which sufficiently characterizes the general motives and policy of these barbarian Courts.  He asked an Algerine official visiting his ship, why the Dey would not make peace with Genoa and Naples, for they would pay well for immunity, as the United States also at that time did.  The reply was, “If we make peace with every one, what is the Dey to do with his ships?” In his later experience with the Mediterranean the great admiral realized yet more forcibly the crying shame of Great Britain’s acquiescence.  “My blood boils that I cannot chastise these pirates.  They could not show themselves in this sea did not our country permit.  Never let us talk of the cruelty of the African slave trade, while we permit such a horrid war.”  The United States alone, although then among the least of naval powers, had taken arms before 1805 to repress outrages that were the common reproach of all civilized nations,—­a measure the success of which went far to establish the character of her navy and prepare it for 1812.  Lord Exmouth was also directed to demand peace for Sardinia, as well as for any other state that should authorize him to act for it.  Only Naples availed itself of this opportunity.

As far as his instructions went, his mission was successful, and, by a happy accident, he was able at Tunis and Tripoli to extort further from the rulers a promise that thereafter captives should be treated as in civilized countries; in other words, that they should no longer be reduced to slavery.  Algiers refused this concession; and the admiral could not take steps to enforce it, because beyond his commission.  The Dey, however, undertook to consult the Porte; and the fleet, with a few exceptions, returned to England, where it arrived towards the end of June.

Meanwhile British public feeling had become aroused; for men were saying that the outrages of the past had been rather welcome to the commercial selfishness of the country.  The well-protected traders of Great Britain, shielded by her omnipotent navy, had profited by crimes which drove their weaker rivals from the sea.  Just then news came that at the port of Bona, on the Algiers coast, where there was under the British flag an establishment for carrying on the coral fishery, a large number of the fishermen, mostly Italians, had been wantonly slaughtered by a band of Turkish troops.  To insist, arms in hand, upon reparation for such an outrage, and upon guarantees for the future, would doubtless be condemned by some of our recent lights; but such was not then the temper of Great Britain.  The government determined at once to send a fleet to the spot, and Lord Exmouth was chosen for the command, with such a force as he himself should designate.  The gist of his instructions was to demand the release, without ransom, of all Christian slaves, and a solemn declaration from the Dey that, in future wars, prisoners should receive the usage accorded them by European states.  Great Britain thus made herself, as befitted the obligation imposed by her supreme maritime power, the avenger of all those oppressed by these scourges of the sea.  The times of the barbarians were fulfilled.