The interest which Algiers has for the traveller is closely bound up with the hideous story of the Christian captives. Our literature, especially of the seventeenth century, is full of allusion to their miserable condition. Their numbers were prodigious. In 1646 it was reckoned that there were not less than 20,000 such slaves. During our Civil War the Channel was full of Algerine pirates, and their operations extended to the North Sea. The Long Parliament passed an Act “whereby they did manifest unto the world their resolution of undertaking that Christian work of the Redemption of the Captives from the cruel thraldom that they lay under,” and established a tax on merchants’ goods, called “Algier duty,” to provide funds for the purpose. Many distinguished men were at one time or another slaves in Barbary. Cervantes was in captivity for five years, and has related some of his miseries in the story of “The Captive” in “Don Quixote.” He who went to sea in those days had to face the chance of “being taken by the insolent foe and sold to slavery.” It will be recalled that before he set forth on his immortal voyage Robinson Crusoe was captured by a Sallee-rover, and worked as a slave. Samuel Pepys records (February 8th, 1660-1) a conversation on the subject: “At noon to the Exchange to meet Mr. Warren the timber merchant, but could not meet with him. Here I met with many sea commanders, and among others Captain Cuttle, and Curtis and Mootham, and I went to the Fleece Tavern to drink; and there we spent till four o’clock, telling stories of Algiers, and the manner of the life of slaves there. And truly Captain Mootham and Mr. Dawes (who have been both slaves there) did make me fully acquainted with their condition there: as, how they eat nothing but bread and water. At their redemption they pay so much for the water they drink at the public fountaynes, during their being slaves. How they are beat upon the soles of their feet and bellies at the liberty of their padron. How they are all, at night, called into their master’s Bagnard [prison]; and there they lie. How the poorest men do use their slaves best. How some rogues do live well, if they do invent to bring their masters in so much a week by their industry or theft.” Other accounts give far more harrowing details of the sufferings of the slaves and of the tortures they endured. When a prize was brought in, the crew and the passengers were forced by torture, generally the bastinado, to declare their quality and condition. The Dey selected one in eight for himself, generally preferring skilled workmen. The remainder were sold by auction for the benefit of the owners and crews of the pirate vessels. The European Powers maintained consuls at Algiers, and through them, and other agencies, those of the captives whose friends could find the ransom demanded, were, after much delay, redeemed.