The National Register.
London, England, 1816-07-14 00:00:00

~i

No. 440.—V0i.. IX.

TILE ;NORTHERN iIPRIC.IN INSTITUTION

Lord Exmouth will sail in a few days with the squa
aron destined to rescue the high character which Great
Britain deservedly holds in the opinion of all Europe,
front the odious charge of conniving at the outrages so
lung committed with impunity by the pirates of North-
ern Afrim. Never did an expedition depart from our
shores with more general or unqualified wishes fur its
complete success. It is embarked not only in the cause;
of the civilized nations of Europa, but in that of
batman naturz ; tin. what is the slavery of the natives of '
Africa, in our trans-atlantic Colonies, about which so
much argumentative sympa:hy is perpetually and honour-
sibly displayed, when compared with that of the Chris-
tians who annually toll into the power of those inflimous
banditti of Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis? It is really
astonishing and incAnnprehensible, by what stupid and in-
faulted policy those receptacles of naval piracy can have
been permitted so long to exist, when there is not a
single European Power that has not sullin-ed from them
'the grossest outrat;es ; while no benefit is derived from
an intercourse with them, by any nation in the world.
Surely they cannot be thought too contemptible fiar yen-
#,;eance, when the lamentable fact is on undisputed record,
A'tat there arc never fewer than from 4000 to 5000
Cinistian slaves enduring the most horrible of human
staerings in the territories of those despicable third-rate
tyrants. But whatever the policy may have been that
has hitherto caused our thrbearance, we hope and believe
that it is at an end. The circumstance of the gallant
Admiral being accompanied by bomb-ve*sels and rocket-
ships, proves that it is at last intended to strike a blow;
ital thus while we feel convinced that lemporiziag is past;
itve have only to look f mard to the complete anni-
hilation of the whole of the piratical fleets, and de-
molition of the fialrees that protect them ; regretting
however, that such en operation has been thus long de-

luyed.
When we re'Llt, that these very piratical States once
firmed, under the dominion of the Carthaginians, the
greatest naval Power in the world, and had a more ex-
tensive commerce than all the other people on the face of
the earth united, we have still greater grounds thr asto-
nishment and indignation at the apathy of the whole of
roadern Europe towards the ex resses a the wretches who
have surce.aled those distinguished heroes of antiquity;
mil who, for more than a century, have been suffered to
lay ail the commercial nations of the world under annual
tribute, as t'ua price of their temporary abstinence from
Vl:ruler. We have (Alen heard the argument, that the
different States of Europb were jealous of each other in
regard to the inane= which any one might hereafter
obtain in this part of Africa, if, by a consentanuous en-
terprize, they were to destroy the vessels of the banditti.
That such a jealousy may have always existed towards
(':eat Britain, as the greatest naval power in the world,
we can readily imagine; yet nothing can be snore absurd
ead futile than the principles on which it is grounded.
if it had not been fur such a pitiful and miserable jea-
leasy, there is no doubt that any one of thole Powers
Wisald have long since, of its own accord, performed the
task which we have at, last taken upon ourselves. But
we wish those envious scribblers for the German Papers,
who so lately threw out the calumny, that it was a duty
incumbent upon us to avenge the cause of the rest of Eu-
rope, would point out how we could in future be benc-
fitted by our forbearance. We have no commerce with
the North of Africa ; and in fact those piratical States
have no trade worth mentioning with any part of the
world ; but ever since the time ?when their able Chief;
Wiley Mollie, &fisted and killed Don Sebastian, King
of Portugal, they have lived in an almost continual state
of warfare with every nation in Christendom. We may
look, therefore, in vain, for any political motive as the
-cause of our present lenity. That which existed in 1796,
when (as on several occasions since) we did not disdain
to purchase their friendship by considerable presents, cer-
tainly
exists no longer. To have attacked the Barbary
Pirates at those periods, would have inevitably involved
us in a war with the Ottoman Porte ; to whom, it ought
to be kept in mind, the States of Northern Africa have
ever been and are to this hour tributary. A war, then,
with the Porte at any former period, would have put a
stop to the immense Turkey trade, which we have car-
ried on exclusively for more than a century, particularly
in scald& cloths ; but a more important point would have
been the loss of an ally, which, by good diplomatic ma-
nagement, we have always succeeded in keeping from the
all-devouring grasp of revolutionary France. This is the
.only cause which we can suggest for our remnant for-