the Corsairs
properly ends. But a glance at the events which have occurred during
the French occupation may usefully supplement what has already been
recorded. The conquest had been marked by a moderation and humanity
which did infinite honour to the French arms; it would have been well
if a similar policy had distinguished their subsequent proceedings. It
is not necessary to dwell upon the assurance given by France to Great
Britain that the occupation was only temporary; upon the later
announcement of permanent annexation; or upon England's acquiescence
in the perfidy, upon the French engaging never to push their conquests
further to the east or west of Algiers--an engagement curiously
illustrated by the recent occupation of Tunis. But if the
aggrandizement of France in North Africa is matter for regret,
infinitely more to be deplored is the manner in which the possession
of the interior of the country has been effected. It is not too much
to say that from the moment when the French, having merely taken the
city of Algiers, began the work of subduing the tribes of the interior
in 1830, to the day when they at last set up civil, instead of
military, government, after the lessons of the Franco-German war in
1870, the history of Algeria is one long record of stupidly brutal
camp-rule, repudiation of sacred engagements, inhuman massacres of
unoffending natives of both sexes and all ages, violence without
judgment, and severity without reason. One French general after
another was sent out to bring the rebellious Arabs and Kabyles into
subjection, only to display his own incompetence for the inhuman
task, and to return baffled and brutalized by the disgraceful work he
thought himself bound to carry out. There is no more humiliating
record in the annals of annexation than this miserable conquest of
Algiers. It is the old story of trying to govern what the conquerors
call "niggers," without attempting to understand the people first.
Temper, justice, insight, and conciliation would have done more in
four years than martial intolerance and drum tyranny accomplished in
forty.

In all these years of miserable guerilla warfare, in which such
well-known commanders as Bugeaud, Pelissier, Canrobert, St. Arnaud,
MacMahon, and many more, learned their first demoralizing lessons in
warfare, the only people who excite our interest and admiration are
the Arab tribes. That they were unwise in resisting the inevitable is
indisputable; but