is XIV. is said
to have remarked, "If there were no Algiers, I would make one."
Policy led the Dutch to ally themselves with the Algerines early in
the seventeenth century, because it suited them to see the lesser
trading States preyed upon. Policy sometimes betrayed England into
suffering the indignities of subsidizing a nest of thieves, that the
thieving might be directed against her enemies. Pre-occupation in
other struggles--our own civil war, the Dutch war, the great
Napoleonic war--may explain the indifference to insult or patience
under affront which had to be displayed during certain periods. But
there were long successions of years when no such apology can be
offered, when no cause whatever can be assigned for the pusillanimity
of the governments of Europe but sheer cowardice, the definite terror
of a barbarous Power which was still believed to possess all the
boundless resources and all the unquenchable courage which had marked
its early days.

Tunis as much as Algiers was the object of the servile dread of
Europe. The custom of offering presents, which were really bribes,
only died out fifty years ago, and there are people who can still
remember the time when consuls-general were made to creep into the
Bey's presence under a wooden bar.[78] One day the Bey ordered the
French consul to kiss his hand; the consul refused, was threatened
with instant death, and--kissed it (1740). When in 1762 an English
ambassador came in a King's ship to announce the accession of George
III., the Bey made the same order, but this time it was compromised by
some of the officers kissing his hand instead of their chief. Austria
was forced to sue for a treaty, and had to pay an annual tribute
(1784). The Danes sent a fleet to beg leave to hoist their flag over
their consulate in Tunis: the Bey asked fifteen thousand sequins for
the privilege, and the admiral sailed away in despair. After the
Venetians had actually defeated the Tunisians several times in the war
of 1784-92, Venice paid the Bey Hamuda forty thousand sequins and
splendid presents for the treaty of peace. About the same time Spain
spent one hundred thousand piastres for the sake of immunity from
piracy; and in 1799 the United States bought a commercial treaty for
fifty thousand dollars down, eight thousand for secret service,
twenty-eight cannon, ten thousand balls, and quantities of powder,
cordage, and jewels. Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and the United
States w