Chapter 6
The Battle of Algiers: The Road to Destruction
Any account on the actions of the Royal Navy against pirates in African waters whether it be along the west coast or against the Barbary Corsairs must mention the Battle of Algiers. Yet few today know this battle even existed. It took place on 27 August 1816 and is unique in a number of ways. It was one of the last actions by Royal Navy ships that moved solely under the power of sail. It was a massive ship to shore artillery barrage that included rocket-launched missiles.
The bombardment lasted almost ten hours and was one of the most intensive sea-borne artillery barrages ever, resulting in the deaths of several thousand men. Admiral Lord Exmouth, also known as Sir Edward Pellew, commanded the fleet that carried out this audacious and massive attack. Though victorious, the casualties suffered by the Royal Navy that day were more than Nelson suffered at Trafalgar.
We have seen in earlier chapters how difficult it was for England to suppress the white slave trade carried out by the Barbary corsairs. The elements that lead up to this battle started back in the sixteenth century. It is a story, ‘which contains a strange mixture of elements: religious bigotry, commercial greed, racial prejudice, economic exploitation and military incompetence’.1 Before we go into the details of the battle itself it is worth taking a look at this background.
For centuries the Barbary corsairs were lumped together under a single name ‘The Turks’, which was used by the Christian European powers to describe these raiders. Truth and myth mingled together to the point where the Turks became the bogeymen of Europe. ‘He was a Satan in human form. The Turk was an alien, a murderous dark-skinned foreigner.’
Legend had it that the Turks raped and ravished women, captured children and enslaved their Christian hostages for their depraved indulgences. They were essentially kidnappers. The life they led and their culture revolved around this action of kidnapping and ransoming off their hostages or enslaving them to do the menial tasks of their society. We know the three cities that these activities were centred around were Tripoli, Algiers and Tunis.
The Barbary Coast stretches some 1,500 miles along the coast of North Africa, from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Sirte. The people of this stretch of fertile land were part of the Carthaginian Empire and when Carthage was sacked by the Romans, they became part of the Roman Empire and enjoyed peace and prosperity for 500 years under Roman occupation. They became Christians until the eighth century when Islamic forces invaded and the people accepted Islam as their faith.
In the fifteenth century the Turkish or Ottoman Empire was on the rise and began sweeping through the Mediterranean, north into the Balkans, down into Egypt and of course into Barbary. They either conquered the areas they took or, in the case of Barbary, which was already ruled by Arabs, they made alliances. The centre of this empire was Constantinople. In Europe they attacked as far north as Vienna where they were finally stopped.
By the sixteenth century the Ottomans were at their peak, especially during the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent who consolidated and developed the empire. Helping him was Kheir-ed Din Barbarossa, the man who reorganized the Ottoman Navy into an effective and potent fighting force and in 1529 fortified the port of Algiers, turning it into an impressive naval base, and the fleet dominated the Mediterranean.
But the empire was too large for it to be ruled by Constantinople and gradually the power of the Sultan faded as the distant provinces gained more freedom. To govern the far-flung territories governors (pashas) were appointed. But many of these pashas were ineffective because they didn’t understand the local problems and so could not solve them. So local leaders were elected in these far-flung provinces, known as deys, and their appointments would be approved by the Sultan.
The Barbary Coast was one of these areas and both Algiers and Tunis enjoyed increasing autonomy from Constantinople as the years went by. Indeed, by 1750 the Sultan’s control had almost entirely disappeared, though certain obligations remained such as sending troops to support Turkish forces should they be involved in war, or having the Sultan act as an adjudicator in high-level disputes. But essentially the Barbary States were left to their own devices.
The economy of Algiers was in decline by the late sixteenth century as most of the fertile land had been completely exhausted, with the old Roman irrigation systems having fallen into decay and disrepair. Worse still there was no deep tradition of putting everything right through hard work so the states would take what they didn’t have from others. This was how the culture of robbery, kidnapping and ransom began – a reign of terror that lasted nearly three hundred years.2
The governments of the Barbary States granted licences to their best sea captains in much the same way that European governments provided letters of marque for seafarers to plunder and capture the ships of the nation’s enemies. Initially, the corsairs combined with the Sultan’s forces to attack the Christian states in the Mediterranean such as Venice and Genoa but they soon separated and went sea-raiding throughout the summer seasons and carried out small hit-and-run attacks on Christian towns and villages that were poorly defended and fortified. As far as the frightened Christians were concerned, these raiders were all Turks.
To make matters worse, renegade English sailors found their way to the Barbary States and joined them. These men, such as Jack Ward, taught the Barbary captains about navigation in the waters around France, England and Ireland, ‘and provided the impetus to the expansion of Corsair activities by introducing the square-rigged round ship’.3
Men like Ward and Dutch adventurer Captain Simon Danser set the example others followed. Both men made fortunes working with the corsairs and helped to push the boundaries of their activities further north. These men also provided the knowledge to the corsair captains (rais) for building square-rigged vessels that would allow them to extend their activities into rougher seas beyond the Mediterranean. Raids along the coasts of nations such as England, France, Spain, Denmark, Madeira and Portugal were commonplace and in 1627 the corsairs raided the Irish coast.
What made the corsairs so successful were their quick and nimble ships. They had to be small but large enough for open sea cruising, be unobtrusive but also have a hold that was large enough to carry a force of fully equipped warriors for fighting, be shallow enough for coastal work and have the ability to carry large numbers of prisoners. The merchantmen these corsairs attacked were much larger, slower and more heavily armed. The corsair ships sacrificed armament for speed and manoeuvrability, which meant that when they were trading broadsides, the corsairs usually got the worst of it.
Their tactics were effective and simple. Corsairs would hide in the lee of an island used as a navigation point and when their victims came close to the island to get their bearings the corsairs would come tearing out and be alongside in a matter of moments. They might come out of the evening sun as it set on the horizon, making it hard for their victims to identify them until it was too late. Like most privateers the world round they would use the ruse of flying different colours, usually those of their victims until they were within hailing distance. For their activities in the Mediterranean corsair ships usually had crew members onboard from a wide variety of places who spoke different languages so there was always someone who could converse with the victim while the rais (captain) prepared to attack.
Sometimes the corsairs would use ships they’d captured as bait to lure their prey into their clutches. In addition to sails the corsair ships often had a row of oars for attacking other ships that were becalmed. This gave them greater flexibility but also meant that on leaving port they would have to carry enough provisions to feed the crew, the slaves manning the oars and any prisoners.
People were the treasure they were interested in. Unlike the pirates operating elsewhere, such as Blackbeard, Roberts or Avery, the corsairs were only interested in certain types of cargo: people meant profit because they could be ransomed. While the ransom negotiations were taking place those same people could be put to work as slaves.
There are stories of prisoners being treated with appalling harshness by the corsairs. Eyewitness reports state that the corsairs would rampage through a captive ship, stripping everyone naked, torturing officers to find out who the wealthiest passengers were and all the while completely stripping the ship bare. If it was a good ship and could be converted for part of the corsair fleet it would be sailed back into port as a prize but more often than not it was either sold or sunk.
The captives would be chained up in the holds of the corsair ships in sweltering heat and appalling sanitary conditions. Once arriving back at port their fate would be worse. They would go into quarantine barracks to ensure any diseases they carried didn’t infect the local population. From there, the men would be taken to the public auction. In these slave markets they would be physically inspected in the open to see if they were fit for years of hard labour while their ransoms were negotiated. They were commodities like animals, checked and examined to ensure that the people bidding for them were making a sound investment that would produce a quick return through ransom or a longer term investment through slave labour. In another building the women were also physically examined to see if they were worth the money bidders would pay for them.
All the prisoners were held in large buildings known as bagnios where conditions were squalid and miserable. The European nations had consulates in the three main ports of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli and a large part of their jobs was to act on behalf of those prisoners who were wealthy or influential. For the less important prisoners the consulates were there to make block payments for their release, while also paying a regular fee to the corsair governments. Ransom payments from public charities throughout Europe were paid by groups of monks from Rome known as the Redemptionist Fathers.4
The whole thing was highly organized. Both sides trusted the Jewish business communities who often acted as brokers and bankers, advancing money in Barbary which they could get back in Europe through subsidiary banks. Because they had networks throughout the Mediterranean the Jews were able to provide large transactions through letters of credit which meant that their deals were usually much faster, which helped free those prisoners who could take advantage of the Jewish services. The Jews were also able to provide life insurance, so that the owner of a slave could insure that man’s life in case he died of disease before his ransom was paid.
For the women things were slightly better. There were three basic ways their captivity could go. Depending on their connections they could be ransomed quickly and freed or if they were attractive or intelligent they could be sold as wives to local men who could afford them. If neither of these criteria fitted then they could become part of the harem ‘where as concubines they would suffer more than anything else from boredom and overeating’.
However, atrocities were committed. Reports from people who had been ransomed and freed told of rape, murder, torture, mutilation, depravity and bestiality. These reports may have been exaggerated, not least for commercial reasons, so former captives could sell more copies of their accounts of what had happened to them. These reports also helped to propagate the myth of the ‘Terrible Turks’.
Algiers was by no means a major power yet it took three centuries for the corsair activities to be finally stopped. Indeed, between 1541 and 1829, the Christian European powers and the United States made no less than eighteen expeditions but none achieved the desired outcome – the end to Christian slavery. The Algerines were bombarded from the sea several times, their port and docks wrecked, their fleets virtually wiped out, but they sprang back and continued their nefarious activities.
The reason for this is partly due to cynicism by the major powers of the day, incompetence and that ever-present bogey – the lack of political will. Roger Perkins and Captain K J Douglas-Morris say in Gunfire in Barbary that one reason why the corsairs weren’t crushed was because of the terrain. ‘The North African coast is rocky and dangerous swept by powerful currents and exposed to sudden, violent storms. The ships of that period could not safely navigate the Mediterranean between November and March.’ In addition, throughout the three centuries of Barbary corsair activity the European powers were busy fighting each other and lacked the resources to send against a fortified, well-defended port like Algiers. ‘The Christians lacked adequate tools for the job.’
As we have seen in earlier chapters, England negotiated treaties with the Barbary States where, to ensure the corsairs stopped attacking English ships and taking English slaves, the English paid a tribute which was part currency and part military supplies such as cannon, firearms, powder, goods and ship-building materials. Of course, these treaties never really held up but they were preferable to an all-out war. Also, during the Napoleonic Wars many Mediterranean ports were closed to the British so putting into the corsair havens for repairs and supplies was necessary for them and on a political level some form of friendship with the Deys made sense.
So what led to the attack by Lord Exmouth on Algiers in 1816? Towards the end of the eighteenth century the humanitarian movement had become enshrined in European philosophy. The idea that ‘all men are created equal’ took hold and created the climate that led to the French and American Revolutions. In Britain, the Abolitionist movement was building. ‘The traffic in human lives from Africa to the Americas, was a dominating issue as the nineteenth century opened.’5
While the Abolitionists directed their energies against the black slave trade they did not recognize the Christian slaves being taken by the Barbary corsairs. Even though it had been going on for centuries there is very little documentation of the Abolitionists ever uttering a word regarding these Christian slaves. Some senior officers within the Royal Navy were appalled at the lack of recognition of the Christian slave problem. Nelson himself felt that allowing the corsairs to go unpunished tarnished the reputation of Great Britain.6 But he was so heavily involved in the war with France that there was little he could do to stop them.
However, there was one man who played an active role in mobilizing opinion against the Barbary corsairs, specifically against Algiers. He was retired naval officer, Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith. Smith joined the Royal Navy at the age of 12 in 1777 as a midshipman on HMS Tortoise. From there he had many adventures, including a courageous bid to burn the French fleet as it lay anchored in Toulon harbour, serving with the Swedes in their conflict with the Russians, a daring escape from a prison in Paris and, perhaps most notable, his defence of Acre during the war with Napoleon that thwarted the French emperor’s attempts to conquer India. As a naval officer he served in Morocco, Egypt and the Levant. He also gained diplomatic experience at the Court of the Ottomans in Constantinople as Joint Minister Plenipotentiary, which gave him a unique perspective on how the Turks thought and acted. While he spent several years fighting Napoleon’s France he loved the country and ended his career in Paris. ‘As a consequence Smith was uniquely situated: he had the reputation, the experience, the detail awareness and the international connections required to mobilise European opinion.’7
Smith had seen firsthand the suffering that had been caused by the enslavement of Christians at the hands of the Turks and decided to do something about it. In 1814 he set up the Knights Liberator of the Slaves in Africa and appointed himself president. He began a public relations campaign almost entirely financed from his own fortune. He wrote letters to every head of state across Europe, to all the important and influential men he could think of. These were political men of high influence, men of letters, philosophers and those people who had influence and power in the European courts and governments. Thousands of replies came flooding back, all pledging support, and one amongst them was perhaps the most important.
It was a letter from Lord Exmouth who accepted Smith’s invitation to become a Knight Liberator in a warm and supportive reply. Exmouth stated he would give all the support he could to Smith’s cause. This is ironic, considering that in Smith’s last command he had been Exmouth’s second-in-command and both men had entirely different temperaments to the point where ‘Exmouth expressed a considerable dislike for his subordinate.’8 But now we have Exmouth fully and completely on side and committed to the ending of Christian slavery.
The first meeting of the Knights took place in Vienna in 1814 but their progress was stunted by the sudden return of Napoleon from exile in 1815. Smith hired several hospital wagons and attached his party to Wellington’s Army. When the Battle of Waterloo was over Smith spent three days rescuing the wounded who still lay on the battlefield, left for dead after the armies had gone.
The battle over, Smith returned to Paris and continued his crusade against Christian slavery. No expedition to Barbary could be mounted until the New Year because of the bad weather so the first time Exmouth visited Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli was in March 1816. The bombardment of Algiers was to take place only six months later.
But before we get to the detail of the battle there is one other piece of the puzzle that needs to fall into place: the involvement of the United States Navy with the Barbary corsairs. During the American War of Independence the Royal Navy was thinly stretched, fighting the French, the Spanish and the Dutch, so they were unable to press home any advantage with the small fledging American navy. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 formally ended hostilities and recognized the new republic of the United States of America.
With peace restored the young nation began to expand its trade. American ships began to sail into the Mediterranean and became, like everyone else before them, victims of the corsairs. Many Americans were taken as slaves and the USA opened negotiations with the Deys for their release. The Deys’ response was that they would have to pay a tribute like all the European nations did in order for the corsairs to leave the US merchant shipping alone.
The USA had emerged triumphant over one of the most powerful nations on earth and they had no desire to accept any compromise. They declared all-out war in 1803. By 1805 they’d managed a release of American slaves from Tripoli but in Tunis and Algiers they continued to pay tribute. The War of 1812 however, changed that. The Royal Navy came out of that war bruised and battered while the Americans, now having the upper hand against the most powerful naval force in the world, decided enough was enough and dispatched a squadron of warships to the Barbary Coast in 1815.
The Americans delivered an ultimatum to the three Deys that stated that no more tribute would be paid by the USA to the Barbary States, that all its citizens held by the corsairs were to be immediately released, along with all the ships and cargo and part of the money paid to the Deys in tribute was also to be returned. All three Deys capitulated and signed peace treaties, the last being signed in Algiers in June 1815 without a single shot being fired. The American commanders went home as heroes, having achieved everything they’d set out to achieve.
In England the effect was one of deep resentment. This upstart nation had managed to achieve what the English had failed to do over decades, even centuries. The Barbary States stuck to their agreements with the USA, which meant the corsairs didn’t molest their ships after 1815. The Royal Navy had suffered defeats in the War of 1812 to a nation that had no sea-faring tradition. They’d been continually frustrated by the activities of the corsairs and now with the American coup resentment and jealousy reared their heads. For Lord Exmouth, he’d lost his younger brother in the fighting in Saratoga and he had declared his loyalty and support to Smith’s cause. For him, it was personal.
In Algiers the Dey, Omar Bashaw, was a tough opponent in total command of his people. By the time Exmouth first visited Bashaw the Dey had been in power less than twelve months. The man was uneducated and ruthless. ‘Forty-two years of age, of medium build, olive-skinned and with keen flashing eyes, he impressed his visitors as an alert and intelligent leader.’9
Rather than intellectual ability Bashaw’s rise to power was put down to his ruthlessness and understanding of his people and culture. On 7 April 1815 he was elected dey. The man before him had ruled for only sixteen days before being strangled slowly by his own soldiers in the public marketplace. In Lord Exmouth we have a different leader, altogether one with far more experience, intelligent and daring. We know far more about Exmouth than we do about Bashaw. Born Edward Pellew on 19 April 1757 in Dover, he came from a comfortable home and was one of six children. His father was a captain with the Dover Packet Service.
In December 1770 Pellew joined the Royal Navy after being educated at Truro Grammar School. Pellew became midshipman on the thirty-two-gun frigate HMS Alarm under Captain Stott and served for three years in the Mediterranean Fleet. During this time, Alarm visited Algiers when Captain Stott delivered a formal complaint about how the British Consul to Algiers had been badly treated. This complaint was rejected and Stott was forced to leave with the Consul onboard. One wonders how much influence this episode had on young Pellew.
However, his tenure with Stott ended abruptly when the captain was so irritated by a prank that he left the boy at Marseilles. Pellew managed to secure a position as able seaman when he returned to England on the thirty-six-gun frigate HMS Blonde. The ship, in company with HMS Juno and twenty transports, was sent to Canada to take part in the American War of Independence.
With the Americans defeated at Quebec, the action moved south onto Lake Champlain and Pellew had his first taste of command. The British had no warships operating on the lake or the subsequent waterways, while the Americans did. The importance of the lake was as the waterway from Quebec to the Hudson River which led to New York.
Pellew was promoted to midshipman and sent south to help in the construction of a small fleet of warships on the lakeshore. He became third in command on the newly built schooner Carleton and in their first engagement both his captain and the master were lost, which meant he was in command at the age of 19. He acquitted himself so well that his actions were brought to the attention of his superiors and he was given official command of the Carleton.
Over the next few years he commanded small sloops and saw action against the French, mostly around the south coast of England, and in May 1782 he was promoted to the post of captain at the age of 25. However the American war was just coming to an end; for three years the Royal Navy was laid up and the young Pellew found himself ashore with no work.
By 1786 he was commanding a thirty-two-gun frigate HMS Whichelsea in the North Atlantic on routine peacetime work. Here he honed his skills as an excellent seaman and hard taskmaster. His reputation was increasing and so at the outbreak of war with France in 1793 he was given command of the forty-gun frigate HMS Nymphe. In June of that year he engaged a French frigate of equal firepower in what would prove to be an important step in his career. After a long and hard battle with heavy casualties on both sides Pellew secured the French surrender and brought the ship, Le Cleopatre, into Portsmouth as a prize. This action gave a huge boost to English morale and Pellew was given a knighthood, with several other rewards and honours being bestowed on the other officers. So important was this victory that King George III announced it from his box at the opera house in Covent Garden.
He was then given the command of a bigger and more heavily armed frigate HMS Arethusa, with his base now at Falmouth, forming part of the squadron of frigates under the command of Admiral Sir John Warren. Pellew distinguished himself even further in two major actions while serving as part of the Falmouth Squadron. He took a French frigate La Pomone during an action off Guernsey, which was brought back as a prize and put into the service of the Royal Navy. A few months later he captured an even bigger French frigate, the Revolutionnaire which was also brought into Royal Navy service. Again the Admiralty recognized his actions and put him in command of the Falmouth Squadron.
On 25 January 1794 Pellew became involved in a daring and courageous rescue. A massive storm hit the West Country and several ships found themselves sheltering in Plymouth Sound. One such was the Dutton a transport ship that the War Office had hired to move supplies and troops to the West Indies. The ship was full of soldiers and passengers, many sick with fever. To try to get to more shelter the master decided to move the Dutton to a little inlet known as the Cattewater that offered more protection against the mounting storm. But before he cleared the Sound the ship struck a reef and was swept onto the rocks under the Citadel where it was pounded mercilessly by the ferocious waves.
Hearing the news of the wreck Pellew arrived on the scene and managed to get out to the ship using a line, climbed aboard and began to direct rescue operations while the sea slowly tore the Dutton apart. Small boats followed his example and battled their way out to the stricken ship while Pellew supervised the unloading of passengers, the sick, the women and children and the sailors. Shortly after the last person had been taken off, the Dutton disintegrated under the pounding waves and disappeared.
For his actions Pellew received a baronetcy and, not yet 40, became Sir Edward Pellew, Bart of Treverry. He was involved in more actions against the French and by 1799, after nearly thirty years in frigates, was given command of a ship of the line, the seventy-four-gun HMS Impetuous. For two years Pellew spent his time blockading the French and putting down mutinies in his own ship.
In 1802 the Treaty of Amiens was signed, bringing peace between France and England. The peace treaty didn’t last and in May 1802 Pellew was back at sea commanding the eighty-gun HMS Tonnant which had been a French ship taken at the Battle of the Nile. At the end of 1804 Pellew was given command of the East Indies squadron and promoted to Rear Admiral of the White. He sailed for India to try to counter the powerful French forces operating there that were taking a huge toll on English merchant shipping. For two years his ships harassed the French and had minor successes until 1806 when Pellew launched a massive attack against the Dutch naval base at Batavia. Dutch resistance quickly crumbled and the British casualties were very light.
In 1809 Pellew returned to England, now a vice-admiral and was appointed as Commander-in-Chief of the North Sea fleet that saw his ships involved in a year of long blockades of French ports and settlements. After this he was made Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean fleet, which he held from 1811 to 1814 when the war with France finally ended and Napoleon was sent into exile. With the arrival of peace many honours and rewards were given out and Pellew was made a peer of the realm, his title of Lord Exmouth given to him as it was the name of the closest seaport to him that wasn’t being used by another peer.
When Napoleon escaped from Elba in 1815 all of Europe was in an uproar. Pellew who had been enjoying peacetime with his family was reappointed as Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean fleet with his flagship the ninety-eight-gun HMS Boyne. His fleet sailed to Marseilles where they landed 4,000 troops to support the loyalists. Pellew himself, now in his fifties, went ashore and personally led the troops. Clearing the surrounding areas he marched on Toulon and captured it.
With Bonaparte’s defeat at Waterloo Pellew was instructed to turn his attention to the Barbary States and negotiate lasting treaties with the Barbary corsairs, which is how Bashaw and Exmouth came to square off against each other. The opening moves began in September 1815 when Exmouth received secret orders to proceed to Tripoli, Tunis and Algiers to negotiate peace treaties with each state. As winter set in Exmouth knew that attacking immediately would be out of the question because of the winter gales. He moved the fleet to Livorno and waited. During this period Exmouth dispatched one frigate, the HMS Banterer on a secret intelligence and reconnaissance mission of the port of Algiers. The ship was to have minimum contact with the shore and only its commander, Captain Warde, understood the purpose of the mission.
His orders were given to him by Exmouth at the end of January 1816 and by February Warde was back with a highly detailed report that included ‘an assessment of Algerine morale and soundings of the sea-bed. Particularly astonishing is the fact that he identified the calibre and exact location of nearly six hundred Algerine cannon.’10
Using Warde’s report Exmouth made his plans and sailed from Livorno on 4 March 1816, stopping along the way in Genoa and Port Mahon, and arrived at the Bay of Algiers on 1 April. The fleet consisted of five ships of the line including Exmouth’s flagship HMS Boyne along with seven frigates and sloops.
Now in Algiers Exmouth was met by the British Consul Mr McDonell who gave him the most up to date information about the city. Exmouth went ashore and met with Bashaw and his officials. Initially, Exmouth’s goal was to ensure that the people on the Ionian Islands would have the same rights and protection as British subjects enjoyed who were in Barbary, to negotiate treaties on behalf of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and of Sardinia.
He managed to get an agreement from Bashaw that he would immediately release 357 out of 1,000 Sicilian slaves, with Exmouth paying 1,000 dollars per head for each person released. He also managed to get forty Sardinian slaves released at a cost of 500 dollars. Bashaw and Exmouth signed a treaty that brought the people of the Ionian Islands under the representation of the British Consul. However, no British slaves were released during these negotiates nor did Bashaw agree to end slavery.
In Tripoli and Tunis Exmouth negotiated similar deals for much less cash outlay but there was no deal struck for releasing British slaves. After sending his account of his meeting with the Day, Exmouth received communication from London. The government was unhappy, because Exmouth had failed to negotiate a treaty and had paid inflated prices for the release of people who were not British subjects.
Compared to the American success a year earlier Exmouth’s achievements must have been seen as completely ineffective. Instead of returning to England, Exmouth went back to Algiers and dropped anchor for a second time in the bay on 14 May. Again he met with Omar Bashaw for several hours and he told him that economic prosperity for Algiers lay in a future of sound international trade rather than the corsairs’ illegal activities of trafficking in human cargo. Exmouth said that ‘rejection of this principle could lead only to armed conflict with a united Europe’. He left feeling hopeful.
However, the following morning the Dey refused to sign the treaty and the discussion turned to a heated argument that ended with Exmouth storming out furious. As he left he told the also angry Bashaw that he would withdraw the British Consul. Bashaw countered saying that McDonell couldn’t leave until he paid his debts. McDonell was arrested before Exmouth and his officers managed to get back to their ship.
Infuriated, the Dey was virtually unintelligible as he ordered that all British subjects and anyone protected by Britain be rounded up and arrested. Messengers were sent out in all directions to carry out the Dey’s instructions but as they had been shouted in a rage these orders were open to interpretation and were to have far-reaching consequences for Bashaw and Exmouth. As cooler heads prevailed, the Dey must have realized that picking a fight with Great Britain was not a good idea and so sent out orders cancelling the original orders to have every British subject arrested. But he forgot about one rider who headed for Bone on horseback, some 250 miles away from Algiers.
While this rider was heading for Bone, Exmouth and Bashaw patched up their differences and the Dey agreed to send an ambassador to Britain to negotiate a treaty on Christian slavery. Exmouth and the Dey met again on 19 May, parted on good terms and the fleet left Algiers that day. When he returned to England a flood of criticism was levelled against Exmouth for his actions with the Barbary States. Most of the criticism was that he hadn’t gone nearly as far as he should have to punish the Deys and force them to sign treaties.
Much of this criticism stemmed from the events that had taken place in Bone. Britain had exclusive trading rights with Bone which had been granted to them by the Algerine government ten years earlier. There was valuable coral-fishing on the nearby coast which Britain didn’t take advantage of but instead rented the concession to local Christians who were from the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The day the messenger arrived with the Dey’s orders was a holiday and hundreds of local Sicilians were on the beach celebrating. Perhaps the messenger interpreted the Dey’s orders for arresting British subjects and those who enjoyed British protection to mean killing them. The local militia heard what the messenger said and attacked the Sicilians on the beach killing hundreds.
As the reports came in about the massacre British public opinion demanded action. On the continent Britain was a laughing stock, having been completely unable to do anything about slavery and piracy in Barbary. Scarcely had Exmouth arrived back in England when he was summoned to the Admiralty and 1 July 1816 was given command of an expedition to Algiers. This time he could use force.