As soon as the frigate was secured in her new berth, Capt. Bainbridge and the consul were admitted to an audience with the Dey. The reception was any thing but friendly, and the despot, a man of furious passions, soon broke out into expressions of anger, that bade fair to lead to personal violence. The attendants were ready, and it was known that a nod or a word might, at a moment’s notice, cost the Americans their lives. At this fearful instant, Bainbridge, who was determined at every hazard to resist the Dey’s new demand, fortunately bethought him of the Capudan Pacha’s letter of protection, which he carried about him. The letter was produced, and its effect was magical. Bainbridge often spoke of it as even ludicrous, and of being so sudden and marked as to produce glances of surprise among the common soldiers. From a furious tyrant, the sovereign of Algiers was immediately converted into an obedient vassal; his tongue all honey, his face all smiles. He was aware that a disregard of the recommendation of the Capudan Pacha would be punished, as he would visit a similar disregard of one of his own orders; and that there was no choice between respect and deposition. No more was said about the return of the frigate to Constantinople, and every offer of service and every profession of amity were heaped upon the subject of our memoir, who owed his timely deliverance altogether to the friendship of the Turkish dignitary; a friendship obtained through his own frank and generous deportment. The reader will readily understand that dread of the Grand Seignior’s power had produced this sudden change in the deportment of the Dey. The same feeling induced him to order the flag-staff of the French consulate to be cut down the next day; a declaration of war against the country to which the functionary belonged. Exasperated at these humiliations, which were embittered by heavy pecuniary exactions on the part of the Porte, the Dey turned upon the few unfortunate French who happened to be in his power. These, fifty-six in number, consisting of men, women and children, he ordered to be seized and to be deemed slaves. Capt. Bainbridge felt himself sufficiently strong, by means of the Capudan Pacha’s letter, to mediate; and he actually succeeded, after a long discussion, in obtaining a decree by which all the French who could get out of the regency, within the next eight-and-forty hours, might depart. For those who could not remained the doom of slavery, or of ransom at a thousand dollars a head. It was thought that this concession was made under the impression that no means of quitting Algiers could be found by the unfortunate French. No one believed that the George Washington would be devoted to their service, France and America being then at war; a circumstance which probably increased Bainbridge’s influence at Constantinople, as well as at Algiers.