But during all this time, the slavery of blacks, transported to the colonies under the British flag, still continued.
Meanwhile, France had plied Algiers with embassies and bombardments. In 1635 three hundred and forty-seven Frenchmen were captives there. Monsieur de Sampson was despatched on an unsuccessful mission, to procure their liberation. They were offered to him "for the price they were sold for in the market;" but this he refused to pay.[48] Next came, in 1637, Monsieur de Mantel, who was called "that noble captain, and glory of the French nation," "with fifteen of his king's ships, and a commission to enfranchise the French slaves." But he also returned, leaving his countrymen still in captivity.[49] Treaties followed at a later day, which were hastily concluded, and abruptly broken; till at last Louis the Fourteenth did for France what Cromwell had done for England. In 1684, Algiers, being twice bombarded[50] by his command, sent deputies to sue for peace, and to surrender all her Christian slaves. Tunis and Tripoli made the same submission. Voltaire, with his accustomed point, declares that, by this transaction, the French became respected on the coast of Africa, where they had before been known only as slaves.[51]
An incident is mentioned by the historian, which unhappily shows how little the French at that time, even while engaged in securing the emancipation of their own countrymen, had at heart the cause of general freedom. As an officer of the triumphant fleet received the Christian slaves who were brought to him and liberated, he observed among them many English, who, in the empty pride of nationality, maintained that they were set at liberty out of regard to the King of England. The Frenchman at once summoned the Algerines, and, returning the foolish captives into their hands, said, "These people pretend that they have been delivered in the name of their monarch; mine does not offer them his protection. I return them to you. It is for you to show what you owe to the King of England." The Englishmen were again hurried to prolonged slavery. The power of Charles the Second was impotent in their behalf—as was the sense of justice and humanity in the French officer or in the Algerine government.
Time would fail, even if materials were at hand, to develop the course of other efforts by France against the Barbary States. Nor can I dwell upon the determined conduct of Holland, one of whose greatest naval commanders, Admiral de Ruyter, in 1661, enforced at Algiers the emancipation of several hundred Christian slaves.[52] The inconsistency, which we have so often remarked, occurs also in the conduct of France and Holland. Both these countries, while using their best endeavors for the freedom of their white people, were cruelly engaged in selling blacks into distant American slavery; as if every word of reprobation, which they fastened upon the piratical, slaveholding Algerines, did not return in eternal judgment against themselves.
Thus far I have chiefly followed the history of military expeditions. War has been our melancholy burden. But peaceful measures were also employed to procure the redemption of slaves; and money sometimes accomplished what was vainly attempted by the sword. In furtherance of this object, missions were often sent by the European governments. These sometimes had a formal diplomatic organization; sometimes they consisted of fathers of the church, who held it a sacred office, to which they were especially called, to open the prison doors, and let the captives go free.[53] It was through the intervention of the superiors of the Order of the Holy Trinity, who were despatched to Algiers by Philip the Second of Spain, that Cervantes obtained his freedom by ransom, in 1579.[54] Expeditions of commerce often served to promote similar designs of charity; and the English government, forgetting or distrusting all their sleeping thunder, sometimes condescended to barter articles of merchandise for the liberty of their subjects.[55]
Private efforts often secured the freedom of slaves. Friends at home naturally exerted themselves in their behalf; and many families were straitened by generous contributions to this sacred purpose. The widowed mother of Cervantes sacrificed all the pittance that remained to her, including the dowry of her daughters, to aid in the emancipation of her son. An Englishman, of whose doleful captivity there is a record in the memoirs of his son, obtained redemption through the earnest efforts of his wife at home. "She resolved," says the story, "to use all the means that lay in her power for his freedom, though she left nothing for herself and children to subsist upon. She was forced to put to sale, as she did, some plate, gold rings and bracelets, and some part of her household goods to make up his ransom, which came to about £150 sterling."[56] In 1642, four French brothers were ransomed at the price of six thousand dollars. At this same period, the sum exacted for the poorest Spaniards was "a thousand shillings;" while Genoese, "if under twenty-two years of age, were freed for a hundred pounds sterling."[57] These charitable endeavors were aided by the cooperation of benevolent persons. George Fox interceded in behalf of several Quakers, slaves at Algiers, writing "a book to the Grand Sultan and the King at Algiers, wherein he laid before them their indecent behavior and unreasonable dealings, showing them from their Alcoran that this displeased God, and that Mohammed had given them other directions." Some time elapsed before an opportunity was found to redeem them; "but, in the mean while, they so faithfully served their masters, that they were suffered to go loose through the town, without being chained or fettered."[58]
As early as the thirteenth century, under the sanction of Pope Innocent the Third, an important association was organized to promote the emancipation of Christian slaves. This was known as the Society of the Fathers of Redemption.[59] During many successive generations its blessed labors were continued, amidst the praise and sympathy of generous men. History, undertaking to recount its origin, and filled with a grateful sense of its extraordinary merits, attributed it to the suggestion of an angel in the sky, clothed in resplendent light, holding a Christian captive in his right hand, and a Moor in the left. The pious Spaniard, who narrates the marvel, earnestly declares that this institution of beneficence was the work, not of men, but of the great God alone; and he dwells, with more than the warmth of narrative, on the glory, filling the lives of its associates, as surpassing far that of a Roman triumph; for they share the name as well as the labors of the Redeemer of the world, to whose spirit they are the heirs, and to whose works they are the successors. "Lucullus," he says, "affirmed that it were better to liberate a single Roman from the hands of the enemy than to gain all their wealth; but how much greater the gain, more excellent the glory, and more than human is it to redeem a captive! For whosoever redeems him not only liberates him from one death, but from death in a thousand ways, and those ever present, and also from a thousand afflictions, a thousand miseries, a thousand torments and fearful travails, more cruel than death itself."[60] The genius of Cervantes has left a record of his gratitude to this Anti-Slavery Society[61]—the harbinger of others whose mission is not yet finished. Throughout Spain annual contributions for its sacred objects continued to be taken for many years. Nor in Spain only did it awaken sympathy. In Italy and France also it successfully labored; and as late as 1748, inspired by a similar catholic spirit, if not by its example, a proposition appeared in England "to establish a society to carry on the truly charitable design of emancipating" sixty-four Englishmen, slaves in Morocco.[62]