Captain Smith and his men knew who manned those long, low, rakish-looking frigates. But the _Edwin_ carried no cannon, and if they could not out-sail the three ships to the south they must yield peaceably, or be shot down on their deck. Hour after hour they watched, and by sunset they could see the dark, swarthy faces of the leading frigate's crew. Before night the _Edwin_ had been overhauled, boarded, and the Yankee captain and sailors were in irons, prisoners about to be sold into slavery. They had been captured by one of the pirate crews of the Dey of Algiers, and when they were taken ashore by these buccaneers they were stood up in the slave market and sold to Moors, or put to work in the shipyards. Other Yankee crews had met with the same treatment. Now the United States had been paying its tribute regularly to the pirates, but in the spring of 1812 the Dey of Algiers suddenly woke up to the fact that the Americans had been measuring time by the sun while the Moors figured it by the moon, and found that in consequence he had been defrauded of almost a half-year's tribute money, or twenty-seven thousand dollars. He sent an indignant message to Tobias Lear, the American consul at Algiers, threatening all sorts of punishments, and Mr. Lear, taking all things into account, decided it was best to pay the sum claimed by the Dey. The United States sent the extra tribute in the shape of merchandise by the sailing vessel _Alleghany_; but the Dey was now in a very bad temper, and declared that the stores were of poor quality, and ordered the consul to leave at once in the _Alleghany_, as he would have no further dealings with a country that tried to cheat him. At almost the same time he received a present from England of two large ships filled with stores of war,--powder, shot, anchors, and cables. He immediately sent out word to the buccaneers to capture all the American ships they could, and sell the sailors in the slave-markets. The Dey of Algiers appeared to have no fear of the United States. The truth of the matter was that his Highness the Dey, and also the Bey of Tunis, had been spoiled by England, who at this time told them confidently that the United States Navy was about to be wiped from the seas. English merchants assured them that they could treat Captain Smith and other Yankee skippers exactly as they pleased, since Great Britain had declared war on the United States, and the latter country would find herself quite busy at home. Algiers and Tripoli and Tunis, remembering their old grudge against the Americans, assured their English friends that nothing would delight them so much as to rid the Mediterranean of the Stars and Stripes.