lay of force. Five years later Sir John
Narborough, instead of bombarding, was meekly paying sixty thousand
"pieces of eight" to the Algerines for slaves and presents. In 1681
Admiral Herbert, afterwards Lord Torrington, executed various amicable
cruises against the Algerines. In 1684 Sir W. Soame with difficulty
extorted a salute of twenty-one guns to His Britannic Majesty's flag.
And so the weary tale of irresolution and weakness went on. Admiral
Keppel's expedition in 1749 is chiefly memorable for the presence of
Sir Joshua Reynolds as a guest on board the flagship; and it is
possible that two sketches reproduced by Sir Lambert Playfair are from
his pencil: the drawings were the only fruit of the cruise. James
Bruce, the African traveller, as agent or consul-general in 1763, put
a little backbone into the communications, but he soon went on his
travels, and then the old fruitless course of humble remonstrances and
idle demonstrations went on again. Whenever more serious attempts were
made, the preparations were totally inadequate. Spain, Portugal,
Naples, and Malta sent a combined fleet in 1784 to punish the
Algerines, but the vessels were all small and such as the Corsairs
could tackle, and so feeble and desultory was the attack that, after a
fortnight's fooling, the whole fleet sailed away.

FOOTNOTES:

[78] Broadley, _Tunis_, i. 51.

[79] _Several Voyages_, 97.

[80] _Ibid._ 104, note.

[81] London: Smith and Elder, 1884.

[82] Up to 1618 Algiers was governed by a Pasha directly appointed by
the Sultan; from 1618 the Pasha was chosen by the Janissaries and other
militia subject to the veto of the Sultan; in 1671 the Janissaries
first elected a Dey out of their own number, every soldier being
eligible, and their Dey soon made the Sultan's Pasha a lay figure; in
1710 the two offices were united in a Dey chosen by the soldiery. These
parvenus were by no means ashamed of their origin or principles.
Mohammed Dey (1720), getting into a passion with the French consul,
exclaimed with more frankness than courtesy: "My mother sold sheeps'
feet, and my father sold neats' tongues, but they would have been
ashamed to expose for sale so worthless a tongue as thine." Another
time the Dey confessed with dignified _naivete_ to Consul Cole: "The
Algerines are a company of rogues--_and I am their Captain!_"

[83] _Several Voyages_, 111 ff.

[84] See his descendant Adm. Spratt's _Travels and Researches in
Crete_, i. 384-