should be done, and the alarmed Tunisians agreed to it.
Taking the hint, Lord Exmouth made the same demand at Tripoli, with
similar result. At Algiers, however, his demands were refused, and
himself insulted. Returning to England in some uncertainty as to how
his conduct would be regarded--for in thus "demanding," instead of
"desiring," the liberation of slaves, he had acted on his own
responsibility,--he found the country agitated by the news of the Bona
massacre, of which at that time he had not heard.

The demands, therefore, which he had made with some misgiving, were now
highly approved, and it was resolved that they should be repeated to the
barbarians in the thunder of artillery.

A member of the House of Commons, stirred to indignation by the news
from Bona, got up and moved for copies of Lord Exmouth's treaties with
Algiers for Naples and Sardinia, and all correspondence connected
therewith. He strongly condemned the principle of _treating at all_
with states which presumed to hold their captives up to ransom, as by so
doing virtual acknowledgment was made that these pirates had a right to
commit their outrages. He was given to understand, he said, that the
Dey, pressed by dissatisfied Algerines for limiting their sphere of
plunder, had pacified them by assuring them that a wide field of plunder
was still left! Treaties of peace made with them by some states had
only the effect of turning their piracies into other channels, as was
already beginning to be felt by the Roman states. He then described the
wretched condition of the slaves. He cited one instance, namely, that
out of three hundred slaves fifty had died from bad treatment on the day
of their arrival, and seventy more during the first fortnight. The rest
were allowed only one pound of black bread per day, and were at all
times subject to the lash of their brutal captors--neither age nor sex
being respected. One Neapolitan lady of distinction, he said, had been
carried off by these corsairs, with eight children, two of whom had
died, and she had been seen but a short time ago by a British officer in
the thirteenth year of her captivity. These things were not
exaggerations, they were sober truths; and he held that the toleration
of such a state of things was a discredit to humanity, and a foul blot
upon the fame of civilised nations. It is refreshing to hear men speak
the truth, and call things by their right names, in plain language like
thi