Chapter 8
The Battle Proper
Friday the 16th – The wind changed from north to east; and in the evening we spoke with the corvette Prometheus, Captain Dashwood. He was sent on before to bring off the British Consul from Algiers, but Captain Dashwood could only take off the Consul’s family; and the Consul himself was detained by the Dey.1
Before the battle Exmouth had given Salame two documents in English to be translated into Arabic and Turkish. One was a letter of ultimatum and a ‘Declaration for the Abolition of Christian Slavery’ which Exmouth intended to deliver to the Dey and invite him to sign. When the Dey heard of the arrival of the Prometheus that had been sent to Algiers from Gibraltar he had the British Consul detained in a room in his own house and also arrested two boats from the Prometheus with eighteen men aboard that had come to take the Consul and his family to safety. This story was related by Dashwood to Exmouth who then composed a third letter of ultimatum to the Dey about the immediate release of the Consul and the return of the two boats and their crews.
The fleet stopped at the island of Alboran on 16 August where they waited for a fair wind to take them the rest of the way to Algiers. When the wind changed the fleet set sail again and by the 26th they were in sight of Cap Cazzina, the northern tip of the Bay of Algiers, and by the early morning of the 27th they were in sight of the city itself.
It was at this point that Exmouth gave Salame the orders to move to the Severn where he would row across under a flag of truce to the city and hand over the letters and declaration. Before going the officers aboard the Queen Charlotte heard that Salame was to deliver the dispatches to the Dey and gathered around him, saying ‘Salame, if you return with an answer from the Dey, that he accepts our demands without fighting, we will kill you instead.’
Delighted with their good humour and their bravery he stepped into the boat which was duly lowered into the water and was rowed across to the Severn. Captain Burgess, commanding the Severn, met Salame as he came aboard. Salame was to go with Burgess under the flag of truce into the harbour, deliver the letters and wait for an answer. Tension was high.
In the bay many foreign ships were anchored and one of them was the French frigate, La Ciotat. ‘His Lordship then ordered Captain Maitland of the Glasgow to visit her, and get some information from the French captain, Lieutenant Ranoir, who pretended every kind of ignorance, and would tell us nothing,’ Salame later wrote in his journal. Exmouth later discovered that the French were there to take off the French Consul, his family and any other French nationals.
At 0900hrs Exmouth signalled to the Severn to lower its boat and row towards the city. A boat from the Severn was lowered into the water with Burgess, Salame and six seamen aboard. ‘We took with us, secretly, six muskets, for precaution, to defend ourselves from treachery; and rowed towards the city hoisting our flag of truce’, Salame wrote. They were a mile out and Burgess steered towards the harbour entrance.
By 1100hrs they had reached the mole head and saw a boat coming out to meet them. Aboard this boat was the port captain. As the boat approached Salame shouted for them to keep their distance. ‘Why are you afraid?’ the port captain replied. ‘We have not got the plague in Algiers.’ ‘We are not afraid of the plague,’ Salame replied. ‘But you have detained two of our boats, with eighteen men, unjustly.’
The port captain made no reply but switched tack and asked how Exmouth was. Salame asked the same about Omar Bashaw and then attached the first letter to the end of a long pole for the port captain to take. Before he took it the captain said, ‘Is this for the British Consul?’ ‘No,’ Salame said. ‘This is for the Dey to whom I present Lord Exmouth’s compliments, and say, that an answer is expected in one hour.’ ‘But it’s impossible to give an answer to such serious business by that time.’ Salame replied: ‘We shall wait here in the boat two or three hours, that you may have time enough; and, if you do not come by that time we are instructed to return on board directly.’
The port captain replied that two hours was time enough and that he would return with the Dey’s answer. Seeing how confused and humble the man was, Burgess moved the boat closer to the captain’s and Salame handed the man the letter for the consul asking how he was as well as how the men of the Prometheus were. ‘They are all quite well, and the consul is in his townhouse’ came the reply.
‘You must deliver this letter into the Consul’s hand, and let me have both answers, of the Dey and of the Consul’, Salame said. The port captain promised he would deliver the letters and return with the appropriate answers. The port captain then invited the men to come ashore or onto the mole so they could be in the shade away from the burning sun. But Salame refused. ‘I thanked him for his kind offer, the consequence of accepting which, would have been the loss of our heads’, he later wrote.
Salame then said, ‘The heat of the sun does not affect us but if the Dey wishes to send any of his officers to treat with the Admiral, he would be received with great politeness, and returned in the same manner.’ ‘I hope it will be so’, the port captain replied and then rowed away. Burgess, Salame and the six seamen remained a few yards from the mole, riding the currents in pistol shot of thousands of people who had gathered on the walls and inside the batteries, who hurled insults and abuse at the little English boat. For two and a half hours they stayed in that position in terrible danger waiting for the answer from Bashaw.
While they waited Exmouth used the time to his advantage. Signals passed from ship to ship as he moved his fleet closer to shore, hoving to about two miles from the mole. By 1000hrs the ships had exercised at quarters and loaded their guns. All the British ships in the fleet were cleared for action. The galley fires remained alight for a few hours so that every man could have a meal by 1200hrs as Exmouth ordered. After that the fires were put out. The foreign ships raised their anchors and quickly moved out of harm’s way as the British and Dutch fleets moved into their battle stations.
There is no record to tell us what the Dey and his council said during this time but the debate must have been agitated, with people taking many different stands. So many fleets before this one had come and gone without a firing a shot that it was likely Exmouth would back down and leave. Yet the evidence of impending disaster could be seen by looking through the windows as the ships manoeuvred to gain tactical advantage.
The hours ticked slowly by. The Algerines shouted and cursed. Salame and Burgess remained within pistol shot of the people on the mole waiting for the Dey’s reply. Burgess anxiously scanned the harbour for a sign of movement from the port captain’s boat but he saw nothing. At 1415hrs a flurry of signals went from ship to ship as the fleet moved closer into the harbour. Still there was no sign of the port captain’s boat.
Already a half an hour over their deadline at 1430hrs Burgess and Salame decided they’d waited long enough and Burgess ordered the signal of ‘No answer had been given’ to be raised. As quickly as they could they rowed back towards the Queen Charlotte. Salame was anxious to get out of range and back to the ship. ‘Knowing their perfidious character, and observing that Lord Exmouth, on his seeing our signal, immediately gave order to the fleet to bear up, and every ship to take her position for the attack, I had great fear that the Algerines would fire upon us’, Salame wrote.
When Salame climbed aboard the Queen Charlotte and reported to Exmouth he saw the crew anxiously waiting for the order to open fire. But that order would have to wait. Instead, Exmouth ordered the anchor raised and the Queen Charlotte to be moved. Slowly, in the light breeze, the giant three-decker began to move forward towards the head of the mole.
Exmouth’s battle plans had been elaborate and highly detailed but the light breeze could let him down as the ship inched forward. His plan had been based on long and careful study of the survey map made by Captain Warde. Slowly, the ship moved towards the molehead battery where several hundred Algerine gunners looked on in astonishment. The battery itself was so high that it was higher than the Queen Charlotte’s main deck, which meant they could look down on the English sailors but they had to look up at the ship’s masts that were high above them. ‘There were many thousand Turks and Moors looking on astonished, to see so large a ship coming all at once inside of the Mole, without caring for anything’, Salame wrote in his journal.
Exmouth took the flagship to within a hundred yards of the mole head and ordered the anchor be dropped, first the stern anchor then the bow anchor.2 Salame wrote that the position that Exmouth took with the Queen Charlotte was so masterful that only four or five guns could hit them from the mole itself. However, the ship was exposed to other batteries.
The other ships had followed Queen Charlotte in sailing in a line astern formation. Exmouth’s plan was that each ship would follow in at the minimum safe distance and, when the signal was given to anchor, would do so all at the same time. But two things were against this plan. The first was the rapidly fading breeze and the second was the poor handling of the Impregnable by Captain Brace under Rear Admiral Milne’s orders. He ordered his sail lowered far too early and so ended up well out of his intended position. When the signal to anchor came Milne obeyed it immediately and ordered Brace to anchor exacly where they were, totally exposed to the lighthouse battery and too far away to pound that battery into submission.
The Superb had followed the Queen Charlotte closely and should have anchored in a position where she could provide covering fire but instead she anchored too soon away from the mole. However, she was in a position where she could pour her fire onto one of the main batteries without being too exposed in the process.
The Leander anchored approximately one hundred yards ahead of the flagship where she could concentrate her fire on the battery located near the fishmarket. The Minden anchored near the Impregnable but her captain, Paterson, soon realized that the ship was in a dangerous position so he moved in closer to the shore, astern of the Superb where his guns would be of use. On the dying breeze the rest of the ships gradually came into their positions but the battle began before they were all where they should have been.
There are no records to indicate where the first shot actually came from. Salame writes that ‘a few minutes before three, the Algerines, from the Eastern battery fired the first shot at the Impregnable’. Perkins and Douglas-Morris do not mention Salame’s reference to the Eastern battery but record various different eyewitness accounts, saying the first shots came from the fishmarket battery at the Superb or that the molehead battery fired first, putting a ball into the Queen Charlotte’s hull, or that the lighthouse battery was the first to fire at the Impregnable, firing three shots in rapid succession (as opposed to the one shot recorded by Salame).
Wherever it came from it was enough for Lord Exmouth to put aside any idea of a peaceful solution. ‘Lord Exmouth, having seen only the smoke of the gun before the sound reached him’, Salame wrote, ‘said with great alacrity, “That will do; fire my fine fellows!”‘ The quiet of the day was suddenly torn apart as the 24-pounders on the top deck of the Queen Charlotte roared in unison. Rocking against the recoil from the deck below came the broadside of the 18-pound cannon while, up in the masts, 12-pound carronades had been hauled up and mounted, their muzzles pointing down at the Algerine gunners on the open top of the molehead battery. Now they spoke as well, sending 300 musket balls ripping into the guns, killing and maiming dozens of enemy gunners.
This fire was so terrible, that they say more than five hundred people were killed and wounded by it. And I believe this, because there was a great crowd of people in every part, many of whom, after the first discharge, I saw running away, under the walls, like dogs, walking upon their feet and hands.3
With slick efficiency the gun crews on the Queen Charlotte continued firing, all the weeks of constant drills now paying dividends. The storm from her guns smashed into the enemy guns emplacements blowing the cannon off their carriages. Inside the dark galleries of the gun emplacements men and equipment were pulverized into a tangled mess as the cannon balls found their mark.
But the enemy were not silent. As soon as the guns from the Queen Charlotte had opened fire, the enemy guns answered. Though many were being destroyed, the remaining guns on the molehead continued to return the fire. The intensity of the fire from the mole dropped as more guns were destroyed, so Exmouth ordered some of his guns to shift to the battery over the main gate by the city wall that faced the quay. Again, the storm of metal smashed into the emplacements, ripping cannon from their fixtures and carriages sending them plunging into the harbour. The 24-pounders on the Queen Charlotte were designed for this kind of close work and their effect was devastating.
The firing began at 1500hrs and the last ship to open fire, the Impregnable, did so twenty-five minutes later. The breeze had died to an almost imperceptible level, which meant the thick fog of white smoke from the guns lay like a shroud over the mole area, obscuring the Queen Charlotte, Superb and Leander, except for the very top of their masts. Creeping slowly towards this wall of smoke were the two seventy-four-gun ships, Glasgow and Severn, both managing to glide past the Queen Charlotte and take up their allotted positions near the fishmarket and waterfront. From this point they were relatively safe from enemy gunners and could pick and choose their targets. Within moments of anchoring their guns fired, adding to the noise, confusion and smoke. The other ship of seventy-four guns, the Albion, anchored near the Impregnable, but her captain soon realized this open position was too dangerous so he moved his ship away, closer to shore, anchoring near the Minden. This left the Impregnable completely alone and at the mercy of the guns from the lighthouse battery.
While the world exploded all around them the two frigates Hebrus and Granicus moved slowly on the slight breeze, letting the currents take them to the positions that Exmouth had laid down for them in his original orders. Both ships entered the thick smoke and Granicus anchored as close to her correct place as she could, while Hebrus ended up too far to port for her guns to be effective.
The whole mole area, outside of the harbour, was crowded with smaller craft as well as the principal ships of Exmouth’s squadron. Prometheus, Britomart and Cordelia moved as best they could throughout the battle, not anchoring but firing at targets of opportunity and providing assistance to those ships on station. They tiptoed around the fifty-five smaller vessels which were the mortar boats, rocket boats and gunboats commanded by midshipmen experiencing their first command. These boats moved by oars rather than sails. The rocket and mortar boats fired continuously, sending a hail of projectiles into the town and the harbour where the Algerine fleet was anchored. The crews on the Algerine vessels had no chance, swept away by flying debris and burning splinters as each mortar and rocket exploded.
On the gun decks of the English ships the crews worked like well-oiled machines, keeping up a constant barrage. Covered in smoke, sweat and virtually naked in the oppressive heat they worked for hours, only stopping to drink. Most became deaf, temporarily or permanently, from the continuous roar of the guns. Lines were formed by the gun crews and powder monkeys passing charges, wadding, ammunition and shot to the gun crews. They could barely keep up with the speed of the firing. Salame wrote in his journal that ‘I saw two companies of the two guns nearest the hatch-way, they wanted some wadding, and began to call “wadding, wadding!” but not having it immediately, two of them swearing took out their knives and cut off the breasts of their jackets where the buttons are, and rammed them into the guns instead of wadding.’
Salame observed that at no time during the battle did any of the gun crews seem tired, ‘not one lamented the dreadful continuation of the fight; but on the contrary, the longer it lasted, the more cheerfulness and pleasure were amongst them; notwithstanding, during the greater part of the battle, the firing was most tremendous on our side’. Even as the guns fired, Salame saw that some of them became so hot that when they recoiled they were thrown out of their carriages ‘and so rendered quite useless’.
While all of this was happening the enemy gunners were having an effect. On the ships, flying splinters of wood ripped from the hulls of the ships from the impact of cannon balls tore into men’s flesh. Death and injury came from these shards of wood and metal or from limbs being ripped off by cannon balls.
It was most tremendous to hear the crashing of the shot, to see the wounded men brought from one part, and the killed from the other; and especially at such a time to be found among the English seamen and to witness their manners, their activity, their courage, and their cheerfulness during the battle.4
On the deck of the Queen Charlotte, Exmouth had several lucky escapes from death. Twice musket balls ripped through his jacket but didn’t draw blood. He was hit in the jaw by a splinter and also in the leg by a spent shot that drew blood but didn’t maim him. ‘It was indeed astonishing to see the coat of his Lordship, how it was all cut up by musket balls, and by grape; it was behind, as if a person had taken a pair of scissors and cut it all to pieces. We were all surprised, at the narrow escape of his Lordship.’5
By 1530hrs the Algerines sent a force of roughly forty boats loaded with men, muskets and cannon out from the inner harbour towards the Queen Charlotte, Leander and Severn. Shouting loudly and waving their swords they headed for the three ships. As they rounded the end of the mole, they came into the line of fire of the Leander which was anchored in the entrance to the harbour. As they emerged from the smoke, Captain Edward Chatham saw the danger and immediately ordered his gunners to concentrate their fire on the little fleet heading towards them. Within moments broadside after broadside was fired from the Leander’s guns. Bits of iron, chain and metal from canister shot tore into the Algerines, sending hundreds of men into the water. Their boats were torn apart by the fire of grapeshot. Men screamed in pain as the shrapnel tore into them. The wooden hulls were pulverized under the intensive fire.
On the deck of the Leander, Royal Marines added to the slaughter by pouring accurate and deadly volleys of musket fire into the enemy. More than thirty-five boats were destroyed and the remainder fled back into the protection of the harbour, leaving hundreds of men in the water to be picked off by the marines. As this was dying down, around 1600hrs, Exmouth ordered the barge from the Queen Charlotte to board an Algerine frigate that was blocking the mouth of the harbour. Lieutenant Peter Richards, commanding the barge, took a boarding party of Royal Engineers, supported by marines, across to the frigate. Boarding her they laid charges and set the ship alight, losing only two of their number in the process. Within ten minutes of leaving the Queen Charlotte they were back aboard. Fire tore through the enemy vessel until she was completely ablaze. The mooring ropes burnt away and she began drifting towards the Queen Charlotte. For a few anxious moments Exmouth prepared his crew to move the ship but the Algerine fire ship sailed slowly past them at a safe distance.
Onboard the Queen Charlotte Exmouth sent Salame below to get out of the line of fire. He went down to the surgeries (cockpit) to help with the wounded.
Some of them could not walk. Some could not see; and some were to be carried from one place to another. It was indeed a most pitiable sight; – but I think the most shocking sight in the world, is that of taking off arms and legs; in preference to beholding which, if I was a military man, I should certainly prefer to be on deck than being with the Doctor in the cockpit.
By 1630hrs Exmouth knew the Impregnable was taking heavy casualties. A message had arrived by boat from the Impregnable asking for help as they had lost 150 men killed or wounded. He ordered the Glasgow to go to the rescue but the lack of any breeze at all meant this ship could only move a short distance, which put her in danger from the fishmarket batteries. In that position she suffered ten killed and thirty-six wounded in a matter of moments, far more than she had in two hours previously.
While most of the enemy batteries in the harbour were out of action, the ones higher up the hillside were still pouring fire onto the fleet. Many buildings around the harbour were ablaze, flames licking through the warehouses on the waterfront. Those not burning were heavily damaged from cannon balls smashing into them.
Throughout the bombardment the rocket boats and mortar boats had become better at choosing their targets, judging distance and were now pouring fire down more accurately than ever before. Most of the Algerine fleet burnt fiercely from the effect of this saturating fire. Installations on shore within range of the rockets were now a mass of flame and rubble.
Exmouth decided he had to do something about the lighthouse battery so he ordered the Fly, an explosion vessel loaded with 143 barrels of gunpowder, to be run ashore at the base of the battery in order to blow it up. Once again, Rear Admiral Milne made an error in judgement which essentially made the attempt a wasted effort.6
The first lieutenant of the Queen Charlotte, Lieutenant Richard Flemming, had been in charge of gunboat no. 5 throughout the afternoon which had been anchored near the Queen Charlotte. He was now put in command of the Fly that was being towed by the Cordelia. Flemming went aboard quickly, along with Captain Reid of the Royal Engineers. However, Milne sent Captain Herbert Powell to direct them to the place where the explosion ship should be moored to create the best effect. Flemming’s orders were to take command, while Powell’s were to direct the vessel to the right place. However, Powell was giving Flemming conflicting orders and despite their efforts the ship was run aground in the wrong place, and exploded on a minor battery that had been knocked out of action some time earlier. It had no effect on the lighthouse battery.
The five Dutch frigates were also in the thick of the fighting. It was their job to suppress the batteries around the shore, particularly the fishmarket batteries, to avoid the leading English ships getting caught up in cross fire. On the way in they destroyed one of the outlying forts, Fort Babazoun. They too took heavy casualties.
Hour after hour the bombardment went on. The American Consul, William Shaler, described the scene in his journal as he watched from his window in the American Consulate. ‘Shells and rockets fly over my house like hail,’ he wrote. ‘The fire is returned with constancy from several batteries situated at the North West corner of the town and from four heavy guns directly below my windows. These batteries are exposed only to an oblique fire and apparently have not suffered much.’7
Despite the shells landing all around him, Shaler continued to make notes. ‘At half past seven the shipping in the port is on fire. At half-past eight, the cannonade endures with unabated fury on the part of the English and is returned from the batteries in this quarter. The upper part of my house appears to be destroyed, several shells having fallen into it whole rooms are knocked to atoms.’8
Finally, at 2300hrs a signal was sent by Exmouth to the rest of his fleet to withdraw ‘after observing the destruction of the whole Algerine navy, and the strongest parts of their batteries,’ Salame wrote. ‘With a favourable breeze, we cut our cables, as well as the whole of the squadron, and made sail.’
With the firing all but over, Salame went up on deck to join Exmouth. He could see the devastation lit by the burning fires:
The blaze illuminated the entire bay, and the town with the environs, almost as clear as in the day time. The view of which was really most awful and beautiful; nine frigates, and a great number of gun-boats with other vessels, being all in flames, and carried by the wind to different directions in the bay. I observed how, in these nine hours time, our shot had effected so horrible a destruction of their batteries; instead of walls, I saw nothing but heaps of rubbish, and a number of people dragging the dead bodies out.9
Exmouth, his voice hoarse, turned to Salame who could see that he had two slight wounds one on his cheek and the other in his leg. ‘Well my fine fellow Salame,’ Exmouth said mildly. ‘What think you now?’ Shaking Exmouth’s hand Salame replied, ‘My Lord, I am extremely happy to see your Lordship safe, and I am so much rejoiced with this glorious victory, that I am not able to express, in any terms, the degree of my happiness.’
From the higher batteries the Algerines continued a much more slackened pace of fire as the fleet slowly extricated itself from the harbour, which took two hours in all. Although a steady breeze was blowing, so many ships had their sails and rigging in tatters that they had to be towed away by more fortunate vessels. The last of the Algerine guns stopped firing at 0100hrs on 28 August. In place of the roar of the guns now came cataclysm of thunder and lightning. The fleet anchored five miles out in the bay.
As dawn broke on the morning of 28 August the devastation was clear. While Bashaw did his best to rally his defences and his troops in case of another attack, the resolve of the defenders was waning. Shaler wrote in his journal that his consular house was virtually destroyed. He wrote that ‘every part of the town appears to have suffered from shot and shells. The Marine batteries are in ruins and may be occupied at any time. Lord Exmouth holds the fate of Algiers in his hands.’ Shaler also wrote that ‘The combined fleets are at anchor in the bay, apparently little damaged.’ He, along with the Algerines, being five miles away, could not see the condition of the fleet close up: the overcrowded surgeries filled with men with appalling injuries, the torn sails and damaged rigging, that the ammunition was all but exhausted and that onboard some ships there were few men left to man the guns. But none of Exmouth’s ships had been sunk in the fire; no wrecks lay smoking in the harbour save those of the Algerine fleet which had been destroyed.
So from a distance of five miles the fleet appeared to be unscathed. Exmouth played on this perception and sent Salame and Burgess once again, under a flag of truce, with a letter to the Dey offering peace, provided the Dey released the British Consul, the officers and men he’d seized and the Christian slaves he held. If he didn’t accept the peace Exmouth offered, the letter said that ‘I shall renew my operations at my own convenience.’
To signal agreement the Dey’s batteries were to fire three guns. Salame and Burgess once again rowed out to the molehead and handed over the letter from Exmouth. Salame’s impression of the destruction caused on the batteries and the mole was recorded in his journal.
I was quite surprised to see the horrible state of the batteries and the mole since the preceding day. I could not now distinguish how it was erected, nor where the batteries had stood; as well as many fine houses which I had seen in the city the day previous. And I observed too, that there had not more than four or five guns mounted on their carriages and that of all the rest, some were dismounted, and some buried in the rubbish. Besides this, the entire bay was full of the hulks of their navy, smoking in every direction, and the water out and inside of the mole was all black, covered with charcoal and half-burnt pieces of wood. But the most shocking and dreadful sight was, the number of the dead bodies which were floating on the water.
This time, though, there was an answer and less than two hours later three guns were fired, signalling the Dey’s acceptance of terms.
The Swedish Consul was to act as go-between in the negotiations. The following day the British Consul was set free and reported to Exmouth aboard the Queen Charlotte, telling him of his harsh treatment. The men of the Prometheus who had been seized by the Dey’s forces were returned to their ship. The process of releasing Christian slaves began. A negotiating party under the direction of Captain James Brisbane of the Queen Charlotte was sent ashore. That day two more British warships arrived, the Ister, under the command of Captain Forrest with Rear Admiral Sir Charles Penrose aboard, and HMS Wasp, Captain Woolridge commanding.
Penrose was now available to take some of the strain off Exmouth’s shoulders and took over the task of visiting the Dey and finalizing the peace treaty. On 30 August Exmouth handed his report on the action and subsequent results to Admiral Milne, ordering him to set sail for London and give the report to the Admiralty. The anchor of HMS Leander rose out of the water, the sails were raised and caught the fine easterly breeze and she sailed towards Gibraltar. From there she would head for Portsmouth. However, the wind changed and the Leander’s passage home was a slow one. To ensure the report got there quickly, Exmouth also ordered Captain Brisbane to take it over land. He sailed for Spain in the Heron and from there travelled overland to Boulogne where he found a ship to take him across the Channel and he arrived at the Admiralty on 15 September. He was the first to arrive in London with the news of the battle and the victory. Milne arrived on 27 September.
There were seven main terms of the peace treaty. The first was that any prisoners taken in a future war between Algiers and any European power were to be treated as prisoners of war and not as slaves. The second term was for the Dey to formally renounce the practice of Christian slavery forever. He was also to release all Christian slaves, regardless of their nationality, to Exmouth’s officers. The fourth term was that the Dey was to repay the Italian States all the monies they’d paid to Algiers in tribute, which amounted to approximately $382,000. The Dey also had to make reparations to the British Consul of $30,000 for the loss of his own possessions. Next, the Dey had to make a formal, personal and abject apology to the Consul for his treatment while in captivity. Finally, the Dey was to sign the new peace treaty that would signal a lasting peace between Algiers, England and the Italian States and each side was to fire twenty-one guns to signal the return of normal relations.
In all 1,641 slaves were released, eighteen of whom were English and the rest from a wide variety of nations but by far the highest number were Sicilians and Neapolitans. The Dey handed the $382,500 over to Exmouth, along with the personal reparations to the British Consul. In short, the Dey agreed to all terms of the treaty and under Penrose’s direction they were carried out. By the evening of 3 September all parts of the treaty had been resolved and agreed and at midnight of the same day the British fleet set sail for Gibraltar. Exmouth left behind the Prometheus under the command of Captain Dashwood who also had elements of the Dutch squadron as company.
Lord Exmouth returned to England a hero on 6 October when he sailed into Portsmouth, a little more than two months after he’d left on the expedition. Some estimates on the numbers of Algerines killed are over 8,000, while others say the casualties were even higher. On the British ships 128 were killed and 690 wounded, while the Dutch ships suffered thirteen killed and fifty-two wounded. Though his ships had been severely damaged, none had lost their masts; none, including the little boats, had been sunk.
The devastation of Algiers had been almost complete. With the exception of two ships, which the Algerines had scuttled in the harbour to avoid the destruction by fire and shot, virtually her entire fleet had been destroyed. William Shaler reported that most of the city lay in ruins. But six months later he wrote to Washington that the city’s defences had been rebuilt and that the Dey was working hard to restore the prestige and power of Algiers. In less than two years he had managed to rebuild the city but he fell out of favour with his own people and was strangled to death in the public place of execution on 16 September 1818.
Within a short period of time the piratical ways of the Algerines were re-established and were only permanently stopped when the French invaded and occupied Algiers in 1829 after relations between the two countries fell apart. It took the French three weeks to gain Algiers and take the city, forcing the surrender by the Dey which the rest of Europe had been unable to achieve in three hundred years.
Yet, if we believe Shaler’s entry in his journal the day after the bombardment, had Exmouth pressed his advantage and landed troops ashore he might well have taken the city; that is something we’ll never know. But Exmouth had done what he had been ordered to do and in that respect the Battle of Algiers was a victory for the Royal Navy.
When Algiers became a French possession her corsair activities ceased, but another state along the Barbary Coast was soon to replace her. This was Morocco and the pirates concerned were the notorious Riff pirates who would compel the Royal Navy to once again use force.