“To His Highness the Dey of Algiers.
“Sir,—For your atrocities at Bona on defenceless Christians, and your unbecoming disregard of the demands I made yesterday, in the name of the Prince Regent of England, the fleet under my orders has given you a signal chastisement, by the total destruction of your navy storehouses and arsenal, with half your batteries. As England does not make war for the destruction of cities, I am unwilling to visit your personal cruelties upon the inoffensive inhabitants of the country, and I therefore offer you the same terms of peace which I conveyed to you yesterday in my Sovereign’s name. Without the acceptance of these terms you can have no peace with England.
“If you receive this offer as you ought, you will fire three guns; and I shall consider your not making this signal as a refusal, and shall renew my operations at my own convenience.
“I offer you the above terms provided neither the British consul, nor the officers and men so wickedly seized by you from the boats of a British ship of war, have met with any cruel treatment, or any of the Christian slaves in your power; and I repeat my demand that the consul and officers and men may be sent off to me, conformable to ancient treaties.—I have, etcetera, Exmouth.”
The terms of peace referred to ran thus:—
I. The abolition for ever of Christian slavery.
II. The delivery to my flag of all slaves in the dominions of the Dey, to whatever nation they may belong, at noon to-morrow.
III. To deliver also to my flag all money received by the Dey for the redemption of slaves since the commencement of this year, at noon to-morrow.
IV. Reparation shall be made to the British consul for all losses he may have sustained in consequence of his confinement.
V. The Dey shall make a public apology in presence of his ministers and officers, and beg pardon of the consul in terms dictated by the captain of the Queen Charlotte.
The proud pirate chief did not move a muscle of his pale face, or bend his head while these terms were read to him; nevertheless, he agreed to them all. The consul and others were called into the hall and delivered up; the three guns were fired, and thereafter Lord Exmouth directed that, on the Sunday following, “a public thanksgiving should be offered up to Almighty God for the signal interposition of his Providence during the conflict which took place on the 27th between his Majesty’s fleet and the ferocious enemies of mankind.” In accordance with these terms of peace, all the Christian slaves were collected next day and delivered up.
Sixteen hundred and forty-two were freed on this occasion, and sent on board the fleet. Counting those freed but a short time before, through Lord Exmouth’s influence along the Barbary coasts, the total number delivered amounted to above 3000.
The assembling on the decks of the ships of war of these victims of barbaric cruelty, ignorance, and superstition, was a sight that raised powerful and conflicting feelings in the breasts of those who witnessed it. The varied feelings of the slaves were, to some extent, expressed by their actions and in their faces. Old and young were there, of almost every nation; gentle and simple, robust and feeble; men, women, and children. Some, on coming on board, cheered with joy, but these were few, and consisted chiefly of men who had not been long enslaved, and had not suffered much. Others wept with delight, fell on their knees and kissed the decks, or returned thanks to God for deliverance. Some were carried on board, being too ill, or too broken down, to walk. Many appeared to regard the whole affair as a dream, too good to be true, from which they must soon awake—as they had often awaked before—after their uneasy slumbers in the dreadful Bagnio. But the saddest sights of all were the men and women, here and there among the crowd, whose prolonged condition of slavery—in many cases ten, twenty, even thirty years—had rendered them callous as well to joy as to sorrow. Taken in youth, they were now old. What was freedom to them? It did indeed deliver them from the lash and from constant toil, but it could not return to them the years that were gone; it could not recall the beloved dead, who had, perchance, found their graves, sooner than might otherwise have been, in consequence of the misery of hope long deferred, or the toil, beyond capacity, induced by the desire to raise the needful ransom of the loved ones rent from them by these Algerine corsairs. “The heart knoweth its own bitterness.” None but themselves could know or tell the awful feelings, or the still more dreadful want of feeling, that caused these wretched ones to look with glazed eyes of total indifference on the wonderful scenes that were enacted around them that day.