Emperor, with criminal inconsistency, laid the cornerstone of a new slavery, in comparison with which the enormity he warred against was trivial and fugitive.

Elated by the conquest of Tunis, filled also with the ambition of subduing all the Barbary States, and of extirpating Christian slavery, the Emperor in 1541 directed an expedition of singular grandeur against Algiers. The Pope tardily joined his influence to the martial array. But Nature proved stronger than Pope and Emperor. Within sight of Algiers a sudden storm shattered his proud fleet, and he was driven back to Spain, discomfited, with none of those trophies of emancipation with which his former expedition was crowned.1

The power of the Barbary States was now at its height. Their corsairs became the scourge of Christendom, while their much dreaded system of slavery assumed a front of new terror. Their ravages were not confined to the Mediterranean. They entered the ocean, and penetrated even to the Straits of Dover and St. George's Channel. From the chalky cliffs of England, and from the remote western coasts of Ireland, unsuspecting inhabitants were swept into cruel captivity.2 The English government was aroused against

1 Robertson's Charles the Fifth, Book VI. A lamentable and piteous Treatise, verye necessarye for euerie Christen Manne to reade, wherin is contayned, not onely the high Entreprise and Valeauntnes of Themperour Charles the v. and his Army (in his Voyage made to the Towne of Argier in Affrique, etc.) Truly and dylygently translated out of Latyn into Frenche, and out of Frenche into English, 1542: Harleian Miscellany, Vol. IV. p. 504.

2 Guizot, Histoire de la Révolution d'Angleterre, Liv. II. Tom. I. p. 78. Strafford's Letters and Dispatches, 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; whereas every year

these atrocities. In 1620, a fleet of eighteen ships, under the command of Sir Robert Mansel, Vice-Admiral, was despatched to punish Algiers. It returned without being able, in the language of the times, to "destroy those hellish pirates," though it obtained the liberation of "some forty poore captives, which they pretended was all they had in the towne." Purchas records, that the English fleet was indebted for information to "a Christian captive, which did swimme from the towne to the ships."1 Not in this respect only does this expedition recall that of Charles the Fifth, which received important assistance from rebel slaves; we observe also a similar inconsistency in the government which directed it. It was in the year 1620,- dear to all the descendants of the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock as an epoch of freedom, while an English fleet was seeking the emancipation of Englishmen held in bondage by Algiers, that African slaves were first introduced into the English colonies of North America,2 thus beginning that dreadful system whose long catalogue of humiliation and woes is not yet complete.

The expedition against Algiers was followed, in 1637, by another against Sallee, in Morocco. Terrified by its approach, the Moors desperately transferred a thousand captives, British subjects, to Tunis and Algiers. "Some

before, not only several ships and goods were lost by robbery at sea, but also Turkish men-of-war usually landed and took prey of men to be made slaves." — Ibid., Vol. II. p. 434

1 Purchas's Pilgrims, Vol. II. pp. 881-886. Southey, Naval History of England, Vol. V. pp. 60-63. There was a publication specially relating to this expedition, entitled "Algiers Voyage, in a Journall, or briefe Reportary 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.

2 Bancroft, History of the United States, Vol. I. p. 189.

Christians that were slaves ashore, who stole away out of the town and came swimming aboard," together with intestine feud, aided the fleet, and the cause of emancipation speedily triumphed.1 Two hundred and ninety Britons were released, and a promise was extorted from the enemy to redeem the wretched captives sold away to Tunis and Algiers. Shortly afterwards an ambassador from the King of Morocco visited England, and on his way through the streets of London to his audience at court was attended by "four Barbary horses led along in rich caparisons, and richer saddles, with bridles set with stones; also some hawks; many of the captives whom he brought over going along afoot clad in white." "2 Every emancipated slave was a grateful witness to English prowess.

The importance attached to this achievement is inferred from the singular joy with which it was hailed in England. Though on a limited scale, it was nothing less than a war of liberation. Poet, ecclesiastic, and statesman now joined in congratulation. It inspired the Muse of Waller to a poem called " The Taking of Sallee," where the submission of the slaveholder is thus described:"Hither he sends the chief among his peers,

Who in his bark proportioned presents bears
To the renowned for piety and force,
Poor captives manumised, and matchless horse."

It gladdened Laud, and lighted with exultation the dark mind of Strafford. "For Sallee, the town is taken," said the Archbishop in a letter to the Earl, then in Ireland, "and all the captives at Sallee and Morocco delivered,

as many, our merchants say, as, according to the price

1 Journal of the Sallee Fleet: Osborne's Voyages, Vol. II. p. 493. See also Mrs. Macaulay's History of England, Chap. IV. Vol. II. p. 219. 2 Strafford's Letters and Despatches, Vol. II. pp. 86, 116, 129.

of the market, come to ten thousand pounds at least.” 1 Strafford saw in the popularity of this triumph fresh opportunity to commend the tyrannical designs of Charles the First. "This action of Sallee," he wrote. in reply to the Archbishop, "I assure you, is full of honor, will bring great content to the subject, and should, methinks, help much towards the ready, cheerful payment of the shipping moneys." Thus was this act of emancipation linked with one of the most memorable. events of English history.

3

"2

The coasts of England were now protected; but her subjects at sea continued the prey of Algerine corsairs, who, according to the historian Carte, now "carried. their English captives to France, drove them in chains overland to Marseille, to ship them thence with greater safety for slaves to Algiers." The increasing troubles which distracted the reign of Charles the First, and finally brought his head to the block, could not divert attention from the sorrows of Englishmen, victims to Mahometan slave-drivers. At the height of the struggle between King and Parliament, an earnest voice was raised in behalf of these fellow-Christians in bonds. Edmund Waller, who was orator as well as poet, speaking in Parliament in 1641, said, "By the many petitions which we receive from the wives of those miserable captives at Algiers (being between four or five thousand of our countrymen) it does too evidently appear that to make us slaves at home is not the way to keep us from being made slaves abroad." 4

1 Strafford's Letters and Despatches, Vol. II. p. 131.

2 Ibid., p. 138.

8 History of England, Book XXII. Vol. IV. p. 231. 4 Works, p. 270.

Publications pleading their cause are yet extant, bearing date 1637, 1640, 1642, and 1647.1 The overthrow of an oppression so justly odious formed a worthy object for the imperial energies of Cromwell; and in 1655, when, amidst the amazement of Europe, the English sovereignty settled upon his Atlantean shoulders, he directed into the Mediterranean a navy of thirty ships, under the command of Admiral Blake. This was the most powerful English force which had sailed into that sea since the Crusades. 2 Its success was complete. "General Blak," said one of the foreign agents. of Government, "has ratifyed the articles of peace at Argier, and included therein Scotch, Irish, Jarnsey and Garnsey-men, and all others the Protector's subjects. He has lykewys redeemed from thence al such as wer captives ther. Several Duch captives swam aboard the fleet, and so escape theyr captivity."3 Tunis, as well as Algiers, was humbled; all British captives were set at liberty; and the Protector, in his remarkable speech at the opening of Parliament, announced

1 Compassion towards Captives: urged and pressed in Three Sermons on Heb. xiii. 3, by Charles Fitz-Geffry, Oxford, 1637. Libertas, or Reliefe to the English Captives in Algier, by Henry Robinson, London, 1642. Letters relating to the Redemption of the Captives in Argier and Tunis, by Edmond Cason, London, 1647. A Relation of Seven Years Slavery under the Turks of Algier, suffered by an English Captive Merchant, etc., together with a Description of the Sufferings of the Miserable Captives under that Merciless Tyranny, etc., by Francis Knight, London, 1640. The last publication is preserved in the Collection of Voyages and Travels by Osborne, Vol. II. pp. 465-489.

2 Hume says, "No English fleet, except during the Crusades, had ever before sailed in those seas." (History of England, Chap. LXI. Vol. VII. p. 529.) He forgot the expedition of Sir Robert Mansel, already mentioned (ante, p. 408), which was elaborately debated in the Privy Council as early as 1617, three years before it was finally undertaken, and was the subject of a special work. See Southey's Naval History of England, Vol. V. pp. 149–157.

8 Thurloe's State Papers, Vol. III. p. 527.