It were injustice to Captain Warde to state how he performed this difficult and important service in any language but that of the Admiral.  In his despatch which accompanied the treaty made with Tripoli, and which he sent to the Admiralty when proceeding on his second visit to Algiers, he writes:—­“Previous to my leaving Leghorn, I despatched Captain Warde in the Banterer to Algiers, to make his observations on the anchorage and sea-defences, which service he performed with entire secresy and judgment, and highly to my satisfaction.  The accompanying plan of the works, with his remarks after visiting all the forts and arsenal, I found correct in every respect; and when it is considered that he had not the means of taking angles, but was compelled to pace the distances, and trust much to his recollection, to avoid being suspected, I think him deserving of the highest commendation.  The soundings round the mole, and the bay to the N.W. of the lighthouse, were all made by him personally in the night without discovery; nor did even the consul suspect the purport of his visit.”

Indeed, Captain Warde played the careless idler to perfection.  He escorted the ladies of the consul’s family everywhere by day, and danced with them in the evenings, covering a keen and constant observation with the appearance of frivolity; while at night he was silently moving outside the port in a boat, taking the soundings with a pole.

It adds to the merit of this officer, that all the previous plans of Algiers were so incorrect, that he was obliged to begin his own from the outlines, as if the place were a new discovery.  Lord Exmouth afterwards declared that if he had proceeded to hostilities at his first visit, without having been furnished with Captain Warde’s plan and observations, he should have assigned to the ships stations which they could not have occupied.  The plan in the Admiralty book of charts, among other inaccuracies, laid down the sea-face of the city as four miles long, instead of one; omitted the bay to the north-west of the lighthouse; represented the pier on which the strong fortifications are built as quite straight from the lighthouse in a southerly direction, whereas it forms a quarter of the compass, bending round to the south-west, or towards the city; and laid the distance between the piers at the entrance of the mole, a mile, instead of sixty, or sixty-five fathoms.  Notwithstanding this, and his great disadvantages arising out of the secresy he was compelled to observe, Captain Warde’s observations were so accurate and complete, that Lord Exmouth afterwards sent to the Admiralty his original plan, to illustrate the despatches of the battle.

Thus prepared for every alternative, Lord Exmouth, on the 21st of March, made known to the squadron the service upon which they were proceeding in the following General Order:—­

     “The Commander-in-Chief embraces the earliest moment in which he
     could inform the fleet of his destination, without inconvenience to
     the public service.