"Boys, I'm pretty sure she's the Warwick! I can't be certain yet for half an hour or so, but you needn't feel uneasy about your shipmates!" We gave a ringing cheer at this announcement, and everybody felt far happier than he was feeling an hour before. Sure enough she turned out to be the Warwick, and in due time we were up within hailing distance of her. Mr. Johnson answered in a cheery tone the hail of Captain Dawson, and said,-- "Everybody's well, and Warwick's people getting on finely! Saw the gale coming and got everything snug before it struck us!" He described the experience of the ship and crew in almost the identical words that I have told about the effects of the gale on the Washington, and so it isn't necessary to repeat. We gave him our latitude and longitude, which he had little need of just at that time, as he had been obliged to work them out for himself. From this time on we had no incidents of consequence until we got within a hundred miles of the coast as we headed for the Straits of Gibraltar. Then we had an incident with some excitement in it. We were sailing along nicely one morning, about eight bells, when a sail was discovered dead ahead. The Warwick was off on our weather beam about two miles, and a little astern. The strange sail was heading directly for us, and in a little while we made her out to be a Moorish or Algerine galiot. She was laying her course so straight for us that our captain felt sure she meant business and would capture us if she could. At that time the Algerine corsairs were scouring the Mediterranean and the portion of the Atlantic just outside the Straits of Gibraltar, and were ready to capture anything. For hundreds of years they had been carrying on their piracy, capturing the vessels of every nation of Europe, confiscating the ships and their cargo, and selling the ship's crew into slavery. Sometimes the crew were ransomed, if they happened to have wealthy friends at home, and occasionally their ransoms were bought by wholesale by the nations to whom they belonged. Now and then nations made treaties with the pirates, paying them a stipulated sum each year to let their commerce alone; and payments were partially in cash and partially in guns, ammunition, naval stores, etc., the kind of goods that were required to keep up the piratical operations. When the United States came into existence as a nation and its commerce was carried to the Mediterranean Sea, the Deys of Algiers, Morocco, Tunis, and the other states of the Barbary Coast rejoiced to think they had a new country against which they could press their depredations. American ships fell into their hands very early in our national history, and President Washington called the attention of the national government to these piracies as early as 1790.