Nelson’s feelings were strongly excited.  He was tenacious of everything he conceived to touch his country’s honor, and long service in the Mediterranean had made him familiar with the outrages on its defenceless coasts practised by these barbarians, under the pretence of war with the weaker states.  Even in the remote and impoverished north of Sardinia, the shepherds near the beaches watched their flocks with arms beside them, day and night, to repel the attacks of marauders from the sea.  Not only were trading-vessels seized, but descents were made upon the shore, and the inhabitants swept off into slavery.  Speaking of one such case in 1799, he had said:  “My blood boils that I cannot chastise these pirates.  They could not show themselves in the Mediterranean did not our Country permit.  Never let us talk of the cruelty of the African slave trade, while we permit such a horrid war.”  But he knew, both then and afterwards, that Great Britain, with the great contest on her hands, could not spare the ships which might be crippled in knocking the barbarians’ strongholds about their ears, and that no British admiral would be sustained in a course that provoked these pirates to cast aside the fears that restrained them, and to declare war on British commerce, which, as it was, he had difficulty to protect.  He estimated ten ships-of-the-line as the force necessary, in case the batteries at Algiers were to be attacked.  Exmouth, twelve years later, with fuller information, thought and found five to be sufficient.

Nelson’s conduct and self-control were sorely tested by the necessity of temporizing with this petty foe, who reckoned securely on the embarrassments of Great Britain.  He acted with great judgment, however, holding a high tone, and implying much in the way of menace, without at any time involving himself in a definite threat, from which he could not recede without humiliation; careful and precise in his demands, but never receding from them, or allowing them to be evaded, when once made; sensible of the difficulties in his way, as well those raised by his own Government as those dependent upon his opponent, but equally aware that he held in his hands, if authorized to use it, the power to suppress the career of depredation, upon which the Dey relied to support his revenue, and to content his officers.  Personally, he favored a short and summary proceeding, accordant to his own decided character.  The Dey proving immovable when first summoned, he proposed to the British Government “that on the 28th of April next, when, if he means to send his cruisers to sea, they will be out, that, on that day, every ship under my command should have strict orders (to open on that day) to take, sink, burn, and destroy every Algerine, and that on that day the port of Algiers should be declared in a state of blockade.  Thus the Dey could get neither commerce, presents, or plunder; and, although the other Powers may rejoice at the war with us, yet I am firmly