Page:Daring deeds of famous pirates; true stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers (1917).djvu/223

 walls. With greater fervour hostilities were now resumed, and in a few days the place was reduced to ashes and large numbers of the Algerines had perished. This so infuriated the new Dey that he ordered all the French captives to be cruelly murdered, and with great brutality caused Father Vacher to be bound hand and foot, tied to a mortar and fired off like a bomb against the French fleet outside.

Du Quesne had then brought his ships as near in as possible, destroyed all their shipping, fortifications and buildings, and, having done all that he could, sailed away, leaving the Algerines plenty of subjects for meditation. And yet it was not long before these pirates had regained their good spirits and were again engaged in piracy. Was it not their profession and calling? Was it not by such methods that they kept themselves alive? They knew perfectly well they were rogues, but as other men were traders so they were pirates. Therefore, diplomatic measures being obviously impotent, the only way to treat with them was to keep on sending expedition after expedition. In 1700 Captain Beach attacked seven of their craft, drove them on shore and burnt them. Less than a hundred years later ten American ships had been seized by these corsairs and 150 men from their crews taken into captivity. In order to obtain these men back, the Americans had to pay a heavy ransom, and build the Dey a 36-gun frigate, but thereby they also received protection for the American ships and the right of free trade with Algiers.

At an earlier stage of this book I have had occasion, in discussing the Moslem corsairs, to refer to the port of Bona, a little to the east of Algiers. In the year 1816 there was an establishment here for carrying on the coral fishery under the protection of the British flag. Hither came a number of Corsican, Neapolitan and other Italian fishercraft.