Page:Geographical description of Algiers and Tunis.pdf/5

 been discovered to the Dey by the same means he had heard of the expedition. This intelligence was, on the following night, greatly confirmed by the Prometheus, which I had dispatched to Algiers sometime before, to endeavour to get away the Consul. Captain Dashwood had with difficulty succeeded in bringing away, disguised in midshipman’s uniform, his wife and daughter, leaving a boat to bring off their infant child, coming down in a basket with the surgeon, who thought he had composed it, but it unhappily cried in the gateway, and in consequence the surgeon, three midshipmen, in all 18 persons, were seized and confined as slaves in the usual dungeons. The child was sent off next morning by the Dey, and as a solitary instance of his humanity, it ought to be recorded by me.

Captain Dashwood farther confirmed, that about 40,000 men had been brought down from the interior, and all the janisaries called in from distant garrisons, and that they were undefatigably employed in the batteries, gunboats, &c. and every where strengthening the sea defences.

The ships were all in port, and between 40 and 50 gun and mortar boats ready, with several more in forward repair. The Dey had closely confined the Consul, and refused either to give him up, or promise his personal safety; nor would he hear a word respecting the officers and men seized in the boats of the Prometheus.

From the continuance of adverse winds and calms, the land to the westward of Algiers was not made before the 26th, and next morning at day-break the fleet was advanced in sight of the city, though not so near as I had intended. As the ships were becalmed, I embraced this opportunity of dispatching a boat, under cover of the Severn, with a flag of truce, and the demands I had to make, in the name of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, on the Dey of Algiers (of which the accompanying are copies) directing the officer to wait two or three hours for the Dey's answer, at which time, if no reply was sent he was to return to the flag ship; he was met near the mole by