272 THE MEDITEKRANEAN, PHYSICAL AND HISTORICAL. 



of tlie Corsairs of Ancoiia, and tbere is no otlier iiaiue but piracy for 

 such acts of the Genoese as the unprovoked pillage of Tripoli by Andrea 

 J)oria in 1535. To form a just idea of the Corsairs of the past, it is 

 well to remember that commerce and i)iracy were often synonymous 

 terms, even among the English, up to the reign of Elizabeth. Listen 

 to the description given by the pious Cavendish of his commercial cir- 

 cumnavigation of the globe : " It has pleased Almighty God to suft'er 

 me to circumpass the whole globe of the world. - - - I navigated 

 along the coast of Chile, Peru, and New Spain, where I made great 

 spoils. All the villages and towns that ever I landed at, I burned and 

 si)oiled, and had 1 not been discovered upon the coast, 1 had taken a 

 great quantity of treasure," and so he concludes, " The Lord be praised 

 for all his mercies!" 



Sir William Monsou, when called upon by James I to propose a 

 scheme for an attack on Algiers, recommended that all the maritime 

 l)0wers of Europe should contribute towards the expense and partici- 

 pate in the gains by the sale of Moors and Turks as slaves. 



After the discovery of America and the expulsion of the Moors from 

 Spain, piracy developed to an extraordinary extent. The audacity of 

 the liarbary Corsairs seems incredible at the present day; they landed 

 on the shores and islands of the Mediterranean, and even extended 

 their ravages to Great Britain, carrying off all the inhabitants whom 

 they could seize into the most wretched slavery. The most formidable 

 of these piratical states was Algiers, a military oligarchy, consisting 

 of a body of janissaries, recruited by adventurers from the Levent, the 

 outcasts of the IMohammedan world, criminals and renegades from 

 every nation in Europe. They elected their own ruler or ])ey, who 

 exercised despotic sway, tempered by frequent assassination; they 

 oppressed without mercy the natives of the country, accumulated vast 

 riches, had immense numbers of Christian slaves, and kei)t all Europe 

 in a state bordering on subjection by the terror which they inspired. 

 Nothing is sadder or more inexplicable than the shameful manner in 

 which this state of things was accepted by civilized nations. Many 

 futile attempts were made during successive centuries to humble their 

 arrogance, but it only increased by every manifestation of tlie power- 

 lessness of l^iUrope to restrain it. It was reserved foi our own country- 

 man. Lord Exmouth, by his brilliant victory in 1810, forever to put an 

 end to piracy and Christian slavery in the Mediterranean. His work, 

 however, was left incomplete, for though he destroyed the navy of the 

 Algerines and so rendered them powerless for evil on the seas, they 

 were far from beiug humbled; they continued to slight their treaties 

 and to subject even the agents of powerful nations to contumely and 

 injustice. The French took the only uunuis i)ossible to destroy this 

 nest of ruffians by the almost unresisted occupation of Algiers and 

 the deportation of its Turkish aristocracy. 



They found the whole country in the possession of a hostile people, 



