T. W. WHITE, PROPRIETOR. FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM.
SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY
AND PRESENT CONDITION OF TRIPOLI, WITH SOME ACCOUNTS OF THE OTHER BARBARY STATES.
NO. X.—(Continued.)
The writer of these Sketches endeavors to give entire in each number, some distinct portion of the history of the Barbary States; this however is in some cases impracticable, either from want of time on his part, or from want of place in the sheets of the Messenger. The present number will contain merely the conclusion of the portion, commenced in the last, so that the next, may embrace the whole of the war between France and Algiers.
In a country where the establishment of innocence or guilt depends much less on the weight and character of evidence, than on the interests or influence of those possessing power, and where punishment is entirely disproportioned to offence, no unfavorable inference could be fairly drawn from the flight of the accused. The D'Ghies family had been uniformly the friends of the Americans, and Hassuna although suspected of too much devotion to the interests of France, upon the whole bore a fair character, and was on terms of social intimacy with the family of Mr. Coxe. The charge against him was of a strange nature, and one not likely to be substantiated; he protested that he was innocent of all improper conduct with regard to the unfortunate traveller, that the British Consul was anxious to procure his destruction from motives of personal enmity, and that his only desire was to go to England where he could easily clear himself from all imputations. Nor could any feelings of peculiar delicacy towards the British Consul be expected to influence Mr. Coxe on this occasion. The efforts made by Warrington in 1818 to rescue Morat Rais, after the attack on the American Consul, have been already noticed; he had also in 1828 endeavored, though ineffectually, to protect Dr. Sherry an Englishman who had circulated a story that the frigate Philadelphia was burnt by Maltese hired for the purpose by the Americans; and he had on various other occasions advanced pretensions to superiority over the Consul of the United States, which were unfounded and insulting.