urkey. Ever since the time of
Khair-ed-din Barbarossa, in the early sixteenth century, the powers of
Europe have striven in vain to keep the Barbary corsairs in check.
Charles V., Philip II., Louis XIV. attacked them with only temporary
success: they continued to terrorise the trade of the Mediterranean, to
seize trading-ships, to pillage the shores of Spain and Italy, and to
carry off thousands of Christians into a cruel slavery; Robinson
Crusoe, it may be recalled, was one of their victims. The powers at
Vienna endeavoured to concert action against them in 1815. They were
attacked by a British fleet in 1816, and by a combined British and
French fleet in 1819. But all such temporary measures were
insufficient. The only cure for the ill was that the headquarters of
the pirate chiefs should be conquered, and brought under civilised
government.

This task France was rather reluctantly drawn into undertaking, as the
result of a series of insults offered by the pirates to the French flag
between 1827 and 1830. At first the aim of the conquerors was merely to
occupy and administer the few ports which formed the chief centres of
piracy. But experience showed that this was futile, since it involved
endless wars with the unruly clansmen of the interior. Gradually,
therefore, the whole of Algeria was systematically conquered and
organised. The process took nearly twenty years, and was not completed
until 1848. In all the records of European imperialism there has been
no conquest more completely justified both by the events which led up
to it and by the results which have followed from it. Peace and Law
reign throughout a country which had for centuries been given over to
anarchy. The wild tribesmen are unlearning the habits of disorder, and
being taught to accept the conditions of a civilised life. The great
natural resources of the country are being developed as never since the
days of Roman rule. No praise can be too high for the work of the
French administrators who have achieved these results. And it is worth
noting that, alone among the provinces conquered by the European
peoples, Algeria has been actually incorporated in the mother-country;
it is part of the French Republic, and its elected representatives sit
in the French Parliament.

In the nature of things the conquest of Algeria could not stand alone.
Algeria is separated by merely artificial lines from Tunis on the east
and Morocco on the west, where the old condit