto, 164, 173-6

Allen, Sir T., 272

Almohades, 7, 21

Almoravides, 21

Alva, Duke of, 113

'Amr, General, 7

Angelo, Fort (Corfu), 97

Angelo, Fort (Malta), 136, 142 ff.

Aragon, 23

Aranda, Emanuel d', 195

Arenela, 143

Armadores, 221

Arta, Gulf of, 101 ff.

Astrolabe, 170

Astrolabe, observation with, 104

Atlas range, 14

Aubusson, D', 66

Aumale, Duc d', 306

Ay[=a]s, Grand Vez[=i]r, 96

Ayd[=i]n Reis "Drub-Devil," 56, 57, 89

B

Bab Az[=u]n, 117, 118

Bab-el-W[=e]d, 117

Bainbridge, Capt., 277 ff.

Balaklava, 62

Balearic Islands, 24, 56, 57

Baltimore in Ireland sacked, 233, 265

Barbarigo, 173, 175

Barbarossa, Ur[=u]j, birth, 31; Lives of, 31 _n._; arrives at Tunis, 32; takes Papal Galleys, 35; settles at Jerba, 40; attacks Buj[=e]ya, 40; is wounded, 43; second attempt on Buj[=e]ya, 44; goes to J[=i]jil, 44; surprises Shersh[=e]l, 46; occupies Algiers, 49; defeats the Spaniards, 50; conquers Tinnis, 51; is pursued by the Spaniards, 51; and killed, 52

Barbarossa, Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n, see _Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n_

Barbary peninsula, 14 ff.

Barbary, map of, 17

Barcone, 231

Bastion de France, 253-4

Bazan, Alvaro de, 173

Beaufort, Henry, 131

Bekri, El, 26

Beshiktash, 111

Besist[=a]n, 243

Beys of Tunis, 22

Blake, Admiral, 269

Blomberg, Barba, 167

Boccanegra, 103

Bona, 19, 24, 26

Bona, Cape, 19

Bor[=a]k Reis, 66-7

Bourbon, Duke of, 131

Bourbon, Francois de, 106

Boyssat, 89 _n._

Brigantine (Vergatina), 10, 205

Bragadino, 164

Braithwaite, Capt., 191 _n._

Breves, M. de, 226

Broadley, A. M., 89 _n._, 257, 295, 307

Bruce, James, 273

Bugeaud, Marshal, 306

Buj[=e]ya, taken by Spaniards, 12; harbour, 19, 23; besieged by Ur[=u]j Barbarossa, 40; again, 44, 51; Charles V. at, 122, 254

Burgol, 222

C

Caesarea Augusta, 13 _n._

Cairo, 21

Canale, 95

Capellan, Van, 296

Capello, 101-4, 194

Carack, 86, 103

Caramuzel, 231

Caravel (Illustr.), 11, 231

Cardona, Juan de, 150, 168, 177

Carthage, 19

Castelnuovo, 105

Catena, 9, 168 _n._

Cattaro, 105

Cerda, Juan de la, 147

Cervantes, 177, 246-8

Cervellon, 182

Cetraro, 84

Ceuta, 16, 20, 23, 188

Challoner, Sir T., 122

Charles V., 51, 57, 77; at Tunis, 86-91; at Algiers, 112-123, 167

Chenier, 191 _n._

Chesneau, 83 _n._

Chioggia, 62

Christian privileges in Barbary, 22

Clement, Saint-, 161, 192

Col, 55

Collingwood, Admiral, 292

Colonna, 163, 173, 176

Comares, Marq. de, 51

Comelin, Father, 255

Commercial Treaties, 22

Compass, 99

Condulmiero, 103

Constantine, 55

Constantinople, 82-3

Consuls at Algiers, &c., 259 ff.

Cordova, 7

Corfu, 95; besieged, 96-7

Corsica, 7, 24

Cortes, 114

Cossier, 89

Cottington, 229

Courcy, De, 131

Crossbow, observation with, 55

Cruz, Marquis of Santa, 177

Cyprus, 72; taken by Turks, 162-4

D

Damad 'Al[=i], 181

Dan, Father, 218, 219, 220, 233, 235 ff., 252 ff.

Danser, Simon, 226

Dardanelles, 62

Da[=u]d Pasha, 67-71

Decatur, Stephen, 283 ff., 293

Delgarno, 188

Deli Memi, 246

Dell[=a]ls, 243

Denis, Sir Peter, 264

Denmark and Tunis, 258 ff.

Deys of Algiers, 22, 262 ff.

Doria, Andrea, drives Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n from the Goletta, 43; life up to 1533, 76-8; portrait, 79; takes Coron, 81; misses Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n, 82; expedition to Tunis, 86 ff.; chases Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n, 93; fight off Paxos, 95; defeated at Prevesa, 101-4; inactivity, 110; expedition to Algiers, 113 ff.; to Mahd[=i]ya, 133; lets Dragut slip, 135; death, 140

Doria, Giannettino, 112, 127

Doria, Giovanni Andrea, 138-40, 163, 168, 173, 175

Doria, Roger, at Jerba, 128

Dragut, Reis (Torgh[=u]d), 56, 98, 103, 110, 112; early career, 124; captivity, 127; ransom, 112, 127; at Jerba, 128; takes "Africa," 133, and loses it, 134; escape from Jerba, 135; joins the Ottoman navy, 136, 138; destroys the Christian fleet at Jerba, 140; dies at the siege of Malta, 146-9

"Drub-Devil" Ayd[=i]n, 56

Duperre, Admiral, 302

Dynasties of N. Africa, 21

E

Echinades, 173

Elba looted, 82

Elmo, Fort St., 142-9

England and Algiers, 257 ff.

Eski Serai, 82

Evangelista, Master, 142

Exmouth, Lord, 293 ff.

F

Falcon, Consul, 264

F[=a]tim[=i]s, 7, 21, 24

Ferdinand the Catholic, 8, 13, 44

Fez, Bishop of, 22

Fondi sacked, 84-5

Formentara, 57, 224

France and Algiers, 256 ff., 301 ff.

Francis I., 77, 94, 106-10

Frazer, Hon. A. C., 264

Frizell, Consul, 266

Froissart, 128-33

Furttenbach, 206 ff., 232

G

Gabes, Gulf of, 26

Galata, 62

Galleasse, 68, (illustr.) 69, 227; description, 206, 230

Galleon (illustr.), 6; description, 205

Galleot, description, 218

Galley (illustr.), 37, 64; building at Constantinople, 83; (illustr.) 107, 203, 207, 209, 211; description of, 200 ff., 213 ff.

Gembloux, 178

Genoa, 23, 43, 61 ff., 77

Goletta of Tunis, 16, 32, 78, 86

Gonzaga, Giulia, escape of, 84-5

Granada, fall of, 8

Graviere, Admiral Jurien de la, 31 _n._, 59, 71, 73, 81, 83, 104, 123, 138, 150, 177, 206, 215

Greece, raid among the isles of, 97

Greek fire, 131

Grimani, 67, 71, 101-4

Guaras, Jean de, 146

H

Haedo, Diego de, 31 _n._, 36, 82 _n._, 200-5, 219, 220, 223-4

Hafs, dynasty, 21, 23, 32, 85

H[=a]jji Khal[=i]fa, 31 _n._, 67, 82 _n._, 98, 104

Hamm[=a]d, dynasty, 21

Hammer, Von, 31 _n._, 104

Harebone, Mr., 260

Hasan Aga, 81, 112; defends Algiers against Charles V., 112-23

Hasan, King of Tunis, 85-91

Hasan, Pasha of Algiers, 246-7

Herbert, Admiral, 272

His[=a]r Reis, 134

Holland and Algiers, 257 ff., 271, 295

Hope, Capt., 264

Hospitallers, Knights of St. John, 66, 73, 76, and see _Malta_

I

Ibrah[=i]m, Grand Vez[=i]r, 83, 89, 94

Ibrah[=i]m Lubarez, 277

Idr[=i]s, 21

Inchiquin, Earl of, 269

India, expedition to, 98

J

Jerba, lotus-eaters' island, 16, 40; (illustr.) 125; Dragut's lair, 128; his escape from, 135; destruction of the Christian fleet, 139

Jezair, Al-, 13 _n._

J[=i]jil, 19, 20; occupied by Ur[=u]j Barbarossa, 44

John of Austria, Don, 164-78, 246

Julius II., Pope, 35

K

Kasaba at Algiers, 244 ff.

Kara Hasan, 49

Kayraw[=a]n, 91

Kem[=a]l Reis, 66

Keppel, Admiral, 273

Khald[=u]n, Ibn-, 26

Khalifs, 7, 21

Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n Barbarossa, birth, 31 and _n._, 36 _n._; driven from the Goletta, 43; character, 53; policy towards Sultan, 54; appointed Governor of Algiers, 54; defeats Hugo de Moncada, 55; storms the Penon de Alger, 58; summoned to Constantinople, 75; arrival, 82; High Admiral of Turkey, 83, 94; raid in Italy, 84; sacks Fondi, 85; takes Tunis, 86; is expelled, 89; sacks Port Mahon, 92-3; at Stambol, 94; lays waste Apulia, 96; siege of Corfu, 96-7; takes Castelnuovo, 105; at Marseilles, 106; siege of Nice, 109; winters at Toulon, 109; returns to Constantinople, 111; death, 111

Knights of St. John, 66, 73, 76

Koka, 67

Kuroghler, Creole, 221

L

Lacalle, 19; taken by Turks, 71

Lepanto, 67; battle of, 164-178

Lesbos, 31

Liman Reis, Port Admiral, 225

Lomellini family, 19, 43

Loredani family, 65, 68

Louis, St., 85

Lucida, S., stormed, 84

Luni, 24

Lutfi Pasha, 81, 96

M

Madeira, 232

Mahon, Port, sacked, 93, 114

Mahd[=i]ya, 16, 21, 24, 26; siege by Bourbon, 128-133; (Illustr.) 129; taken by Dragut, 133; by Doria, 134

Mahm[=u]d, Bey of Tunis, 294-5

Majorca, 57

Malta, description of, 143

Malta, Knights of, 76, 86 ff., 109, 118-123, 136-8, 141-159, 161, 177, 213; captives, 244 ff.

Mansell, Sir R., 272

Marabut, 222

Marmora, 62

Matha, Juan de, 251

Marmol, 31 _n._

Marsa, La, 143

Mars-el-Keb[=i]r, 19

Marseilles merchants, 19, 254

Marseilles receives the Turkish fleet, 106

Martinego, 73

Mas-Latrie, Cte. de, 24, 25

Maura, Santa, 103

McDonell, Consul, 296 ff.

Medina-Celi, Duke of, expedition to Jerba and defeat, 138-140

Memi Arnaut, 185

Memi Gancho, 220

Mendoza, 81, 114

Merin, dynasty, 22

Minorca, 92

Modon, 71

Mohammed II., 31, 65, 66

Mohammed Es-S[=a]dik, 308-9

Moor of Alexandria, 95

_Moors in Spain_, _Story of_, 8, 167

Morgan, S., 36, 46, 52, 58, 91, 104, 215, 241, 268

Moriscos, 26, 57, 59

Morocco, 187-191

Muj[=a]hid (Muget), 24

Munatones, 156

Mur[=a]d Reis, 98, 192, 193, 233

Mur[=a]d IV., 194

Muset, 143

Mustafa, Seraskier, 144 ff.

Mustafa, Lala, 162-3

Mustafa, Bogotillos, 187

N

Narborough, Sir John, 272

Navarino, 67, 68

Navarro, D. Pedro, takes Oran, Algiers, &c., 12-13, 43, 138

Nave, 231

Naxos, 97

Neale, Sir H., 300

Negropont, 65

Nelson, Admiral Lord, 292

Nice, siege of, 109

O

Ochiali (El-Ul[=u]ji, Uluj Ali), at Jerba, 140; at Malta, 146; his exploits, 161; at the battle of Lepanto, 175-7; retakes Tunis, 182; death, 185, 219

Oglander, Consul, 294

Oliva, 57

'Omar, Khalif, 7

Oran, 8; taken by Spaniards, 12; harbour, 19, 51

Othello, 65

Otranto, 65

P

Page, Sanson Le, 252-4

Pallavicini, Cristofero, 81

Patras, 71, 81

Paxos, 95, 97

Pellew, Sir Edward, see _Exmouth_

Penon de Alger founded, 13, 45, 46, 49, 51; destroyed, 59

Penon de Velez da la Gomera, 188

Pertev Pasha, 176

Pi[=a]li Pasha, 138; at Jerba, 140; at Malta, 145 ff.; at Cyprus, 162-4

Pichinin, 'Ali, 194-9

Piracy, pleasures of, 9-13

Pisa, 23, 24, 25

Pius V., 162, 164, 177

_Philadelphia_, loss of the, 280

Playfair, Sir R. L., 242 _n._, 261, 273, 296, 302

Polacca, 231

Porto Farino, 19, 269

Portundo, General, 57

Portus Divinus, 19

Preble, Commodore, 276 ff.

Prevesa, battle of, 101-4

Provence, 23

R

Ramadan Sardo, 185, 200

Ransoms, 267

Redemption, order of, 251 ff.

Reggio looted, 84; burnt, 106

Reis, 221

"Religion, The," 86

Renegades, 200 ff.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 273

Rhodes, siege of, 66; second siege and fall, 73

Robles, Melchior de, 150 ff.

Roe, Sir T., 272, 285

Romegas, 142

Roustan, M., 307-9

S

Sahara, 14, 15

Sal[=e], 20, 23, 188, 191

S[=a]lih Reis, 56, 57, 98, 103, 110, 112

S[=a]lih Reis (II.), 156, 185

Salim, 45, 46, 49, 50

Sandwich, Lord, 272

Sanson Napolon, 254

Saracens, arts of, 72

Sardinia, 7, 24

Sarmiento, D. Francisco, 105

Scirocco (Mohammed Shaluk), 175

Sel[=i]m II., 161

Sevigne, Mons., on galley slaves, 217

Sfax, 128

Shaler, W., 293, 298

Sher[=i]fs of Morocco, 22

Shersh[=e]l, 8, 19; taken by Ur[=u]j Barbarossa, 46; attacked by Doria, 78; 219

Ship supersedes galley, 229 ff.

Sicily, 7, 23, 24, 25

Sin[=a]n Pasha, attacks Malta, 136; and Tripoli, 137

Sin[=a]n Reis, 56, 89, 98, 112

Simeoni, 109

Slaves on galleys, 39

Soame, Sir W., 273

Spain and Tunis, 258 ff.

Spragg, Sir E., 272

Spratt, Rev. D., 266

Stradiotes, 65

Suleym[=a]n the Magnificent, 60, 72 ff., 78, 82, 96-8, 104, 134, 142, 143, 161

Susa, 128

Syrtes, Greater, 16

Sweden and Tunis, 258 ff., 295

T

Tabarka, 19, 43

Tangiers, 16, 188

Tartana, 231

Temendefust, 121

Tetw[=a]n, 188, 223-4

Tierra Nuova, Duke of, 192

Tilims[=a]n, 7, 51

Timur, 66

Tinnis, 19; conquered by Ur[=u]j, 51

Tipton, John, 259

Toledo, D. Garcia de, 133

Tongues of the Order of St. John, 73, 137

Torgh[=u]d, see _Dragut_

Torpedoes, 232

Toulon receives Turkish fleet, 109

Treaties of Commerce, 22

Tripoli, 23, 274 ff., 294-5; (Illustr.) 281

Tron, Alexandro, 97

Tunis, 7, 16, 20, 21, 23, 25, 32, 85; taken by Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n, 86; retaken by Charles V., 86-93; taken by Ochiali, 161; retaken by Don John of Austria, 178; again taken by Ochiali, 182; arrogance of the Beys, 257 ff.; Lord Exmouth, 294-5; French invasion, 307-310

Tunis, Illustr. of, 33, 87

_Turkey_, _Story of_, 65, 66, 72, 78, 82, 94, 138

U

United States and Barbary States, 258 ff., 274-293

Ur[=u]j, see _Barbarossa_

V

Vacher, Jean de, 263

Valette, de la, 127, 142, 145 ff.

Vargas, D. Martin de, 58

Vasquez, 168

Venice, 23, 61 ff., 71 ff., 94 ff.

Venice, Oriental commerce of, 72

Venice, Greek islands, 97

Veniero, 62, 173, 176

Vera, D. Diego de, 50

Villiers, Gaspard de, 138

W

Wales, Caroline, Princess of, 294-5

Watts, H. E., on Cervantes, 246-8

Wer, Captain, 226

William III., letter to 'Ali Reis, 187

Winchelsea, Earl of, 272

Windus, J., 191 _n._

X

Ximenes, Cardinal, 50

Y

Yamboli, 104

Y[=a]ni, 66

Z

Zanne, 163

Zante, 72

Zeyr[=i]s of Tunis, 21

Ziy[=a]n, dynasty, 21

The Story of the Nations.

Messrs. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS take pleasure in announcing that they have in course of publication a series of historical studies, intended to present in a graphic manner the stories of the different nations that have attained prominence in history.

In the story form the current of each national life will be distinctly indicated, and its picturesque and noteworthy periods and episodes will be presented for the reader in their philosophical relation to each other as well as to universal history.

It is the plan of the writers of the different volumes to enter into the real life of the peoples, and to bring them before the reader as they actually lived, labored, and struggled--as they studied and wrote, and as they amused themselves. In carrying out this plan, the myths, with which the history of all lands begins, will not be overlooked, though these will be carefully distinguished from the actual history, so far as the labors of the accepted historical authorities have resulted in definite conclusions.

The subjects of the different volumes will be planned to cover connecting and, as far as possible, consecutive epochs or periods, so that the set when completed will present in a comprehensive narrative the chief events in the great STORY OF THE NATIONS; but it will, of course not always prove practicable to issue the several volumes in their chronological order.

The "Stories" are printed in good readable type, and in handsome 12mo form. They are adequately illustrated and furnished with maps and indexes. They are sold separately at a price of $1.50 each.

The following volumes are now ready (November, 1889):

THE STORY OF GREECE. Prof. Jas. A. Harrison. " " " ROME. Arthur Gilman. " " " THE JEWS. Prof. James K. Hosmer. " " " CHALDEA. Z. A. Ragozin. " " " GERMANY. S. Baring-Gould. " " " NORWAY. Hjalmar H. Boyesen. " " " SPAIN. Rev. E. E. and Susan Hale. " " " HUNGARY. Prof. A. Vambery. " " " CARTHAGE. Prof. Alfred J. Church. " " " THE SARACENS. Arthur Gilman. " " " THE MOORS IN SPAIN. Stanley Lane-Poole. " " " THE NORMANS. Sarah Orne Jewett. " " " PERSIA. S. G. W. Benjamin. " " " ANCIENT EGYPT. Prof. Geo. Rawlinson. " " " ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. Prof. J. P. Mahaffy. " " " ASSYRIA. Z. A. Ragozin. " " " THE GOTHS. Henry Bradley. " " " IRELAND. Hon. Emily Lawless. " " " TURKEY. Stanley Lane-Poole. " " " MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA. Z. A. Ragozin. " " " MEDIAEVAL FRANCE. Prof. Gustav Masson. " " " HOLLAND. Prof. J. Thorold Rogers. " " " MEXICO. Susan Hale. " " " PH[OE]NICIA. Prof. Geo. Rawlinson. " " " THE HANSA TOWNS. Helen Zimmern. " " " EARLY BRITAIN. Prof. Alfred J. Church.

Now in Press for immediate issue:

THE STORY OF BARBARY CORSAIRS. Stanley Lane-Poole. " " " RUSSIA. W. R. Morfill. " " " VEDIC INDIA. Z. A. Ragozin. " " " THE THIRTEEN COLONIES. Helen A. Smith. " " " MODERN FRANCE. Emily Crawford. " " " THE JEWS UNDER ROME. W. D. Morrison. " " " CANADA. A. R. Macfarlane. " " " SCOTLAND. James Macintosh.

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PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

THE SCRIPTURES,

HEBREW AND CHRISTIAN.

ARRANGED AND EDITED AS AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE.

EDITORS.

REV. EDWARD T. BARTLETT, D.D.,

Dean of the Divinity School of the P. E. Church in Philadelphia, and Mary Wolfe, Prof. of Ecclesiastical History.

REV. JOHN P. PETERS, PH.D.,

Professor of Old Testament Literature and Language in the Divinity School of the P. E. Church in Philadelphia, and Professor of Hebrew in the University of Pennsylvania.

The work is to be completed in three volumes, containing each about 500 pages, Vols. I. and II. now ready.

Vol. I. includes Hebrew story from the Creation to the time of Nehemiah, as in the Hebrew canon.

Vol. II. is devoted to Hebrew poetry and prophecy.

Vol. III. will contain the selections from the Christian Scriptures.

The volumes are handsomely printed in 12mo form, and with an open, readable page, not arranged in verses, but paragraphed according to the sense of the narrative.

Each volume is complete in itself, and will be sold separately at $1.50.

The editors say in their announcement: "Our object is to remove stones of stumbling from the path of young readers by presenting Scriptures to them in a form as intelligible and as instructive as may be practicable. This plan involves some re-arrangements and omissions, before which we have not hesitated, inasmuch as our proposed work will not claim to be the Bible, but an introduction to it. That we may avoid imposing our own interpretation upon Holy Writ, it will be our endeavor to make Scripture serve as the commentary on Scripture. In the treatment of the Prophets of the Old Testament and the Epistles of the New Testament, it will not be practicable entirely to avoid comment, but no attempt will be made to pronounce upon doctrinal questions."

The first volume is divided into four parts: