ere tributaries of the Bey!

Yet we have it on the authority of the Redemptionist Fathers, who were
not likely to underestimate their adversaries, that in 1719 the
Algerines who, "among all the Barbary maritime Powers are much the
strongest," had but twenty-five galleons of eighteen to sixty guns,
besides caravels and brigantines; and it appears they were badly off
for timber, especially for masts, and for iron, cordage, pitch, and
sails. "It is surprising to see in what good condition they keep their
ships, since their country affords not wherewithal to do it.... When
they can get new timber (brought from Buj[=e]ya) sufficient to make a
ship's bottom-parts, they finish the remainder with the ruins of prize
vessels, which they perfectly well know how to employ to most
advantage, and thus find the secret of making very neat new ships and
excellent sailers out of old ones."[79] Still twenty-five small
frigates were hardly a big enough bugbear to terrify all Europe, let
them patch them never so neatly. Nevertheless, in 1712, the Dutch
purchased the forbearance of these twenty-five ships by ten
twenty-four pounders mounted, twenty-five large masts, five cables,
four hundred and fifty barrels of powder, two thousand five hundred
great shot, fifty chests of gun barrels, swords, &c., and five
thousand dollars. Being thus handsomely armed, the Algerines naturally
broke the treaty in three years' time, and the Dutch paid even more
for a second truce. So flourished the system of the weak levying
blackmail upon the strong.[80]

The period of Europe's abasement began when the Barbary Corsairs were
recognized as civilized states to be treated with on equal terms: that
is to say, when consuls, ambassadors, and royal letters began to
arrive at Tunis or Algiers. This period began soon after Doria's
disastrous campaign at Jerba, when the battle of Lepanto had destroyed
the prestige of the Ottoman navy, but increased if possible the terror
of the ruthless Corsairs. No really serious attempt was made to put
down the scourge of the Mediterranean between 1560 and Lord Exmouth's
victory in 1816. For nearly all that time the British nation, and most
of the other maritime states, were represented at Algiers and Tunis by
consular agents. Master John Tipton was the first Englishman to become
consul anywhere, and he was consul at Algiers, first appointed by the
newly-formed Turkey Company about 1580, and in 1585 officially named
consul of the B