"No, they did not," was the reply; "they determined that they would not establish a precedent for such exorbitant demands. In France there was a religious society called the Mathurins, that was established hundreds of years ago for the purpose of releasing Christian captives who were held by the infidels. Our government employed the chief of the Mathurins to negotiate the liberation of our men, but he didn't succeed. Several other attempts were made, but the Dey refused to come down in his price, because he thought the Americans would pay anything rather than let their citizens be slaves, or, at any rate, their white citizens, as we had plenty of negro slaves in our country and thought that kind of slavery was all right. "Well, the thing dragged along a good while. Our government appropriated forty thousand dollars to ransom those men. One after another two commissioners were appointed to negotiate the business, but each of 'em died before he got to Algiers. "Before the negotiations for these twenty-one men were concluded, ten more American ships had been captured, and more than a hundred sailors sold from them into slavery. It was not till 1795 that we brought the miserable business to an end, and got the release of the prisoners by paying eight hundred thousand dollars in cash, with a promise of an annual tribute of twenty-five thousand dollars, and a ship-of-war worth one hundred thousand dollars." "Do you mean that we were to give them a ship-of-war every year?" I asked. "Oh, no," replied Haines; "not a ship-of-war every year, but a single one as soon as we could build her, after giving the eight hundred thousand dollars down." "Oh, I understand," I answered. "Why didn't we take that eight hundred thousand dollars and build ships-of-war with it, and then go and blow the Algerines sky high?" "That's what we ought to have done," said Haines, "and it's a big shame we didn't do it. What we did every other nation of Europe had been doing, and some of them for hundreds of years. It is like paying a chicken thief five dollars a month to let alone robbing your hen-roost." "Well, if we've been paying twenty-five thousand dollars a year to the Dey of Algiers to let us alone, how is it that he is capturing our ships now?" "We were not very prompt in making our payments, I believe," Haines answered; "and besides, them pagans don't pay any attention to their treaties. They make an agreement that is to last five or ten years, and get a certain amount of money; but when they've used that money up and want more they go to capturing our ships again, and simply tell us that they are out of money and must raise it somehow.