Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[graphic]

taken by an Alegerine corsair, carried into port, and condemned as a prize. The captain and crew, ten in number, were made slaves.

The dey's terms of peace. The president, solicitous to relieve these unfortunate captives, sent a confidential agent to Algiers with the means of effecting their ransom, and with instructions to accomplish it, if it could be done at the rate of three thousand dollars per man. To every overture of this kind the dey replied, he would not sell his American slaves for two millions of dollars. To an application made in a confidential manner to one of the dey's ministers, to know what terms he expected to extort from the United States by holding their citizens in slavery, it was replied, that they must pay him two millions of dollars for the privilege of passing the straits; and all arrearages of tribute which he claimed to be due on the treaty of 1795, in consequence of the cargo of the Allegany's not being received, and that, then the treaty of 1795 might be renewed. This seemed to place their prospects of deliverance at a hopeless distance. The war, which had just then commenced, shut out American vessels from the Mediterranean, and prevented any further attempts for the relief of the captives.

Act of congress relating to Algiers. Immediately on the close of the war, the President called the attention of congress to this interesting subject. In a message of the 23d of February, 1815, he states, "that the hostile proceedings against the American consul at Algiers in 1812, had been followed by acts of direct warfare against the citizens of the United States, trading in the Mediterranean, some of whom are still detained in the most rigorous captivity." The message concludes with recommending a declaration of war against that power. Congress, on the 2d of March, in pursuance of this recommendation, passed an act for the protection of commerce against Algerine cruisers. This act, though it did not in terms contain a formal declaration of war, authorized the President to send a sufficient force to the Mediterranean, and adjoining seas, to protect the commerce of the United States; to capture, and send in as prizes, all Algerine vessels, and to commission privateers against them.

Commodore Decatur's expedition. The provisions of this act were promptly exceuted by the president; and on the 20th of April following, Commodore Decatur sailed from New York with the Guerriere, Constellation, and Macedonian

[graphic]

frigates, accompanied with six small ships of war, for the Mediterranean. He touched for advice at Tangiers and Cadiz, and arrived in the bay of Gibraltar in twenty-five days. Here he learned that the Algerine squadron which had been cruising in the Atlantic, had returned and passed up the straits. This fleet containing nearly the whole of the dey's marine, consisted of four frigates, six corvets, sixteen small vessels, and forty gunboats, carrying four hundred and sixty-three guns, and four thousand seven hundred and forty-five men, and were cruising in different parts of the Mediterranean, acting in concert, looking out for American merchantmen, and depredating on the commerce of those nations who had not purchased the dey's friendship by tributary treaties. At Gibraltar the commodore also learned that some officious Englishman had despatched intelligence of his arrival to Algiers. The information received at Gibraltar determined Decatur to proceed without delay up the Mediterranean, in the hope of intercepting the enemy before he could return to Algiers or gain a neutral port. In this he was happily not disappointed.

Capture of an Algerine frigate and brig. On the 17th of June, off Cape De Gatt, he fell in with the frigate Magouda of forty-six guns, under the command of Rais Hammida, admiral and commander in chief of the Algerine fleet. The Guerriere immediately brought her to action, and captured her, after a running fight of twenty-five minutes. On the first broadside the admiral was killed, on the second the enemy on deck left their quarters, ran below, and abandoned the ship to her fate. The Algerines had thirty killed, and four hundred and six, including the wounded, made prisoners. The commodore sent his prize into Carthagena, and continued his search after more of the squadron; two days afterwards off Cape Palos, he came up with a brig of twenty-two guns, and one hundred and eighty men. After a chase of three hours she ran into shoal water on the Spanish coast, and was followed by four of the commodore's light vessels, to which she surrendered after a loss of twenty-three men. No Americans were killed or wounded. The captured brig, with most of the prisoners, was also sent to Carthagena, where she was detained by the Spanish authorities on the ground that she was taken within their waters. She was afterwards given up to be restored to the dey, the Spaniards claiming it as an act of generosity on their part towards him.

[ocr errors]
[graphic]

varied in any material respect; he was also told that discussion was not only useless but dangerous on his part, for if the Algerine squadron were to appear before the treaty was signed, they would assuredly be captured. On examining the proposed treaty, the port captain was extremely anxious to have the article which provided compensation for property which had been previously plundered, dispensed with, representing that it had been distributed into many hands; that it was the predecessor of the present dey who had commenced the war, and it would be unjust to make him liable for the depredations of the former dey. The article was retained. After various attempts to obtain a truce, as well as to gain time, it was at length agreed that hostilities should cease, as soon as a boat bearing a white flag should be seen putting off from the shore; the Swedish consul pledging himself that it should not be done until the treaty was signed, and the captives were safe in the boat. The Algerine minister and the Swedish consul then went on shore, a distance of five miles, and returned in three hours with the treaty executed, and all the captives. Their great despatch saved another of the Algerine vessels from capture. During their absence, a corvette hove in sight, which would have been taken, had there been another hour's delay.

Terms of the treaty. The principal provisions of this treaty, which was wholly dictated by the American negotiators, were, that no tribute, under any pretext or in any form whatever, should be required; that all American captives should be given up without ransom; that compensation should be made for vessels captured or property seized or detained at Algiers; that the persons and property of citizens of the United States found on board the vessels of other nations, which might be captured by the Algerines, should be held sacred; that the vessels of either party putting into the ports of the other, should be supplied with provisions at the market price, and if repairs were necessary, their cargoes might be landed for that purpose without paying duties; that if a vessel belonging to either nation should be shipwrecked on the coast of the other, she should not be given up to plunder; or if attacked by an enemy within cannon shot of a fort, she should be protected, and no enemy be permitted to follow the vessels of either party within twenty-four hours of their leaving port; and that all citizens of the United States taken in war, should be treated after the manner of civilized warfare, and exchanged, or returned at the end of the war, without ransom. The rights

« ZurückWeiter »