tions 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.

During a long career of successful piracy, the port of Algiers had
accumulated an extensive and powerful system of defences. These had
doubtless suffered in condition from the nonchalant fatalism of Turkish
rule, encouraged by a long period of impunity; but they constituted
still, and under all the shortcomings of the defenders, a most imposing
menace to an attacking fleet. To convey a precise impression of them by
detailed verbal description would be difficult, and the attempt probably
confusing. It may be said, in br