Chapter 4

In nothing are the impiety and blasphemy of this custom more apparent than in the auctions of human beings, where men were sold to the highest bidder. Through the personal experience of a young English merchant, Abraham Brown, afterwards a settler in Massachusetts, we may learn how these were conducted. In 1655, before the liberating power of Cromwell had been acknowledged, he was captured, together with a whole crew, and carried into Sallee. His own words, in his memoirs still preserved, will best tell his story.131"On landing," he says, "an exceeding great company of most dismal spectators were led to behold us in our captivated condition. There was liberty for all sorts to come and look on us, that whosoever had a mind to buy any of us on the day appointed for our sale together in the market, might see, as I may say, what they would like to have for their money; whereby we had too many comfortless visitors, both from the town and country, one saying he would buy this man, and the other that. To comfort us, we were told by the Christian slaves already there, if we met with such and such patrons, our usage would not be so bad as we supposed; though, indeed, our men found the usage of the best bad enough. Fresh victuals and bread were supplied, I suppose to feed us up for the market, that we might be in some good plight against the day we were to be sold. And now I come to speak of our being sold into this doleful slavery. It was doleful in respect to the time and manner. As to the time, it was on our Sabbath day, in the morning, about the time the people of God were about to enjoy the liberty of God's house; this was the time our bondage was confirmed. Again, it was sad in respect to the manner of our selling. Being all of us brought into the market-place, we were led about, two or three at a time, in the midst of a great concourse of people, both from the town and country, who had a full sight of us, and if that did not satisfy, they would come and feel of your hand, and look into your mouth to see whether you are sound in health, or to see, by the hardness of your hand, whether you have been a laborer or not. The manner of buying is this: He that bids the greatest price hath you; they bidding one upon another until the highest has you for a slave, whoever he is, or wherever he dwells. As concerning myself, being brought to the market in the weakest condition of any of our men, I was led forth among the cruel multitude to be sold. As yet being undiscovered what I was, I was like to have been sold at a very low rate, not above £15 sterling, whereas our ordinary seamen were sold for £30 and £35 sterling, and two boys were sold for £40 apiece; and being in this sad posture led up and down at least one hour and a half, during which time a Dutchman, that was our carpenter, discovered me to some Jews, they increased from £15 to £75, which was the price my patron gave for me, being 300 ducats; and had I not been so weakened, and in these rags, (indeed, I made myself more so than I was, for sometimes, as they led me, I pretended I could not go, and did often sit down;) I say, had not these things been, in all likelihood I had been sold for as much again in the market, and thus I had been dearer, and the difficulty greater to be redeemed. During the time of my being led up and down the market, I was possessed with the greatest fears, not knowing who my patron might be. I feared it might be one from the country, who would carry me where I could not return, or it might be one in and about Sallee, of which we had sad accounts; and many other distracting thoughts I had. And though I was like to have been sold unto the most cruel man in Sallee, there being but one piece of eight between him and my patron, yet the Lord was pleased to cause him to buy me, of whom I may speak, to the glory of God, as the kindest man in the place."

This is the story of a respectable person, little distinguished in the world. But the slave dealer applied his inexorable system without distinction of persons. The experiences of St. Vincent de Paul did not differ from those of Abraham Brown. That eminent character, admired, beloved and worshipped by large circles of mankind, has also left a record of his sale as a slave.132"Their proceedings," he says, "at our sale were as follows: After we had been stripped, they gave to each one of us a pair of drawers, a linen coat, with a cap, and paraded us through the city of Tunis, where they had come expressly to sell us. Having made us make five or six turns through the city, with the chain at our necks, they conducted us back to the boat, that the merchants might come to see who could eat well, and who not; and to show that our wounds were not mortal. This done, they took us to the public square, where the merchants came to visit us, precisely as they do at the purchase of a horse or of cattle, making us open the mouth to see our teeth, feeling our sides, searching our wounds, and making us move our steps, trot and run, then lift burdens, and then wrestle, in order to see the strength of each, and a thousand other sorts of brutalities."

And here we may refer again to Cervantes, whose pen was dipped in his own dark experience. In his Life in Algiers, he has displayed the horrors of the white slave market. The public crier exposes for sale a father and mother with their two children. They are to be sold separately, or, according to the language of our day, "in lots to suit purchasers." The father is resigned, confiding in God; the mother sobs; while the children, ignorant of the inhumanity of men, show an instinctive trust in the constant and wakeful protection of their parents—now, alas! impotent to shield them from dire calamity. A merchant, inclining to purchase one of the "little ones," and wishing to ascertain his bodily condition, causes him to open his mouth. The child, still ignorant of the doom which awaits him, imagines that the inquirer is about to extract a tooth, and, assuring him that it does not ache, begs him to desist. The merchant, in other respects an estimable man, pays one hundred and thirty dollars for the youngest child, and the sale is completed. Thus a human being—one of those children of whom it has been said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven"—is profanely treated as an article of merchandise, and torn far away from a mother's arms and a father's support. The hardening influence of custom has steeled the merchant into insensibility to this violation of humanity and justice, this laceration of sacred ties, this degradation of the image of God. The unconscious heartlessness of the slave dealer, and the anguish of his victims, are depicted in the dialogue which ensues after the sale.133

MERCHANT.Come hither, child; 'tis time to go to rest.JUAN.Signor, I will not leave my mother here,To go with any one.MOTHER.Alas! my child, thou art no longer mine,But his who bought thee.JUAN.What! then, have you, mother,Forsaken me?MOTHER.O Heavens! how cruel are ye!MERCHANT.Come, hasten, boy.JUAN.Will you go with me, brother?FRANCISCO.I cannot, Juan, 'tis not in my power;—May Heaven protect you, Juan!MOTHER.O my child,My joy and my delight, God won't forget thee!JUAN.O father! mother! whither will they bear meAway from you?MOTHER.Permit me, worthy Signor,To speak a moment in my infant's ear.Grant me this small contentment; very soonI shall know nought but grief.MERCHANT.What you would say,Say now; to-night is the last time.MOTHER.To-nightIs the first time my heart e'er felt such grief.JUAN.Pray keep me with you, mother, for I know notWhither he'd carry me.MOTHER.Alas, poor child!Fortune forsook thee even at thy birth.The heavens are overcast, the elementsAre turbid, and the very sea and windsAre all combined against me.Thou, my child,Know'st not the dark misfortunes into whichThou art so early plunged, but happilyLackest the power to comprehend thy fate.What I would crave of thee, my life, since IMust never more be blessed with seeing thee,Is that thou never, never wilt forgetTo say, as thou wert wont, thyAve Mary;For that bright queen of goodness, grace, and virtueCan loosen all thy bonds and give thee freedom.AYDAR.Behold the wicked Christian, how she counselsHer innocent child! You wish, then, that your childShould, like yourself, continue still in error.JUAN.O mother, mother, may I not remain?And must these Moors, then, carry me away?MOTHER.With thee, my child, they rob me of my treasures.JUAN.O, I am much afraid!MOTHER.'Tis I, my child,Who ought to fear at seeing thee depart.Thou wilt forget thy God, me, and thyself.What else can I expect from thee, abandonedAt such a tender age, amongst a peopleFull of deceit and all iniquity?CRIER.Silence, you villainous woman! if you would notHave your head pay for what your tongue has done.

MERCHANT.Come hither, child; 'tis time to go to rest.

JUAN.Signor, I will not leave my mother here,To go with any one.

MOTHER.Alas! my child, thou art no longer mine,But his who bought thee.

JUAN.What! then, have you, mother,Forsaken me?

MOTHER.O Heavens! how cruel are ye!

MERCHANT.Come, hasten, boy.

JUAN.Will you go with me, brother?

FRANCISCO.I cannot, Juan, 'tis not in my power;—May Heaven protect you, Juan!

MOTHER.O my child,My joy and my delight, God won't forget thee!

JUAN.O father! mother! whither will they bear meAway from you?

MOTHER.Permit me, worthy Signor,To speak a moment in my infant's ear.Grant me this small contentment; very soonI shall know nought but grief.

MERCHANT.What you would say,Say now; to-night is the last time.

MOTHER.To-nightIs the first time my heart e'er felt such grief.

JUAN.Pray keep me with you, mother, for I know notWhither he'd carry me.

MOTHER.Alas, poor child!Fortune forsook thee even at thy birth.The heavens are overcast, the elementsAre turbid, and the very sea and windsAre all combined against me.Thou, my child,Know'st not the dark misfortunes into whichThou art so early plunged, but happilyLackest the power to comprehend thy fate.What I would crave of thee, my life, since IMust never more be blessed with seeing thee,Is that thou never, never wilt forgetTo say, as thou wert wont, thyAve Mary;For that bright queen of goodness, grace, and virtueCan loosen all thy bonds and give thee freedom.

AYDAR.Behold the wicked Christian, how she counselsHer innocent child! You wish, then, that your childShould, like yourself, continue still in error.

JUAN.O mother, mother, may I not remain?And must these Moors, then, carry me away?

MOTHER.With thee, my child, they rob me of my treasures.

JUAN.O, I am much afraid!

MOTHER.'Tis I, my child,Who ought to fear at seeing thee depart.Thou wilt forget thy God, me, and thyself.What else can I expect from thee, abandonedAt such a tender age, amongst a peopleFull of deceit and all iniquity?

CRIER.Silence, you villainous woman! if you would notHave your head pay for what your tongue has done.

From this scene we gladly avert the countenance, while, from the bottom of our hearts, we send our sympathies to the unhappy sufferers. Fain would we avert their fate; fain would we destroy the system of slavery, that has made them wretched and their masters cruel. And yet we would not judge with harshness an Algerine slave owner. He has been reared in a religion of slavery; he has learned to regard Christians, "guilty of a skin not colored like his own," as lawful prey; and has found sanctions for his conduct in the injunctions of the Koran, in the custom of his country, and in the instinctive dictates of an imagined self-interest. It is, then, the "peculiar institution" which we are aroused to execrate, rather than the Algerine slave masters, who glory in its influence, and,

so perfect is their misery,Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,But boast themselves more comely than before.

But there is reason to believe that the sufferings of the white slaves were not often greater than is the natural incident of slavery. There is an important authority which presents this point in an interesting light. It is that of General Eaton, for some time consul of the United States at Tunis, and whose name is not without note in the painful annals of war. In a letter to his wife, dated at Tunis, April 6, 1799, and written amidst opportunities of observation such as few have enjoyed, he briefly describes the condition of this unhappy class, illustrating it by a comparison less flattering to our country than to Barbary. "Many of the Christian slaves," he says, "have died of grief, and the others linger out a life less tolerable than death. Alas! remorse seizes my whole soul, when I reflect that this is, indeed, a copy of the very barbarity which my eyes have seen in my own native country. And yet we boast of liberty and national justice. How frequently have I seen in the Southern States of our own country weeping mothers leading guiltless infants to the sales with as deep anguish as if they led them to the slaughter, and yet felt my bosom tranquil in the view of these aggressions upon defenceless humanity! But when I see the same enormities practised upon beings whose complexion and blood claim kindred with my own, I curse the perpetrators, and weep over the wretched victims of their rapacity.Indeed, truth and justice demand from me the confession that the Christian slaves among the barbarians of Africa are treated with more humanity than the African slaves among the professing Christians of civilized America; and yet here sensibility bleeds at every pore for the wretches whom fate has doomed to slavery."134

Such testimony would seem to furnish a decisive standard or measure of comparison by which to determine the character of White Slavery in the Barbary States. But there are other considerations and authorities. One of these is the influence of the religion of these barbarians. Travellers remark the generally kind treatment bestowed by Mohammedans upon slaves.135The lash rarely, if ever, lacerates the back of the female; the knife or branding iron is not employed upon any human being to mark him as the property of his fellow-man. Nor is the slave doomed, as in other countries, where the Christian religion is professed, to unconditional and perpetual service, without prospect ofredemption. Hope, the last friend of misfortune, may brighten his captivity. He is not so walled around by inhuman institutions as to be inaccessible to freedom. "And unto such of your slaves," says the Koran, in words worthy of adoption in the legislation of Christian countries, "as desire a written instrument, allowing them to redeem themselves on paying a certain sum, write one, if ye know good in them, and give them of the riches of God, which he hath given you."136Thus from the Koran, which ordains slavery, come lessons of benignity to the slave; and one of the most touching stories in Mohammedanism is of the generosity of Ali, the companion of the Prophet, who, after fasting for three days, gave his whole provision to a captive not more famished than himself.137

Such precepts and examples doubtless had their influence in Algiers. It is evident, from the history of the country, that the prejudice of race did not so far prevail as to stamp upon the slaves and their descendants any indelible mark of exclusion from power and influence. It often happened that they arrived at eminent posts in the state. The seat of the Deys, more than once, was filled by humble Christian captives, who had tugged for years at the oar.138

Nor do we feel, from the narratives of captives and of travellers, that the condition of the Christian slave was rigorous beyond the ordinary lot of slavery. "The Captive's Story" in Don Quixote fails to impress the reader with any peculiar horror of the life from which he had escaped. It is often said that the sufferings of Cervantes were among the most severe which even Algiers could inflict.139But they did not repress the gayety of his temper; and we learn that in the building where he was confined there was a chapel or oratory, in which mass was celebrated, the sacrament administered, and sermons regularly preached by captive priests.140Nor was this all. The pleasures of the theatre were enjoyed by these slaves; and the farces of Lopé de Rueda, a favorite Spanish dramatist of the time, served, in actual representation, to cheer this house of bondage.141

The experience of the devoted Portuguese ecclesiastic, Father Thomas, illustrates this lot. A slave in Morocco, he was able to minister to his fellow-slaves, and to compose a work on the Passion of Jesus Christ, which has been admired for its unction, and translated into various tongues. At last liberated through the intervention of the Portuguese ambassador, he chose to remain behind, notwithstanding the solicitations of relatives at home, that he might continue to instruct and console the unhappy men, his late companions in bonds.142

Even the story of St. Vincent de Paul, so brutally sold in the public square, is not without its gleams of light. He was bought by a fisherman, who was soon constrained to get rid of him, "having nothing so contrary except the sea." He then passed into the hands of an old man, whom he pleasantly describes as a chemical doctor, a sovereign maker of quintessences, very humane and kind, who had labored for the space of fifty years in search of the philosopher's stone. "He loved me much," says the fugitive slave, "and pleased himself by discoursing to me of alchemy, and then of his religion, to which he made every effort to draw me, promising me riches and all his wisdom." On the death of this master, he passed to a nephew, by whom he was sold to still another person, a renegade from Nice, who took him to the mountains, where the country was extremely hot and desert. A Turkish wife of the renegade becoming interested in him, and curious to know his manner of life at home, visited him daily at his work in the fields, and listened with delight to the slave, away from his country and the churches of his religion, as he sang the psalm of the children of Israel in a foreign land: "By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion."143

The kindness of the slave master often appears. The English merchant Abraham Brown, whose sale at Sallee has been already described, makes known, in his memoirs, that, after he had been carried to the house of his master, his wounds were tenderly washed and dressed by his master's wife, and "indeed the whole family gave him comfortable words." He was furnished with a mat to lie on, "and some three or four days after provided with a shirt, such a one as it was, a pair of shoes, and an old doublet." His servile toils troubled him less than "being commanded by a negro man, who had been a long time in his patron's house a freeman, at whose beck and command he was obliged to be obedient for the doing of the least about the house or mill;" and he concludes his lament on this degradation as follows: "Thus I, who had commanded many men in several parts of the world, must now be commanded by a negro, who, with his two countrywomen in the house, scorned to drink out of the water pot I drank of, whereby I was despised of the despised people of the world."144

At a later day we are furnished with another authentic picture. Captain Braithwaite, who accompanied the British minister to Morocco in 1727, in order to procure the liberation of the British captives, after describing their comfortable condition, adds, "I am sure we saw several captives who lived much better in Barbary than ever they did in their own country. Whatever money in charity was sent them by their friends in Europe was their own, unless they defrauded one another, which has happened much oftener than by the Moors. Several of them are rich, and many have carried considerable sums out of the country, to the truth of which we are all witnesses. Several captives keep their mules, and some their servants; and yet this is called insupportable slavery among Turks and Moors. But we found this, as well as many other things in this country, strangely misrepresented."145

These statements—which, to those who do not place freedom above all price, may seem, at first view, to take the sting even from slavery—are not without support from other sources. Colonel Keatinge, who, as a member of a diplomatic mission from England, visited Morocco in 1785, says of this evil there, that "it is very slightly inflicted, and as to any labor undergone, it does not deserve the name;"146while Mr. Lemprière, who was in the same country not long afterwards, adds, "To the disgrace of Europe, the Moors treat their slaves with humanity."147In Tripoli, we are told, by a person for ten years a resident, that the same gentleness prevailed. "It is a great alleviation to our feelings," says the writer, speaking of the slaves, "to see them easy and well dressed, and, so far from wearing chains, as captives do in most other places, they are perfectly at liberty."148We have already seen the testimony of General Eaton with regard to slavery in Tunis; while Mr. Noah, one of his successors in the consulate of the United States at that place, says, "In Tunis, from my observation, the slaves are not severely treated; they are very useful, and many of them have made money."149And Mr. Shaler, describing the chief seat of Christian slavery, says, "In short, there were slaves who left Algiers with regret."150

A French writer of more recent date asserts with some vehemence, and with the authority of an eye witness, that the Christian slaves at Algiers were not exposed to the miseries which they represented. I do not know that he vindicates their slavery, but, like Captain Braithwaite, he evidently regards many of them as better off than they would be at home. According to him, they were well clad and well fed,much better than the free Christians there. The youngest and most comely were taken as pages by the Dey. Others were employed in the barracks; others in the galleys; but even here there was a chapel, as in the time of Cervantes, for the free exercise of the Christian religion. Those who happened to be artisans, as carpenters, locksmiths, and calkers, were let to the owners of vessels. Others were employed on the public works; while others still were allowed the privilege of keeping a shop, in which their profits were sometimes so large as to enable them at the end of a year to purchase their ransom. But these were often known to become indifferent to freedom, and to prefer Algiers to their own country. The slaves of private persons were sometimes employed in the family of their master, where their treatment necessarily depended much upon his character. If he were gentle and humane, their lot was fortunate; they were regarded as children of the house. If he were harsh and selfish, then the iron of slavery did, indeed, enter their souls. Many were bought to be sold again for profit into distant parts of the country, where they were doomed to exhausting labor; in which event their condition was most grievous. But special care was bestowed upon all who became ill—not so much, it is admitted, from humanity as through fear of losing them.151

But, whatever deductions may be made from the familiar stories of White Slavery in the Barbary States,—admitting that it was mitigated by the genial influence of Mohammedanism,—that the captives were well clad and well fed, much better than the free Christians there,—that they were allowed opportunities of Christian worship,—that they were often treated with lenity and affectionate care,—that they were sometimes advanced to posts of responsibility and honor,—and that they were known, in their contentment or stolidity, to become indifferent to freedom,—still the institution or custom is hardly less hateful in our eyes. Slavery in all its forms, even under the mildest influences, is a wrong and a curse. No accidental gentleness of the master can make it otherwise. Against it reason, experience, the heart of man, all cry out. "Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! thou art a bitter draught! and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account." Algerine Slavery was a violation of the law of nature and of God. It was a usurpation of rights not granted to man.

O execrable son, so to aspireAbove his brethren, to himself assumingAuthority usurped, from God not given!He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl,Dominion absolute; that right we holdBy his donation; but man over menHe made not lord, such title to himselfReserving, human left from human free.152

Such a relation, in defiance of God, could not fail to accumulate disastrous consequences upon all in any way parties to it; for injustice and wrong are fatal alike to the doer and the sufferer. It is notorious that, in Algiers, it exerted a most pernicious influence on master as well as slave. The slave was crushed and degraded, his intelligence abased, even his love of freedom extinguished. The master, accustomed from childhood to revolting inequalities of condition, was exalted into a mood of unconscious arrogance and self-confidence, inconsistent with the virtues of a pure and upright character. Unlimited power is apt to stretch towards license; and the wives and daughters of Christian slaves were often pressed to be the concubines of their Algerine masters.153

It is well, then, that it has passed away! The Barbary States seem less barbarous, when we no longer discern this cruel oppression!

But the story of slavery there is not yet all told. While the Barbary States received white slaves by sea, stolen by corsairs, they also, from time immemorial, imported black slaves from the south. Over the vast, illimitable sea of sand, in which is absorbed their southern border,—traversed by camels, those "ships of the desert,"—were brought those unfortunate beings, as merchandise, with gold dust and ivory, doomed often to insufferable torments, while cruel thirst parched the lips, and tears vainly moistened the eyes. They also were ravished from their homes, and, like their white brethren from the north, compelled to taste of slavery. In numbers they have far surpassed their Christian peers. But for long years no pen or voice pleaded their cause; nor did the Christian nations—professing a religion which teaches universal humanity, without respect of persons, and sends the precious sympathies of neighborhood to all who suffer, even at the farthest pole—ever interfere in any way in their behalf. The navy of Great Britain, by the throats of their artillery, argued the freedom of allfellow-Christians, without distinction ofnation; but they heeded not the slavery of other brethren in bonds—Mohammedans or idolaters, children of the same Father in heaven. Lord Exmouth did but half his work. In confining the stipulation to the abolition of Christian slavery only, this Abolitionist made a discrimination, which, whether founded on religion or color, was selfish and unchristian. Here, again, was the same inconsistency which darkened the conduct of Charles the Fifth, and has constantly recurred throughout the history of this outrage. Forgetful of the Brotherhood of the Race, Christian powers have deemed the slavery of blacks just and proper, while the slavery of whites has been branded as unjust and sinful.

As the British fleet sailed proudly from the harbor of Algiers, bearing its emancipated white slaves, and the express stipulation, that Christian slavery was abolished there forever, it left behind in bondage large numbers of blacks, distributed throughout all the Barbary States. Neglected thus by exclusive and unchristian Christendom, it is pleasant to know that their lot is not always unhappy. In Morocco, negroes are still detained as slaves; but the prejudice of color seems not to prevail there. They have been called "the grand cavaliers of this part of Barbary."154They often become the chief magistrates and rulers of cities.155They constituted the body guard of several of the emperors, and, on one occasion at least, exercised the prerogative of the Prætorian cohorts, in dethroning their master.156If negro slavery still exists in this state, it has little of the degradation connected with it elsewhere. Into Algiers France has already carried the benign principle of law—earlier recognized by her than by the English courts157—which secures freedom to all beneath its influence. And now we are cheered anew by the glad tidings recently received, that the Bey of Tunis, "for the glory of God, and to distinguish man from the brute creation," has decreed the total abolition of human slavery throughout his dominions.

Let us, then, with hope and confidence, turn to the Barbary States! The virtues and charities do not come singly. Among them is a common bond, stronger than that of science or knowledge. Let one find admission, and a goodly troop will follow. Nor is it unreasonable to anticipate other improvements in states which have renounced a long-cherished system of White Slavery, while they have done much to abolish or mitigate the slavery of others not white, and to overcome the inhuman prejudice of color. The Christian nations of Europe first declared, and practically enforced, within their own European dominions, the vital truth of freedom, that man cannot hold property in his brother man. Algiers and Tunis, like Saul of Tarsus, have been turned from the path of persecution, and now receive the same faith. Algiers and Tunis now help to plead the cause of Freedom. Such a cause is in sacred fellowship with all those principles which promote the Progress of Man. And who can tell that this despised portion of the globe is not destined to yet another restoration? It was here in Northern Africa that civilization was first nursed, that commerce early spread her white wings, that Christianity was taught by the honeyed lips of Augustine. All these are again returning to their ancient home. Civilization, commerce, and Christianity once more shed their benignant influences upon the land to which they have long been strangers. A new health and vigor now animate its exertions. Like its own giant Antæus,—whose tomb is placed by tradition among the hillsides of Algiers,—it has been often felled to the earth, but it now rises with renewed strength, to gain yet higher victories.

The End

[1]The classical student will be gratified and surprised by the remains of antiquity described by Dr. Shaw, English chaplain at Algiers in the reign of George the First, in hisTravels and Observertions relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant, published in 1738.[2]Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. ix. chap. lvi. p. 465.[3]Jefferson, without recognizing the general parallel, alludes to Virginia as fast sinking to be "theBarbaryof the Union."—Writings, vol. iv. p. 333.[4]Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe, vol. iii. chap. 29, p. 492.[5]The exact amount is left uncertain both by Smollet and Thomas Roscoe in their lives of Cervantes. It appears that it was five hundred gold crowns of Spain, which, according to his Spanish biographer, Navarrete, is 6770 reals, (Vida de Cervantes, p. 371.) The real is supposed to be less than ten cents.[6]Pp. 140, 141.[7]Gibbon's Roman Empire, vol. x. chap. 55, p. 190.[8]Nat. Hist. lib. vii. c. 57.[9]Genesis xiv. 14; ibid, xxxvii. 28. By these and other texts of the Scriptures, slavery, and even theslave trade, have been vindicated. See Bruce's Travels in Africa, vol. ii. p. 319. After quoting these texts, the complacent traveller says he "cannot think that purchasing slaves is either cruel or unnatural."[10]Odyssey, book xvii.[11]Pol. lib. i. c. 1.[12]Pol. lib. i. c. 3. In like spirit are the words of the good Las Casas, when pleading before Charles the Fifth for the Indian races of America. "The Christian religion," he said, "is equal in its operation, and is accommodated to every nation on the globe.It robs no one of his freedom, violates none of his inherent rights, on the ground that he is a slave by nature, as pretended; and it well becomes your Majestyto banishso monstrous an oppression from your kingdoms in the beginning of your reign, that the Almighty may make it long and glorious."—Prescott'sConquest of Mexico, vol. i. p 379.[13]Institute i. tit. 2.[14]Re Rustica, § 2.[15]Ep. iii. 62.[16]Iliad, book i.[17]Book ii. chap. 20, Life of St. Wolston.[18]Chronica Hiberniæ, or the Annals of Phil. Flatesbury in the Cottonian Library, Domitian A. xviii. 10; quoted in Stephens on West India Slavery, vol. i. p. 6[19]Encyclopédie Méthodique, (Jurisprudence,) Art.Esclavage.[20]Biot,De l'Abolition de l'Esclavage Ancien en Occident, p. 440; a work crowned with a gold medal by the Institute of France, but which will be read with some disappointment.[21]Koran, chap. 76.[22]Harleian Miscellany, vol. v. p. 522—A Discourse concerning Tangiers.[23]Purchas's Pilgrims, vol. ii. p. 1565.[24]Prescott's History of Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. iii. p. 308; Purchas's Pilgrims, vol. ii. p. 813.[25]Robertson's Charles the Fifth, book v.; Haedo,Historia de Argel, Epitome de los Reyes, de Argel.[26]Sismondi,Histoire des Français, tom. xvii. p. 102.[27]Robertson's Charles the Fifth, book v.[28]Ibid.[29]Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, vol. i. p. 38.[30]Robertson's Charles the Fifth, book vi.; Harleian Miscellany, vol. iv. p. 504;—A lamentable and piteous Treatise, very necessarye for euerye Christen manne to reade, [or the Expedition of Charles the Fifth,] truly and dylygently translated out of Latyn into Frenche, and out of Frenche into English, 1542.[31]Guizot's History of the English Revolution, vol. i. p. 69, book ii.; Strafford's Letters and Despatches, vol. i p. 68. Sir George Radcliffe, the friend and biographer of the Earl, boasts that the latter "secured the seas from piracies, so as only one ship was lost at his first coming, [as Lord Lieutenant to Ireland,] and no more all his time; whereof every year before, not only several ships and goods were lost by robbery at sea, but also Turkish men-of-war usually landed, andtook prey of men to be made slaves."—Ibid. vol ii. p. 434.[32]"Purchas's Pilgrims, pp. 885, 886; Southey's Naval History of England, vol. v. pp. 60-63. There was a publication especially relating to this expedition, entitled Algiers Voyage, in a Journall or briefe Repertory of all Occurrents hapning in the Fleet of Ships sent out by the Kinge his most excellent Majestie, as well against the Pirates of Algiers as others. London. 1621. 4to.[33]Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. i. p. 187.[34]Osborne's Voyages—Journal of the Sallee Fleet, vol. ii. p. 493. See also Mrs. Macaulay's History of England, vol. ii. chap. 4, p. 219.[35]Strafford's Letter and Despatches, vol. ii. pp. 86, 116, 129.[36]Strafford's Letters and Despatches, vol. ii. p. 131.[37]Ibid. p. 138.[38]Carte's History of England, vol. iv. book xxii. p. 231.[39]Waller's Works, p. 271.[40]Compassion towards Captives, urged in Three Sermons, on Heb. xiii. 3, by Charles Fitz-Geoffrey, 1642. Libertas; or Relief to the English Captives in Algiers, by Henry Robinson, London, 1647. Letters relating to the Redemption of the Captive in Algiers, at Tunis, by Edward Cason Laud, 1647. A Relation of Seven Years' Slavery under the Turks of Algiers, suffered by an English Captive Merchant, with a Description of the Sufferings of the Miserable Captives under that Mercilest Tyranny, by Francis Knight, London, 1640. The last publication is preserved in the Collection of Voyages and Travels by Osborne, vol. ii. pp. 465-489.[41]Hume says, (vol. vii. p. 529, chap, lxi.,) "No English fleet, except during the Crusades,had ever before sailed in those seas." He forgot, or was not aware of the expedition of Sir John Mansel already mentioned, (ante, p. 224,) which was elaborately debated in the Privy Council as early as 1617, three years before it was finally undertaken, and which was the subject of a special work. See Southey's Naval History of England, vol. v. pp. 149-157.[42]Thurloe's State Papers, vol. iii. p. 527.[43]2 Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 235, part ix. speech v.[44]Rapin's History of England, vol. ii. pp. 858, 864.[45]Recueil des Traitez de Paix, tom. iv. p. 43.[46]Ibid. pp. 307, 476, 703, 756.[47]The Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 531.[48]Osborne's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 468; Relation of Seven Years' Slavery in Algiers.[49]Ibid. p. 470.[50]In the melancholy history of war, this is remarked as the earliest instance of thebombardmentof a town. Sismondi, who never fails to regard the past in the light of humanity, says, that "Louis the Fourteenth was the first to put in practice the atrocious method, newly invented, of bombarding towns,—of burning them, not to take them, but to destroy them,—of attacking, not fortifications, but private houses,—not soldiers, but peaceable inhabitants, women and children, and of confounding thousands of private crimes, each one of which would cause horror, in one great public crime, one great disaster, which he regarded only as one of the catastrophes of war." Sismondi,Histoire des Français, tom. xxv. p. 452. How much of this is justly applicable to the recent murder of women and children by the forces of the United States at Vera Cruz! Algiers was bombarded in the cause offreedom; Vera Cruz to extendslavery![51]Siècle de Louis XIV.chap. 14.[52]Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 441.[53]To the relations of these missions we are indebted for works of interest on the Barbary States, some of which I am able to mention.Busnot, Histoire du Règne de Mouley Ishmael, à Rouen, 1714.This is by a father of the Holy Trinity.Jean de la Faye, Relation, en Forme de Journal, du Voyage pour la Rédemption des Captifs, à Paris, 1725.Voyage to Barbary for the Redemption of Captives in 1720, by the Mathurin-Trinitarian Fathers, London, 1735.The last is a translation from the French.Braithwaite's History of the Revolutions of the Empire of Morocco, London, 1729.This contains a journal of the mission of John Russel, Esq., from the English government to Morocco, to obtain the liberation of slaves. The expedition was thoroughly equipped. "The Moors," says the author, "find plenty of every thing but drink, but for that the English generally take care of themselves; for, besides chairs, tables, knives, forks, plates, table linen, &c., we had two or three mules, loaded with wine, brandy, sugar, and utensils for punch."—P. 82.[54]Roscoe's Life of Cervantes, p. 43.[55]"The following goods, designed as a present from his Majesty to the Dey of Algiers, to redeem near one hundred English captives lately taken, were entered at the customhouse, viz.: 20 pieces of broadcloth, 2 pieces of brocade, 2 pieces of silver tabby, 1 piece of green damask, 8 pieces of Holland, 16 pieces of cambric, a gold repeating watch, 4 silver do., 20 pounds of tea, 300 of loaf sugar, 5 fuzees, 5 pair of pistols, an escritoire, 2 clocks, and a box of toys."—Gent. Mag., iv. p. 104, (1734.)[56]MS. Memoirs of Abraham Brown.[57]Osborne's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 489; Relation of Seven Years' Slavery in Algiers.[58]Sewell's History of the Quakers, p. 397.[59]Biot,De l'Abolition de l'Esclavage Ancien, p. 437.[60]Haedo,Historia de Argel, pp. 142-144;Dialogo I. de la Captiudad.[61]Roscoe's Life of Cervantes, p. 50. See his story ofEspañola Inglesa.[62]Gentleman's Mag. xviii. p. 413.[63]Oronooko, act iii. sc. i. It is not strange that the anti-slavery character of this play rendered it an unpopular performance at Liverpool, while the prosperous merchants there were concerned in the slave trade.[64]Don Quixote, part i. book iv. chap. 12.[65]Osborne's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 500.[66]Roscoe's Life of Cervantes, pp. 32, 310, 311. In the same spirit Thomas Phelps says: "I looked upon my condition as desperate; my forlorn and languishing state of life, without any hope of redemption, appeared far worse than the terrors of a most cruel death."—Osborne's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 504.[67]British Annual Register, vol. vi. p. 60.[68]El Trato de Argel.[69]Roscoe's Life of Cervantes, pp. 31, 308, 309. I refer to Roscoe as the popular authority. His work appears to be little more than a compilation from Navarrete and Sismondi.[70]Ibid. p. 33. See also Haedo,Historia de Argel, p. 185.[71]Purchas's Pilgrims, vol. ii. p. 888.[72]Purchas's Pilgrims, vol. ii. pp. 882-883.[73]Purchas's Pilgrims, vol. ii. pp. 889-896.[74]Osborne's Voyages, vol. ii. pp. 497-510.[75]Sewell's History of the Quakers, pp. 392-397.[76]Vol. xv. p. 130.[77]Vol. xix. p. 176.[78]Davis's Extracts relating to Plymouth, p. 3.[79]Winthrop's Journal, vol. ii. p. 11.[80]MS. Records of First Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts.[81]Middlesex [Massachusetts] Probate Files in MS.[82]William Gilbert to Arthur Bridge, MS.[83]MS. Journal of Chief Justice Samuel Sewell.[84]Sparks's Works of Franklin, ix. 506, 507; x. 230. M. Le Veillard to Dr. Franklin, October 9, 1785.[85]Boston Independent Chronicle, April 28, 1785, vol. xvii. No. 866; May 12, 1785, No. 868; Oct. 20, 1785, No. 886; Nov. 3, 1785, No. 888; Nov. 17, 1785, No. 890; March 2, 1786, vol. xviii. No. 908; April 27, 1786, No. 918.[86]Boston Independent Chronicle, May 18, 1786, xviii. No. 916; Sparks's Franklin, ix. 506, 507.[87]Boston Independent Chronicle, Oct. 16, 1778, vol. xx. No. 1042; History of the War with Tripoli, p. 59.[88]History of the War with Tripoli, p. 62. American Museum, vol. viii. Appendix.[89]History of the War between the United States and Tripoli, p. 52.[90]Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. ii. p. 353.[91]Lyman's Diplomacy vol. ii. p. 357; History of the War with Tripoli, p. 64.[92]Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. ii. p. 359.[93]Ibid. p. 360.[94]History of the War with Tripoli, pp. 69-71.[95]Wesley's Thoughts on Slavery, (1772,) p. 26.[96]Short Account of Algiers, (Philadelphia, 1794,) p. 18.[97]From the Eagle Office, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1795.[98]Chap. xxx.[99]Chap. xxxii.[100]Secret Journals of Congress, 1786, vol. iv. pp. 274-280.[101]Brissot's Travels, vol. i. letter 22.[102]Sparks's Franklin, vol. ii. p. 517.[103]At Portsmouth, N. H., at a public entertainment, April 3, 1795, in honor of French successes.—Boston Independent Chronicle, vol. xxvii. No. 1469.[104]United States Statutes at Large, (Little & Brown's edit.,) Treaties, vol. viii. p. 133; Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. ii. p. 362.[105]Article 11; Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. ii. pp. 380, 381; United States Statutes at Large, vol. viii. p. 154.[106]Article 6; United States Statutes at Large, vol. viii. p. 157. This treaty has two dates, August, 1797, and March, 1799. William Eaton and James Leander Cathcart were the agents of the United States at the latter date.[107]Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. ii. p. 350; United States Statutes at Large, vol. viii. p. 100.[108]History of the War with Tripoli, p. 80.[109]Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. ii. p. 384.[110]Miscellaneous Works of David Humphreys, p. 75.[111]Miscellaneous Works of David Humphreys, pp. 52, 53.[112]United States Statutes at Large, vol. viii. p. 214; Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. ii. p. 388.[113]History of the War between the United States and Tripoli, p. 88.[114]Noah's Travels, p. 69.[115]Ibid. p. 144; National Intelligencer of March 7, 1815.[116]United States Statutes at Large, vol. viii. p. 224; Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. ii. p. 376.[117]Mackenzie's Life of Decatur, p. 268.[118]Mémoire sur la Nécessité et les Moyens de faire cesser les Pirateries des Etats Barbaresques. Reçu, considéré, et adopté à Paris en Septembre, à Turin le 14 Octobre, 1814, à Vienne durant le Congrès. Par M. Sidney Smith. See Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 140, where this is noticed. Schoell,Histoire des Traités de Paix, tom. xi. p. 402.[119]Edinburgh Review, vol. xxvi. p. 451; Osler's Life of Exmouth, p. 302; Mackenzie's Life of Decatur, p. 263.[120]Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 145; Edinburgh Review, vol. xxvi. p. 449, noticing "A Letter to a Member of Parliament, on the Slavery of the Christians at Algiers. By Walter Croker, Esq., of the Royal Navy. London, 1816." Schoell,Traités de Paix, tom. xi. p. 402.[121]Osler's Life of Exmouth, p. 297.[122]Osler's Life of Exmouth, p. 303.[123]Thurloe's State Papers, vol. ii. p. 390.[124]Osler's Life of Exmouth, p. 334; British Annual Register, (1816,) vol. lviii. pp. 97-106; Shaler's Sketches, pp. 279-294.[125]Osler's Life of Exmouth, p. 340.[126]Osler's Life of Exmouth, p. 342.[127]Ibid. 432; Shaler's Sketches of Algiers, p. 382.[128]Purchas's Pilgrims, vol. ii. p. 1565.[129]Braithwaite's Revolutions of Morocco, p. 233; Noah's Travels, p. 367.[130]Haedo,Historia, pp. 139, 140. Besides the illustrations of the hardships of White Slavery already introduced, I refer briefly to the following: Edinburgh Review, vol. xxvi. pp. 452-454; Croker's Letter, pp. 11-13; Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 145; Eaton's Life, p. 100; Noah's Travels, p. 366.[131]MS. Memoirs.[132]Biographie Universelle, art. Vincent de Paul.[133]This translation is borrowed from Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe, by Roscoe, vol. iii. p. 381. There is a letter of "John Dunton, Mariner," addressed to the English Admiralty in 1637, which might furnish the foundation of a similar scene. "For my only son," he says, "is now a slave in Algier, and but ten years of age, and like to be lost forever, without God's great mercy and the King's clemency, which, I hope, may be in some manner obtained."—Osborne's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 492.[134]Eaton's Life, p. 145.[135]Wilson's Travels, p. 93; Edinburgh Review, vol. xxxviii. p. 403; Noah's Travels, p. 302; Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 168; Shaler's Sketches of Algiers, p. 77.[136]Sale's Koran, chap. 24, vol. ii. p. 194. The right of redemption was recognized by the Gentoo laws. Halhed's Code, cap. 8, § 1, 2. It was unknown in the British West Indies while slavery existed there. Stephens on West India Slavery, vol. ii. pp. 378-384. It is also unknown in the Slave States of our country.[137]Sales's Koran, vol. ii. p. 474, note.[138]Haedo,Historia de Argel, p. 122; Quarterly Review, vol. xv. pp. 169, 172; Shaler's Sketches of Algiers, p. 77; Short Account of Algiers, pp. 22, 25. It seems to have been supposed, that, according to the Koran, the condition of slavery ceased when the party became a Mussulman. Penny Cyclopædia, art.Slavery; Noah's Travels, p. 302; Shaler's Sketches, p. 69. In point of fact, freedom generally followed conversion; but I do not find any injunction on the subject in the Koran.[139]De los peores que en Argel auia.Haedo,Historia de Argel, p. 85; Navarrete,Vida de Cervantes, p. 361.[140]Roscoe's life of Cervantes, p. 303.[141]Baños de Argel.[142]Biographie Universelle, art. Thomas de Jesus; Digby's Board Stone of Honor, Tancredus, § 9, p. 181.[143]Biographie Universelle, art. Vincent de Paul.[144]MS. Memoirs.[145]Braithwaite's Revolutions in Morocco, p. 353.[146]Keatinge's Travels, p. 250; Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 146. See also Chenier's Present State of Morocco, vol. i. p. 192; ii. p. 369.[147]Lemprière's Tour, p. 290. See also pp. 3, 147, 190, 279.[148]Narrative of Ten Years' Residence at Tripoli, p. 241.[149]Noah's Travels, p. 368.[150]Shaler's Sketches, p. 77.[151]Histoire d'Alger: Description de ce Royaume, etc., de ses Forces de Terre et de Mer, Moeurs et Costumes des Habitans, des Mores, des Arabes, des Juifs, des Chrétiens, de ses Lois, etcs.(Paris, 1830,) chap. 27.[152]Paradise Lost, book xii. 64-71.[153]Noah's Travels, p. 248, 253; Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 168. Among the concubines of a prince of Morocco were two slaves of the age of fifteen, one of English, and the other of French extraction. Lemprière's Tour, p. 147. There is an account of the fate of "one Mrs. Shaw, an Irish woman," in words hardly polite enough to be quoted. She was swept into the harem of Muley Ishmael, who "forced her to turn Moor;" "but soon after, having taken a dislike to her, he gave her to a soldier."—Braithwaite's Morocco, p. 191.[154]Braithwaite's Morocco, p. 350. See also Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 168.[155]Braithwaite, p. 222.[156]Ibid. p. 381.[157]Somersett's case, first declaring this principle, was decided in 1772. M. Schoell says, that "this fine maxim has always obtained" in France.—Histoire Abrégée des Traités de Paix, tom. xi. p. 178. By the royal ordinance 1318, it was declared, that "all men are born free (francs) by nature; and that the kingdom of the French (Francs) should be so in reality as in name." But this "fine maxim" was not recognized in France so completely as M. Schoell asserts. See Encyclopédie, (de Diderot et de D'Alembert,) art.Esclavage.

[2]Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. ix. chap. lvi. p. 465.

[3]Jefferson, without recognizing the general parallel, alludes to Virginia as fast sinking to be "theBarbaryof the Union."—Writings, vol. iv. p. 333.

[4]Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe, vol. iii. chap. 29, p. 492.

[5]The exact amount is left uncertain both by Smollet and Thomas Roscoe in their lives of Cervantes. It appears that it was five hundred gold crowns of Spain, which, according to his Spanish biographer, Navarrete, is 6770 reals, (Vida de Cervantes, p. 371.) The real is supposed to be less than ten cents.

[6]Pp. 140, 141.

[7]Gibbon's Roman Empire, vol. x. chap. 55, p. 190.

[8]Nat. Hist. lib. vii. c. 57.

[9]Genesis xiv. 14; ibid, xxxvii. 28. By these and other texts of the Scriptures, slavery, and even theslave trade, have been vindicated. See Bruce's Travels in Africa, vol. ii. p. 319. After quoting these texts, the complacent traveller says he "cannot think that purchasing slaves is either cruel or unnatural."

[10]Odyssey, book xvii.

[11]Pol. lib. i. c. 1.

[12]Pol. lib. i. c. 3. In like spirit are the words of the good Las Casas, when pleading before Charles the Fifth for the Indian races of America. "The Christian religion," he said, "is equal in its operation, and is accommodated to every nation on the globe.It robs no one of his freedom, violates none of his inherent rights, on the ground that he is a slave by nature, as pretended; and it well becomes your Majestyto banishso monstrous an oppression from your kingdoms in the beginning of your reign, that the Almighty may make it long and glorious."—Prescott'sConquest of Mexico, vol. i. p 379.

[13]Institute i. tit. 2.

[14]Re Rustica, § 2.

[15]Ep. iii. 62.

[16]Iliad, book i.

[17]Book ii. chap. 20, Life of St. Wolston.

[18]Chronica Hiberniæ, or the Annals of Phil. Flatesbury in the Cottonian Library, Domitian A. xviii. 10; quoted in Stephens on West India Slavery, vol. i. p. 6

[19]Encyclopédie Méthodique, (Jurisprudence,) Art.Esclavage.

[20]Biot,De l'Abolition de l'Esclavage Ancien en Occident, p. 440; a work crowned with a gold medal by the Institute of France, but which will be read with some disappointment.

[21]Koran, chap. 76.

[22]Harleian Miscellany, vol. v. p. 522—A Discourse concerning Tangiers.

[23]Purchas's Pilgrims, vol. ii. p. 1565.

[24]Prescott's History of Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. iii. p. 308; Purchas's Pilgrims, vol. ii. p. 813.

[25]Robertson's Charles the Fifth, book v.; Haedo,Historia de Argel, Epitome de los Reyes, de Argel.

[26]Sismondi,Histoire des Français, tom. xvii. p. 102.

[27]Robertson's Charles the Fifth, book v.

[28]Ibid.

[29]Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, vol. i. p. 38.

[30]Robertson's Charles the Fifth, book vi.; Harleian Miscellany, vol. iv. p. 504;—A lamentable and piteous Treatise, very necessarye for euerye Christen manne to reade, [or the Expedition of Charles the Fifth,] truly and dylygently translated out of Latyn into Frenche, and out of Frenche into English, 1542.

[31]Guizot's History of the English Revolution, vol. i. p. 69, book ii.; Strafford's Letters and Despatches, vol. i p. 68. Sir George Radcliffe, the friend and biographer of the Earl, boasts that the latter "secured the seas from piracies, so as only one ship was lost at his first coming, [as Lord Lieutenant to Ireland,] and no more all his time; whereof every year before, not only several ships and goods were lost by robbery at sea, but also Turkish men-of-war usually landed, andtook prey of men to be made slaves."—Ibid. vol ii. p. 434.

[32]"Purchas's Pilgrims, pp. 885, 886; Southey's Naval History of England, vol. v. pp. 60-63. There was a publication especially relating to this expedition, entitled Algiers Voyage, in a Journall or briefe Repertory of all Occurrents hapning in the Fleet of Ships sent out by the Kinge his most excellent Majestie, as well against the Pirates of Algiers as others. London. 1621. 4to.

[33]Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. i. p. 187.

[34]Osborne's Voyages—Journal of the Sallee Fleet, vol. ii. p. 493. See also Mrs. Macaulay's History of England, vol. ii. chap. 4, p. 219.

[35]Strafford's Letter and Despatches, vol. ii. pp. 86, 116, 129.

[36]Strafford's Letters and Despatches, vol. ii. p. 131.

[37]Ibid. p. 138.

[38]Carte's History of England, vol. iv. book xxii. p. 231.

[39]Waller's Works, p. 271.

[40]Compassion towards Captives, urged in Three Sermons, on Heb. xiii. 3, by Charles Fitz-Geoffrey, 1642. Libertas; or Relief to the English Captives in Algiers, by Henry Robinson, London, 1647. Letters relating to the Redemption of the Captive in Algiers, at Tunis, by Edward Cason Laud, 1647. A Relation of Seven Years' Slavery under the Turks of Algiers, suffered by an English Captive Merchant, with a Description of the Sufferings of the Miserable Captives under that Mercilest Tyranny, by Francis Knight, London, 1640. The last publication is preserved in the Collection of Voyages and Travels by Osborne, vol. ii. pp. 465-489.

[41]Hume says, (vol. vii. p. 529, chap, lxi.,) "No English fleet, except during the Crusades,had ever before sailed in those seas." He forgot, or was not aware of the expedition of Sir John Mansel already mentioned, (ante, p. 224,) which was elaborately debated in the Privy Council as early as 1617, three years before it was finally undertaken, and which was the subject of a special work. See Southey's Naval History of England, vol. v. pp. 149-157.

[42]Thurloe's State Papers, vol. iii. p. 527.

[43]2 Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 235, part ix. speech v.

[44]Rapin's History of England, vol. ii. pp. 858, 864.

[45]Recueil des Traitez de Paix, tom. iv. p. 43.

[46]Ibid. pp. 307, 476, 703, 756.

[47]The Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 531.

[48]Osborne's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 468; Relation of Seven Years' Slavery in Algiers.

[49]Ibid. p. 470.

[50]In the melancholy history of war, this is remarked as the earliest instance of thebombardmentof a town. Sismondi, who never fails to regard the past in the light of humanity, says, that "Louis the Fourteenth was the first to put in practice the atrocious method, newly invented, of bombarding towns,—of burning them, not to take them, but to destroy them,—of attacking, not fortifications, but private houses,—not soldiers, but peaceable inhabitants, women and children, and of confounding thousands of private crimes, each one of which would cause horror, in one great public crime, one great disaster, which he regarded only as one of the catastrophes of war." Sismondi,Histoire des Français, tom. xxv. p. 452. How much of this is justly applicable to the recent murder of women and children by the forces of the United States at Vera Cruz! Algiers was bombarded in the cause offreedom; Vera Cruz to extendslavery!

[51]Siècle de Louis XIV.chap. 14.

[52]Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 441.

[53]To the relations of these missions we are indebted for works of interest on the Barbary States, some of which I am able to mention.Busnot, Histoire du Règne de Mouley Ishmael, à Rouen, 1714.This is by a father of the Holy Trinity.Jean de la Faye, Relation, en Forme de Journal, du Voyage pour la Rédemption des Captifs, à Paris, 1725.Voyage to Barbary for the Redemption of Captives in 1720, by the Mathurin-Trinitarian Fathers, London, 1735.The last is a translation from the French.Braithwaite's History of the Revolutions of the Empire of Morocco, London, 1729.This contains a journal of the mission of John Russel, Esq., from the English government to Morocco, to obtain the liberation of slaves. The expedition was thoroughly equipped. "The Moors," says the author, "find plenty of every thing but drink, but for that the English generally take care of themselves; for, besides chairs, tables, knives, forks, plates, table linen, &c., we had two or three mules, loaded with wine, brandy, sugar, and utensils for punch."—P. 82.

[54]Roscoe's Life of Cervantes, p. 43.

[55]"The following goods, designed as a present from his Majesty to the Dey of Algiers, to redeem near one hundred English captives lately taken, were entered at the customhouse, viz.: 20 pieces of broadcloth, 2 pieces of brocade, 2 pieces of silver tabby, 1 piece of green damask, 8 pieces of Holland, 16 pieces of cambric, a gold repeating watch, 4 silver do., 20 pounds of tea, 300 of loaf sugar, 5 fuzees, 5 pair of pistols, an escritoire, 2 clocks, and a box of toys."—Gent. Mag., iv. p. 104, (1734.)

[56]MS. Memoirs of Abraham Brown.

[57]Osborne's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 489; Relation of Seven Years' Slavery in Algiers.

[58]Sewell's History of the Quakers, p. 397.

[59]Biot,De l'Abolition de l'Esclavage Ancien, p. 437.

[60]Haedo,Historia de Argel, pp. 142-144;Dialogo I. de la Captiudad.

[61]Roscoe's Life of Cervantes, p. 50. See his story ofEspañola Inglesa.

[62]Gentleman's Mag. xviii. p. 413.

[63]Oronooko, act iii. sc. i. It is not strange that the anti-slavery character of this play rendered it an unpopular performance at Liverpool, while the prosperous merchants there were concerned in the slave trade.

[64]Don Quixote, part i. book iv. chap. 12.

[65]Osborne's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 500.

[66]Roscoe's Life of Cervantes, pp. 32, 310, 311. In the same spirit Thomas Phelps says: "I looked upon my condition as desperate; my forlorn and languishing state of life, without any hope of redemption, appeared far worse than the terrors of a most cruel death."—Osborne's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 504.

[67]British Annual Register, vol. vi. p. 60.

[68]El Trato de Argel.

[69]Roscoe's Life of Cervantes, pp. 31, 308, 309. I refer to Roscoe as the popular authority. His work appears to be little more than a compilation from Navarrete and Sismondi.

[70]Ibid. p. 33. See also Haedo,Historia de Argel, p. 185.

[71]Purchas's Pilgrims, vol. ii. p. 888.

[72]Purchas's Pilgrims, vol. ii. pp. 882-883.

[73]Purchas's Pilgrims, vol. ii. pp. 889-896.

[74]Osborne's Voyages, vol. ii. pp. 497-510.

[75]Sewell's History of the Quakers, pp. 392-397.

[76]Vol. xv. p. 130.

[77]Vol. xix. p. 176.

[78]Davis's Extracts relating to Plymouth, p. 3.

[79]Winthrop's Journal, vol. ii. p. 11.

[80]MS. Records of First Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts.

[81]Middlesex [Massachusetts] Probate Files in MS.

[82]William Gilbert to Arthur Bridge, MS.

[83]MS. Journal of Chief Justice Samuel Sewell.

[84]Sparks's Works of Franklin, ix. 506, 507; x. 230. M. Le Veillard to Dr. Franklin, October 9, 1785.

[85]Boston Independent Chronicle, April 28, 1785, vol. xvii. No. 866; May 12, 1785, No. 868; Oct. 20, 1785, No. 886; Nov. 3, 1785, No. 888; Nov. 17, 1785, No. 890; March 2, 1786, vol. xviii. No. 908; April 27, 1786, No. 918.

[86]Boston Independent Chronicle, May 18, 1786, xviii. No. 916; Sparks's Franklin, ix. 506, 507.

[87]Boston Independent Chronicle, Oct. 16, 1778, vol. xx. No. 1042; History of the War with Tripoli, p. 59.

[88]History of the War with Tripoli, p. 62. American Museum, vol. viii. Appendix.

[89]History of the War between the United States and Tripoli, p. 52.

[90]Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. ii. p. 353.

[91]Lyman's Diplomacy vol. ii. p. 357; History of the War with Tripoli, p. 64.

[92]Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. ii. p. 359.

[93]Ibid. p. 360.

[94]History of the War with Tripoli, pp. 69-71.

[95]Wesley's Thoughts on Slavery, (1772,) p. 26.

[96]Short Account of Algiers, (Philadelphia, 1794,) p. 18.

[97]From the Eagle Office, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1795.

[98]Chap. xxx.

[99]Chap. xxxii.

[100]Secret Journals of Congress, 1786, vol. iv. pp. 274-280.

[101]Brissot's Travels, vol. i. letter 22.

[102]Sparks's Franklin, vol. ii. p. 517.

[103]At Portsmouth, N. H., at a public entertainment, April 3, 1795, in honor of French successes.—Boston Independent Chronicle, vol. xxvii. No. 1469.

[104]United States Statutes at Large, (Little & Brown's edit.,) Treaties, vol. viii. p. 133; Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. ii. p. 362.

[105]Article 11; Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. ii. pp. 380, 381; United States Statutes at Large, vol. viii. p. 154.

[106]Article 6; United States Statutes at Large, vol. viii. p. 157. This treaty has two dates, August, 1797, and March, 1799. William Eaton and James Leander Cathcart were the agents of the United States at the latter date.

[107]Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. ii. p. 350; United States Statutes at Large, vol. viii. p. 100.

[108]History of the War with Tripoli, p. 80.

[109]Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. ii. p. 384.

[110]Miscellaneous Works of David Humphreys, p. 75.

[111]Miscellaneous Works of David Humphreys, pp. 52, 53.

[112]United States Statutes at Large, vol. viii. p. 214; Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. ii. p. 388.

[113]History of the War between the United States and Tripoli, p. 88.

[114]Noah's Travels, p. 69.

[115]Ibid. p. 144; National Intelligencer of March 7, 1815.

[116]United States Statutes at Large, vol. viii. p. 224; Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. ii. p. 376.

[117]Mackenzie's Life of Decatur, p. 268.

[118]Mémoire sur la Nécessité et les Moyens de faire cesser les Pirateries des Etats Barbaresques. Reçu, considéré, et adopté à Paris en Septembre, à Turin le 14 Octobre, 1814, à Vienne durant le Congrès. Par M. Sidney Smith. See Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 140, where this is noticed. Schoell,Histoire des Traités de Paix, tom. xi. p. 402.

[119]Edinburgh Review, vol. xxvi. p. 451; Osler's Life of Exmouth, p. 302; Mackenzie's Life of Decatur, p. 263.

[120]Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 145; Edinburgh Review, vol. xxvi. p. 449, noticing "A Letter to a Member of Parliament, on the Slavery of the Christians at Algiers. By Walter Croker, Esq., of the Royal Navy. London, 1816." Schoell,Traités de Paix, tom. xi. p. 402.

[121]Osler's Life of Exmouth, p. 297.

[122]Osler's Life of Exmouth, p. 303.

[123]Thurloe's State Papers, vol. ii. p. 390.

[124]Osler's Life of Exmouth, p. 334; British Annual Register, (1816,) vol. lviii. pp. 97-106; Shaler's Sketches, pp. 279-294.

[125]Osler's Life of Exmouth, p. 340.

[126]Osler's Life of Exmouth, p. 342.

[127]Ibid. 432; Shaler's Sketches of Algiers, p. 382.

[128]Purchas's Pilgrims, vol. ii. p. 1565.

[129]Braithwaite's Revolutions of Morocco, p. 233; Noah's Travels, p. 367.

[130]Haedo,Historia, pp. 139, 140. Besides the illustrations of the hardships of White Slavery already introduced, I refer briefly to the following: Edinburgh Review, vol. xxvi. pp. 452-454; Croker's Letter, pp. 11-13; Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 145; Eaton's Life, p. 100; Noah's Travels, p. 366.

[131]MS. Memoirs.

[132]Biographie Universelle, art. Vincent de Paul.

[133]This translation is borrowed from Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe, by Roscoe, vol. iii. p. 381. There is a letter of "John Dunton, Mariner," addressed to the English Admiralty in 1637, which might furnish the foundation of a similar scene. "For my only son," he says, "is now a slave in Algier, and but ten years of age, and like to be lost forever, without God's great mercy and the King's clemency, which, I hope, may be in some manner obtained."—Osborne's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 492.

[134]Eaton's Life, p. 145.

[135]Wilson's Travels, p. 93; Edinburgh Review, vol. xxxviii. p. 403; Noah's Travels, p. 302; Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 168; Shaler's Sketches of Algiers, p. 77.

[136]Sale's Koran, chap. 24, vol. ii. p. 194. The right of redemption was recognized by the Gentoo laws. Halhed's Code, cap. 8, § 1, 2. It was unknown in the British West Indies while slavery existed there. Stephens on West India Slavery, vol. ii. pp. 378-384. It is also unknown in the Slave States of our country.

[137]Sales's Koran, vol. ii. p. 474, note.

[138]Haedo,Historia de Argel, p. 122; Quarterly Review, vol. xv. pp. 169, 172; Shaler's Sketches of Algiers, p. 77; Short Account of Algiers, pp. 22, 25. It seems to have been supposed, that, according to the Koran, the condition of slavery ceased when the party became a Mussulman. Penny Cyclopædia, art.Slavery; Noah's Travels, p. 302; Shaler's Sketches, p. 69. In point of fact, freedom generally followed conversion; but I do not find any injunction on the subject in the Koran.

[139]De los peores que en Argel auia.Haedo,Historia de Argel, p. 85; Navarrete,Vida de Cervantes, p. 361.

[140]Roscoe's life of Cervantes, p. 303.

[141]Baños de Argel.

[142]Biographie Universelle, art. Thomas de Jesus; Digby's Board Stone of Honor, Tancredus, § 9, p. 181.

[143]Biographie Universelle, art. Vincent de Paul.

[144]MS. Memoirs.

[145]Braithwaite's Revolutions in Morocco, p. 353.

[146]Keatinge's Travels, p. 250; Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 146. See also Chenier's Present State of Morocco, vol. i. p. 192; ii. p. 369.

[147]Lemprière's Tour, p. 290. See also pp. 3, 147, 190, 279.

[148]Narrative of Ten Years' Residence at Tripoli, p. 241.

[149]Noah's Travels, p. 368.

[150]Shaler's Sketches, p. 77.

[151]Histoire d'Alger: Description de ce Royaume, etc., de ses Forces de Terre et de Mer, Moeurs et Costumes des Habitans, des Mores, des Arabes, des Juifs, des Chrétiens, de ses Lois, etcs.(Paris, 1830,) chap. 27.

[152]Paradise Lost, book xii. 64-71.

[153]Noah's Travels, p. 248, 253; Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 168. Among the concubines of a prince of Morocco were two slaves of the age of fifteen, one of English, and the other of French extraction. Lemprière's Tour, p. 147. There is an account of the fate of "one Mrs. Shaw, an Irish woman," in words hardly polite enough to be quoted. She was swept into the harem of Muley Ishmael, who "forced her to turn Moor;" "but soon after, having taken a dislike to her, he gave her to a soldier."—Braithwaite's Morocco, p. 191.

[154]Braithwaite's Morocco, p. 350. See also Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 168.

[155]Braithwaite, p. 222.

[156]Ibid. p. 381.

[157]Somersett's case, first declaring this principle, was decided in 1772. M. Schoell says, that "this fine maxim has always obtained" in France.—Histoire Abrégée des Traités de Paix, tom. xi. p. 178. By the royal ordinance 1318, it was declared, that "all men are born free (francs) by nature; and that the kingdom of the French (Francs) should be so in reality as in name." But this "fine maxim" was not recognized in France so completely as M. Schoell asserts. See Encyclopédie, (de Diderot et de D'Alembert,) art.Esclavage.

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