tection
of the Emperor of Morocco: it was addressed, _Illustri Miramomolin,
Regi Marochetanorum_. Matha's first voyage (1199) brought back one
hundred and eighty-six captives, and in succeeding generations some
twenty thousand slaves were rescued by the good fathers, who, clad in
their white robes, with the blue and red cross on the breast--three
colours symbolical of the Three Persons--fearlessly confronted the
Corsairs and bartered for the captives' ransom.

Father Pierre Dan and his colleagues of the Order of the Redemption
set out from Marseilles, in 1634, in the suite of Sanson le Page,
premier herald of France, and conversant in the Turkish tongue, to
arrange for the exchange of captives.[76] Some Turks confined in the
galleys at Marseilles were to be released in return for the freeing of
the three hundred and forty-two Frenchmen who were in captivity in
Algiers. The good father's views upon the origin of the Corsairs were
very pronounced. He held that they were descended from Ham, the
traitor, and were inheritors of the curse of the patriarch Noah;
further, that they were the cruellest of all the unnatural monsters
that Africa has bred, the most barbarous of mankind, pests of the
human race, tyrants over the general liberty, and the wholesale
murderers of innocent blood. He did not stop to examine into the
condition of the galley-slaves in the ports of his own France, or to
inquire whether the word Corsair applied to Moslems alone.

On July 15, 1634, Sanson and the priests arrived at Algiers. A full
divan was being held, and the Pasha received them courteously, despite
their obstinate refusal to dip the French flag to his crescent. They
were forced, in deference to the universal custom at Algiers, to
surrender their rudder and oars, not so much to prevent their own
unauthorized departure, as to remove the temptation of Christian
captives making their escape in the vessel. Orders were given that
every respect was to be paid to the envoy's party on pain of
decapitation. Rooms were prepared for them in the house of the agent
who represented the coral fisheries of the neighbouring Bastion de
France; and here Father Dan made an altar, celebrated Mass, and heard
confession of the captives. Two days after their arrival, a new Pasha
appeared from Constantinople: he was met by two state-galleys, and
saluted by the fifteen hundred guns in the forts and the forty galleys
in the harbour. The Aga of the Janissaries, and the