ea. This is a sight which a British subject,
sensible of the blessing he enjoys, cannot behold without horror and
compassion. Not but that if we consider the nature of the case, with
coolness and deliberation, we must acknowledge the justice, and even
sagacity, of employing for the service of the public, those malefactors
who have forfeited their title to the privileges of the community.
Among the slaves at Ville Franche is a Piedmontese count, condemned to
the gallies for life, in consequence of having been convicted of
forgery. He is permitted to live on shore; and gets money by employing
the other slaves to knit stockings for sale. He appears always in the
Turkish habit, and is in a fair way of raising a better fortune than
that which he has forfeited.

It is a great pity, however, and a manifest outrage against the law of
nations, as well as of humanity, to mix with those banditti, the
Moorish and Turkish prisoners who are taken in the prosecution of open
war. It is certainly no justification of this barbarous practice, that
the Christian prisoners are treated as cruelly at Tunis and Algiers. It
would be for the honour of Christendom, to set an example of generosity
to the Turks; and, if they would not follow it, to join their naval
forces, and extirpate at once those nests of pirates, who have so long
infested the Mediterranean. Certainly, nothing can be more shameful,
than the treaties which France and the Maritime Powers have concluded
with those barbarians. They supply them with artillery, arms, and
ammunition, to disturb their neighbours. They even pay them a sort of
tribute, under the denomination of presents; and often put up with
insults tamely, for the sordid consideration of a little gain in the
way of commerce. They know that Spain, Sardinia, and almost all the
Catholic powers in the Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Levant, are at
perpetual war with those Mahometans; that while Algiers, Tunis, and
Sallee, maintain armed cruisers at sea, those Christian powers will not
run the risque of trading in their own bottoms, but rather employ as
carriers the maritime nations, who are at peace with the infidels. It
is for our share of this advantage, that we cultivate the piratical
States of Barbary, and meanly purchase passports of them, thus
acknowledging them masters of the Mediterranean.

The Sardinian gallies are mounted each with five-and-twenty oars, and
six guns, six-pounders, of a side, and a large piece of ar