person sent for.  At length her entreaties and tears prevailed; compassion overruled every obstacle; and she, with her little girl, was accepted.  But there remained another difficulty; she had left her son chained in the midst of that dungeon from which she had just been rescued.  Her kind patrons soon learned the cause of her distress; but to send for the youth and treat him kindly, or in any way above that of a common slave, must hazard the demand of so large a ransom for him and his mother, as would forever preclude the hope of liberty.  He was, however, sent for, and the menial offices they were both engaged to perform were only nominal.  With circumspection the whole family were sheltered in this manner for three years; when the war with the Spaniards growing more inveterate, the Algerines demanded the youth back to the Bagnio, to work in common with the other slaves, in repairing the damages done to the fortresses by the Spanish cannon.  He was now compelled to go, loaded with heavy stones, through the whole of the town; and at almost every step he received dreadful blows, not being able to hasten his pace from the great weight.

Overcome at last with ill usage, the delicacy of his form and constitution gave way to the excessive labor, and he one morning refused the orders of his master, or driver, to rise from the straw on which he was stretched, declaring they might kill him if they chose, for he would not even try to carry another load of stones.  Repeated messages had been sent from the Venetian consul’s, where his mother and sister were sheltered, to the Aga, to return him; and when the Algerines found that they had absolutely reduced him so near death, they thought it best to spare his life for the sake of future ransom.  They agreed, therefore, to let him return to the Christians.  His life was for some time despaired of; but through the kind attention he received, he was rescued from the threatened dissolution.  His recovery was concealed, for fear of his being demanded back to work; and a few months after, the Spanish peace of 1784 being concluded, a ransom was accepted by the Algerines for this suffering family, and they were set at liberty.

These pirates in old times extended their depredations into the Atlantic as far as the British Channel.  They swarmed in the Mediterranean, not only belonging to Algiers, but Tunis, and other ports on the coast of Barbary.  Their corsairs making descents on the coasts of those countries which border on the Mediterranean, pillaging the villages and carrying off the inhabitants into slavery.  The corsairs were vessels of different descriptions; some large armed ships, and latterly frigates; others were row gallies and the various craft used by the nations which navigate that sea, and had been taken by them and added to their marine.  Upon the slaves being landed at Algiers they were marched to the Dey’s or Bashaw’s palace, when he selected the number which according to law belonged to him; and the rest were sold in the slave market to the highest bidder.  A moiety of the plunder, cargoes and vessels taken also belonged to the Dey.  Occasionally, a person by pretending to renounce his religion, and turning Mahometan would have his sufferings mitigated.