ved upon the British
Government to direct the measures which such an atrocity demanded.
Justly concluding that these barbarians, so long the common enemies of
the civilized world, and whose very existence was a reproach to it, had
filled the measure of their crimes by this last bloody outrage, they
determined to exact complete submission, or to inflict the most signal
vengeance. They appointed Lord Exmouth to complete his work, and placed
at his disposal whatever force he thought necessary to effect it.

CHAPTER XI.

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS.

The town of Algiers is built on the declivity of a hill fronting to the
eastward. It is of a triangular form, having for its base the sea-front,
which is about a mile in length, and rises directly from the water. It
is strongly fortified on the land side, and the sea defences are most
formidable, as well from the great thickness of the walls, as the number
of heavy guns.

The harbour is artificial. A broad straight pier, three hundred yards in
length, and upon which the storehouses were built, projects from a point
about a quarter of a mile from the north extremity of the town. A mole
is carried from the end of this pier, which bends in a south-westerly
direction towards the town, forming nearly a quarter of a circle.
Opposite the mole-head is a small insulated pier, which leaves the
entrance to the harbour about a hundred and twenty yards wide. The rock
upon which the mole is built extends about two hundred yards to the N.E.
beyond the angle at which the pier joins it. The shores recede
considerably from the base of the pier, forming a small bay on either
side of it.

All the works around the harbour were covered with the strongest
fortifications. Immediately beyond the pier-head stood the Lighthouse
battery, a large circular fort, mounting between sixty and seventy guns,
in three tiers. At the extremity of the point of rock beyond the
lighthouse was a very heavy battery, of two tiers, mounting thirty guns
and seven mortars in the upper. The mole itself was filled with cannon,
like the side of a line-of-battle ship, mostly disposed in a double
tier, with ports below, and embrasures above; but the eastern batteries,
next the light-house, had an inner fortification, with a third tier of
guns, making sixty-six in these batteries alone. All these batteries had
together above two hundred and twenty guns--eighteen, twenty-four, and
thirty-two pounders; besides two, at least