By the men whose deeds have been here chronicled the pirate States of
Northern Africa were established; and, as we have seen, they maintained an
unceasing warfare against all that was mightiest in Christendom, aided and
abetted by the Sultans of Constantinople. In the sixteenth century the
Sea-wolves had this at least to recommend them, that they feared neither
King nor Kaiser, albeit these great ones of the earth were bent on their
destruction. Villains as they were, they were none the less men to be
feared, men in whom dwelt wonderful capabilities of leadership. Such,
however, was not the case with those by whom they were succeeded; and the
great and civilised nations of the world tolerated for centuries in their
midst a race of savage barbarians whose abominable insolence and fiendish
cruelty were only equalled by their material weakness and military
impotence. Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli became recognised States, and the
Great Powers degraded themselves by actually accrediting diplomatic agents
to the "Courts" of these people.
"The Algerines are robbers, and I am their chief," was the remark made by
the Dey of Algiers to the English Consul in 1641, and the man spoke the
plain unvarnished truth. Yet at this time the Algerines had no more than
sixty-five ships, and no organisation which could have held out for
twenty-four hours against such attacks as had been successfully resisted on
many occasions in the previous century.
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