The infant republic, left without any naval force at the close of the Revolution, was compelled to submit to the most humiliating insults and depredations at the hands of these lawless sea rovers. It seems incredible to recall the gifts and bribes that were abjectly paid the Dey of Algiers as tribute, including a handsome new frigate, nor can one read the newspaper account without a blush. Portsmouth, N. H., Jan 20, 1798. On Thursday morning, about sunrise, a gun was discharged from the frigate _Crescent_, as a signal for getting under way. May she arrive in safety at the place of her destination, as a present to the Dey of Algiers of one of the finest specimens of elegant naval architecture which was ever borne on the Piscataqua’s waters. Richard O’Brien, who was ten years a prisoner at Algiers, took passage in the frigate and is to reside at Algiers as Consul-General of the United States to all the Barbary States. The _Crescent_ has many valuable presents for the Dey, including twenty-six barrels of dollars. It is worthy of remark that the captain, the chief officers and many of the privates of the _Crescent_ frigate have been prisoners at Algiers. When Captain Cobb prudently went wide of the Strait of Gibraltar, in 1794, the Dey was running amuck among American merchant vessels. As many as ten of these luckless ships had been taken in one cruise of a brig and three xebecks out of Algiers, and more than a hundred Yankee seamen thrown into dungeons to toil under the lash of Arab slave drivers. And honest seamen were begging from door to door in Boston and Salem to collect funds for the ransom of this fellow mariner or that, with whom they had been shipmates. The tourist who visits the Algiers of today, an ornate French metropolis with the ancient Arab town climbing the hill behind it, can behold strongholds whose stones were laid by tortured, perishing sailormen from the land of the brave and the free. Bearing safely away from those ticklish waters, Captain Elijah Cobb found himself out of the frying-pan and into the fire. England had gone to war with France in 1793 when most of Europe was allied in the effort to stamp out the flames of the Revolution. The rights of neutrals were tossed aside. American shipping was ground between two millstones. All was fair in war. British and French cruisers seized our ships for engaging in trade which our own interpretation of international law held to be perfectly legitimate. More than a hundred American vessels were taken by France in 1793 on pretext of trading with England or her colonies.