The event here alluded to is an extraordinary example of the terrorism which prevailed in Algiers at that epoch, and of the indignities to which even representatives of the most powerful nations were subjected, without provoking more than a passing remonstrance. The story is recorded in the private memorials of the Congrégation de la Mission, which have been obligingly placed at my disposal by the Superior-General in Paris. Well may he remark: ‘Nos confrères ont beaucoup travaillé et beaucoup souffert sur cette terre d’Afrique, où les Chrétiens avaient été si longtemps persécutés; maintenant la croix a heureusement triomphé, et puisque vous avez étudié l’histoire de ce pays, vous pouvez voir combien il a gagné à être délivré de la domination Mahométane.’
A French vessel had, through some mistake, fired upon an Algerian galliot, which made a prize of it, and brought it into the harbour of Algiers. Monsieur Vallière, the French Consul, went on the following day to request the Dey to restore the boat and its equipage, assuring his Highness that if the latter had been guilty of any infringement of the conventions between the two countries they would be severely punished in France. The Dey answered him that the French were only good at chicanery; they were liars, the greatest enemies of the country, and no better than spies of the Spaniards; he knew how to right himself, and would hear nothing more from the Consul, who might retire.
The Consul did retire, in company with his chancellor. In less than an hour he was again called to the palace, and, without further explanation, he was heavily chained, as were also the Vicar Apostolic, two other missionaries, the chancellor, the secretary, the Consul’s servants, and the crews of the four boats then in harbour, in all fifty-three persons. Every morning they were sent out to the hardest and most degrading labour, and exposed to the insults and jeers of the populace; harnessed two and two to stone carts and heavily ironed, they were compelled to drag their weary burden twice every day from the quarries at several miles’ distance to where the masons were at work, after which, though worn out with fatigue, the good priests’ first care was to console their fellow-captives, and to conduct public prayer in the Bagnio.
Our treaties, made and renewed by captains of men-of-war, from time to time, who know no more of the interest of their country in the Mediterranean than I know of directing a line-of-battle, afforded no sort of remedy for this grievance, which was new, because Port Mahon falling into the hands of the enemy was a new event not to be foreseen.
These treaties were growing worse every day; they were a monstrous heap of confusion not understood either by the Turkish or the British Government. I wrote home repeated letters explanatory of the mischief and the causes of it. I either got no answers at all, or short ones, that showed me they did not attend to the subject. We were on the very eve of having all our Mediterranean and Straits trade carried into the Barbary ports as prizes, when letters were said to be expeded (sic) by the Secretary of State—I think the Duke of Grafton or Lord Shelburne—desiring the Governor of Mahon and Gibraltar (for Mahon was now restored to the English) to recall all these old irregular passports signed by the French, and in their place to issue what was called passavants, under the hand and seal of the Governor of those fortresses, importing the ship bearer thereof to be British property, and that this should serve as a passport during a limited time, after which new checks and new passports were to be issued by the Admiralty for the ships then in the Mediterranean and the Barbary cruisers that visited them. But no intimation was sent to the Consuls of this, nor was such passavant to be found in the treaty, nor did any new checks or passports come for a long time from the Admiralty.
In the meantime the Algerine cruisers were more exasperated than before; they had still no way of knowing an enemy from a friend but by the check the Consul gave them, and that had been declared as no longer of use, as covering fraud, and was issued no more.
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All Algiers was in arms, and to excuse our Government was impossible; they never did know Barbary politics in my time.
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British Consuls in the Straits, or in the Barbary States, are generally men that have failed in their own mercantile affairs; they are afraid to write the true situation of things to a Secretary of State, because they fear hurting their interest at Algiers and losing their posts at home. Government have for some years been afraid of Algiers, or so complaisant as to recal the British Consul upon a complaint they do not like him, and often for having done his duty.