The Story of the Barbary Corsairs Part 11

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 seamans.h.i.+p 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 hara.s.sed, 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 a.s.signed 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 amba.s.sador came in a King's s.h.i.+p 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 b.a.l.l.s, and quant.i.ties 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 s.h.i.+ps, since their country affords not wherewithal to do it.... When they can get new timber (brought from Bujeya) sufficient to make a s.h.i.+p'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 s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 abas.e.m.e.nt began when the Barbary Corsairs were recognized as civilized states to be treated with on equal terms: that is to say, when consuls, amba.s.sadors, 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 amba.s.sador of England at the Sublime Porte. The records of the long succession of consuls, and agents, and consuls-general, that followed him are a t.i.tle-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 subst.i.tute with presents and fraternal messages; and now and then a King's s.h.i.+p, carrying an officer of the King's navy, or an amba.s.sador 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 bl.u.s.ter, 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 Sherifs 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 princ.i.p.al incidents of British relations with the Dey in great detail, and has authenticated his statements by references to official doc.u.ments 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 s.p.a.ce 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 rest.i.tution. 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 sh.e.l.led 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 s.h.i.+ps. 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 600 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 amba.s.sador 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 G.o.d'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, Lancas.h.i.+re, as having been performed in "Argeir" by Mr. Spratt.

Matters went from bad to worse. Four hundred British s.h.i.+ps were taken in three or four years before 1622. Pet.i.tions 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 pet.i.tions 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 3,000 for the same object.

In the first quarter of the seventeenth century 240 British slaves were redeemed for 1,200; 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 Ca.s.son 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 ash.o.r.e as in the s.h.i.+ps, bawled out with all their might, 'Christians! Christians!' They then a.s.sembled 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, embarra.s.sed with cables of the many s.h.i.+ps 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 anch.o.r.ed 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 s.h.i.+ps--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 pa.s.ses for the Mediterranean opened the way to a good deal of knavery; s.h.i.+ps sailed under false colours, or, being themselves at war with Algiers, carried pa.s.ses 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 pa.s.ses from their happy possessors. The Algerines were not unnaturally incensed at finding themselves cheated by means of their own pa.s.ses. "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 pa.s.ses 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 pa.s.ses; 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 cla.s.s 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 21,000 for the purpose of ransoming British captives.

Expedition after expedition was sent to argue, to remonstrate, to threaten, with literally no result. Amba.s.sador after amba.s.sador 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 s.h.i.+ps and five hundred guns, manned by 2,600 men; and accomplished nothing. As soon as they turned their backs the pirates took forty British s.h.i.+ps. 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 Bujeya: like Blake, he sent in a fires.h.i.+p 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 flags.h.i.+p; 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 pa.s.sion 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 _navete_ 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 abas.e.m.e.nt 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 s.h.i.+pping, 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, Yusuf, 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 friends.h.i.+p, 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.