The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 12, August, 1835

THE
DEVOTED TO
AND
RICHMOND: T. W. WHITE, PUBLISHER AND PROPRIETOR. 1834-5.
T. W. WHITE, PRINTER AND PROPRIETOR. FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.
No. VII.
Events of great importance had also occurred in Algiers, by which this ancient stronghold of piracy was stripped of its terrors, and its impotence fully demonstrated.
The resources of this state were even more severely affected by the wars of Europe, than those of Tunis and Tripoli, as it depended less than either of them upon native industry for support. A Pasha of Algiers, who wished to retain his throne and consequently his life, was forced to keep his troops engaged in wars from which they might individually derive profit; to increase their pay at the expense of the public treasury was ineffectual, and he who attempted thus to win their favor was soon despised and overthrown. They required the excitement of contests and plunder, and bread not won at the dagger's point seems to have had no relish with them. In 1805, these desperadoes murdered their Dey Mustapha, only because he was of too peaceable a disposition. Under Achmet his successor, they had a war with Tunis, but it was conducted in a very languid manner, for no plunder could be expected.
The United States continued to pay the enormous annual tribute which had been stipulated in the treaty of 1796, but not punctually. The little respect which was paid to neutral rights at that period by France and England, rendered the transmission of the naval stores composing the tribute difficult and unsafe, and this was the reason always alleged by the American Consul in accounting for the delay; but it was also in a great measure intentional, from the idea on which the other nations tributary to Algiers acted, that by thus remaining always in arrears, the fear of losing the whole sum due, would render the Dey less inclined to make any sudden depredations on their commerce. A strict adherence to engagements voluntarily entered into, would have been perhaps the better, and certainly much the more dignified course, as the Dey would have found it to his interest to conciliate those who paid so regularly.