Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/99

 back to the dey! While a treaty was in preparation, the janizaries, indignant at the loss of their slaves, murdered lae dey, elected another, and manning their forts, commenced firing apon the French. Duquesne's bombs being all expended, he was obliged to sheer off and return to France. In 1688, Marshal d'Estrees, with a powerful fleet, arrived off Algiers. The bombs told with terrible effect, and the dey soon sued for peace; but d'Estrees replied that he came not to treat, but to punish. On this occasion, 10,000 bombs were thrown into Algiers; the city was reduced to ruins, and the humbled pirates compelled to sign a treaty dictated by the conqueror. In a few years, however, the demolished fortifications were reërected stronger than ever, and the incorrigible Algerines busy at their old trade of piracy.

Algerine slavery at last came to an end. At the close of the long European war in 1814, the chivalrous Sir Sidney Smith proposed a union of all orders of knighthood for the abolition of white slavery. His plan was to form "an amphibious force, to be termed the Knights Liberators, which, without compromising any flag, and without depending on the wars or political events of nations, should constantly guard the Mediterranean, and take upon itself the important office of watching, pursuing, and capturing all pirates by sea and laud." Though Sir Sidney's project fell to the ground, yet it had the good effect of calling the attention of the British nation to the subject; and in 1816, Lord Exmouth, with an English fleet, sailed to Algiers, destroyed the dey's shipping, leveled the fortifications, released altogether about 3,000 captives, and abolished forever the atrocious system of Christian slavery. The subsequent history of Algiers is foreign to our subject; we may merely add, that in 1830 it became, by right of conquest, a French colony.

Limited space compels us to say but little respecting the other piratical states of Barbary — Tunis, Tripoli, and Morocco. They, however, only dabbled in piratical slavery, not making it a systematized profession like the Algerines. When, about the middle of the seventeenth century, there were upwards of 30,000 Christian slaves in Algiers, there were not more than 7,000 in Tunis, 5,000 in Tripoli, and 1,500 in Morocco. In the latter part of the sixteenth century, Tunis and Tripoli fell under the power of the Porte, and for some time were ruled by Turkish viceroys; but in a few years the janizaries, as at Algiers, elected their own rulers; and subsequently the native race, overpowering the janizaries, gained the ascendency over their Ottoman masters. Since Blake humbled the pride of the Tunisians in 1665, and Narbro burned the Tripolitan fleet in 1676, neither of those states has inflicted much injury on British shipping. The treatment of slaves at Tunis and Tripoli was considered to be even milder than at Algiers: the Brothers of Redemption had establishments at both places. It was with Tripoli, in 1796, that the United States, through their envoy, Joel Barlow, made the treaty which caused so much animadversion. In that treaty, Mr. Barlow, to conciliate the Mohammedan powers, declared that "the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." Notwithstanding so bold an assertion, the faithless Tripolitans declared war against the United