For the Southern Literary Messenger.
SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY
And Present Condition of Tripoli, with some accounts of the other Barbary States.
No. VIII.—[Continued.]
In the beginning of April 1816, Admiral Lord Exmouth, Commander of the British naval forces in the Mediterranean, arrived at Algiers commissioned by his Government to negotiate with the Dey, in favor of some of the inferior powers, which were in alliance with or under the protection of Great Britain, and in order to give greater weight to his arguments, he was accompanied by a fleet consisting of six sail of the line, and nineteen frigates and smaller vessels.
The particulars of this negotiation have never been made public; from what has transpired, it appears that the Admiral began by exacting conditions much less favorable to Algiers, than those which he finally subscribed. Whatever may have been those terms, the Dey refused to admit them, and demonstrations were made on both sides, of an appeal to arms; the negotiations were however renewed, and on the 4th, engagements were concluded, to which upon the whole the Dey could have made no objections. The Ionian Islands which had been placed under the protection of Great Britain, were to be respected as part of the British dominions; and thirty-three slaves, natives of Malta and Gibraltar (British possessions) were liberated without ransom. A treaty of peace was made with Sardinia, by which that country was placed on the same footing with Great Britain, except that a present not exceeding in value five thousand pounds sterling, was to be paid on the arrival of each of its Consuls at Algiers; the Sardinian captives were to be restored, on payment by that Government of five hundred dollars per man. These terms may be considered as fair, and the King of Sardinia who had just received Genoa from the hands of the British, acknowledged his obligations for this additional favor. But the treaty by which the Government of the Two Sicilies was bound to ransom its subjects at the price of one thousand dollars each, and to pay an annual tribute of twenty-four thousand dollars, besides Consular presents, could scarcely have been considered as a boon in Naples, and it must have consoled Omar for the concessions made to other two powers.1
1 The King of Sardinia, besides the Island from which his title is derived, possesses Savoy, Piedmont and Genoa on the continent of Europe; he likewise styles himself sovereign of Corsica, Sicily, Rhodes, Cyprus and Jerusalem. The King of Naples is styled the King of the Two Sicilies.
Before the departure of Lord Exmouth, an American squadron of two frigates and two sloops of war, under Commodore Shaw, came to Algiers with the ostensible purpose of presenting to the Dey a copy of the treaty, signed in the preceding year, with the ratifications by the President of the United States. Other circumstances however had rendered its appearance necessary.
The treaty concluded with the United States under the guns of Decatur's ships, was more mortifying to the Algerines than any which had previously been made with a Christian nation; captives had been surrendered without ransom, property seized had been restored, and the right of demanding tribute or presents had been distinctly renounced. The Dey saw that his credit would be seriously impaired when these engagements should become publicly known; he suspected that had he held out longer, he might have escaped the humiliation, and he flattered himself that he might still retrieve what had been lost. No Barbary sovereign ever considered it incumbent on him to observe a treaty longer than it was compatible with his interests; yet every man, however rude may be his ideas of moral conduct, knows the advantage of being, or of seeming to be in the right. With these views Omar determined to seek, and he accordingly soon found a pretext for quarrel.